But Natural Photography

As a photographer, wearing our business hats on is such a difficult thing. I mean if you are anything like me, you would want to just create timeless and memorable images for your clients and stop right there. To do marketing in order to gain new photoshoot clients or to even create all the paper work around it... like sending a basic preparation guide to them prior to their photoshoot, seems just so daunting. 

What to say in that initial call to your client once they pay up the deposit to book the photoshoot? What written material to send to them? How to make sure that they follow the styling suggestions given by you?

I faced these hurdles in the beginning of my career and in fact even now, the photography students from my workshops often ask me to pass on my preparation guide and other details to them. So, I thought I will jot down all of it here for you. 

At the end of the blog post I will provide you with a link to download the necessary template.

So let's begin....

So, many a time we go out to shoot with children in an outdoor location hoping everything will go well. But when you are doing a photoshoot outdoors, whether and natural light can often play tricks and to top it all, children may not be in the right mood for the session. In such variable conditions we often do not realise but our most promising shot could end up having a colour cast or even some unwanted objects in the image, because we were so focused on getting the emotion right.

Often I hear photographers say they had to end up sending one of their best shots to the recycle bin, because they could not remove the green colour cast on it or even could not remove the unwanted grass covering the face of the subject.

I have done it so many times myself in the past. Before, of course, I chanced upon this simple workflow to fix the colours in my images and also remove unwanted objects.

What I am going to show you in this post is to make your images workable yet again with the...

I wish there was someone to tell me what I should charge for a photoshoot when I started my career 7-years-ago. It was literally my biggest roadblock to actually starting my photography business

Because every time I would come up with a price for a photoshoot, I would be worried that what if I am asking for too much money? How will I get clients? Am I worthy of charing this sum?

And then when I would come down to a very basic price point I would think to myself if it was even worth spending time away from my 7-month-old daughter for that pittance of an amount. 

You know... there really is no correct answer to how much should you charge for your photography services. So, what I am going to do here today is explain my thought process to you for coming up with my price structure.

I started my photography business in London in 2014. Well you can say I am based in Kent (not London exactly.) Here were some of my key thinking points.

1. Scope of Work: I first...

I remember when I started newborn photography 7-years-ago, my biggest nightmare was that when I will hold a baby in my arms, they will start to cry and I will not know how to stay calm myself. 

And I can tell you... this happened several times over in my earliest newborn baby photoshoots. Until, when I realised that babies feel more comfortable when they are all snuggled up and wrapped like they are still in their mother's womb and that's by far the very first trick in the books that you need to learn to ace your newborn baby photoshoot.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you are a new mother and are looking for calming techniques for your babies for those times when you don't really understand why they are crying. For those days when you say "I have fed them. They have pooed. They have slept well. What else?" Those are the days maybe when a little wrapping/ swaddling them up for just five to ten minutes could help calm their baby nerves. 

So here is a quick and...

Are you new to photography and are wondering how you should get your first photoshoot clients? For Free!! I mean who wants to spend on Facebook ads / instagram ads/ google SEM to get clients when you haven't even earned a dime from your business. Correct?!!!

So here's my story and here's how I got my very first clients.

I literally stumbled upon photography by chance. Moved to the UK after marriage; was jobless for 5 years and then my daughter was born. It felt like the only thing that ever gave me joy was to take pictures of her. I would post those pictures on Facebook and friends would comment saying how wonderful my images were. 

Literally that appreciation is all that encouraged me to start my photography business. But when I started, I had not a clue how I could get my very first photography clients. So here's what I did. 

• Friends and Family: Remember that your friends and family members will be your very first clients. So I stopped going to...

This world of family, newborn and maternity photography can be truly daunting. 

7 years ago when I started off I had no one to guide me. And here were some of my biggest worries:

1. What camera gear should I buy?

2. How do I get my first clients?

3. What should I charge?

4. When I book a shoot what kind of preparation should I ask the clients to do?

5. What props to buy?

6. Do I need a photography client contract?

7. Do I need an insurance cover for my photography business?

8. Will I be able to make a proper living out of photography? 

9. Do I need to pay for marketing my photography business?

10. Do I need to learn photography, attend classes or workshops?

Do any of these questions sound like what is exactly resonating in your mind? if yes, then read on.

Let's cover the most important question in this post. 

What camera gear should I buy?

That is one question that haunted me for very long. Camera gear is expensive and it is so difficult to understand all the...

So often I hear photographers say they had to end up sending one of their best shots to the recycle bin, because it came out underexposed.

I have done it so many times myself in the past. I would get so caught up in the moment that I would forget to fix my settings before clicking the shutter and when I would go to editing that image, it would be too dark.

Before, of course, I chanced upon this simple workflow to light up the images again.

What I am going to show you in this post is to make your underexposed images workable yet again with the help of shadows (in Lightroom) and blending modes (in photoshop).

Though, if you do not use Lightroom then you can follow the same steps in Camera Raw in Photoshop as well.