Jane Shauck is a West Hartford, Connecticut based wedding and commercial photographer. I first met Jane at a Pictage User Group meeting that she hosted. We subsequently saw each other at trade shows and conferences like Mystic Seminars or Inspire Photo Seminars (both in or near Connecticut by the way). Before her husband, Mike, joined her business as a second-shooter, I assisted Jane at a wedding. I was always impressed by how organized she was and how very calm she appeared to be during the entire day.

We met again recently at the Inspire Photo Seminars, in Sturbridge, Massachusetts and her presentation literally caused my jaw to drop. Her no-nonsense approach to the photography business was refreshing because I feel way too many people sugar coat the experience of being a professional photographer. Yes, we must be passionate about what we do, but I learned (and am learning the hard way) that having financial control of your business is paramount to being in business and staying in business. Her presentation that winter day warmed me up to the idea and the steps I needed to take to be a lot more strategic about my time, about how I plan my year and especially what kinds of photography I needed to pursue to meet my financial goals.

Her advice is general for a reason – each of us has different goals and we need to carefully assess what it is that we need to be each making to meet or exceed those goals. I welcome you to take a listen to our conversation below. I would urge you to also visit and bookmark Jane's new blog for photographers called Photo Career.

Comment below to give me/us a sense of how important these types of interviews are for you. If you value them, share the link so that others may also learn from it. Thank you!

My name is Mahesh Bhat and I'm a Bangalore based photographer and India is my canvas. I've been photographing the life and times of my country and parts of the sub continent for 25 years. I'm an assignment photographer with Getty Images and represented by Global Photo Associates, NYC. I've worked with Polaris Images and Agence Vu.

In the last 25 years, the city of Bangalore went from where every place was 15 minutes away from each other to every place is at least an hour from each other. It became a megapolis. Over the years I have photographed the city. In last few years I've been commissioned to photograph for publications as varied as The New York Times to Newsweek of Japan – from over 20 countries. Assignments have included coffee addas of Kolkata to a profile of a female suicide bomber from the LTTE for Marie Claire.

I love to work on really long term projects. In 2004, I began UNSUNG, a project about people who have made extraordinary contributions to society against personal odds. I published the book in 2007. It helped raise over Rs.8.5 million for the causes of the heroes featured in the book. The second book will be published this year. The project is ongoing now for eight years. Do visit UNSUNG here.

Since 2007, I've worked on a book project on Bangalore. It's a collection of projections from my conscious and subconscious mind. Through my photographs, I explored how the city had changed in the last two and a half decades. It is also an impassioned plea to support the arts and creativity to drive the true growth of Bangalore.

I self publish my books and this new book – Bangalore/Bengaluru – In First Person Singular is in bookstores since February 2012. An application based on the book will launch soon.

Unlike some of my friends who were born and brought up here, I am not really connected to the city. In a way I am disconnected. The 17 images you see below, in a way represent that disconnection. I'm eager to hear your opinion, your critique.

Do we have a deal?

Think along the lines of how an image can convey content better. How can this work be refined? What does the photographer need to do to elevate her/his game?

Based on your responses, Tiffinbox will invite other photographers to submit their work to also be critiqued by you. So, it is vital that you get involved. Mahesh is, after all, willing to submit his work in this way. The least you can do is to support his work one way or another by commenting below.

Feuza Reis is a wedding photographer, blogger and founder of SEO for Photographer’s Bootcamp “Get Found With Fuse”. This is Feuza's second guest blog post. Read her first one as well. Follow Feuza on Twitter.

In the last few weeks, some photographers in the community have imparted SEO advice that has made me want to cringe and hide. Not only were there some major mistakes taught, some things mentioned were irresponsible and can get photographers in trouble with Google.

Here are 5 SEO myths photographers should consider reviewing:

1) Wanting To Only Rank (meaning to be on the first page of Google) For A City and/or Kind Of Photography Service You Offer

For example: NY Wedding Photographer, Los Angeles Newborn photographer, Chicago kids Photographer and so forth.

You should be including the town you live in and the towns you serve in your SEO efforts but it should not be your main SEO or only SEO goal.

Why?

Number one is, I call this the gladiator arena, everyone is bidding on adwords for this term and paying big bucks for it, this in turn will make it harder to rank. This also indicates a high competition in the organic results realm because business owners don’t understand how people actually search or how Google works.

Google is smart enough to know where the person searching is actually located and it knows how to filter it’s results accordingly. Do brides who get married in NY, Chicago or LA really live in that town? Or, do they live in surrounding towns but want to get married in the big city? I don’t have an exact answer for this but I know you can use Google’s Keyword Tool to discover the search traffic results to find out. What I do know is that Google is wise and knows what it is doing so when I hear photographers say they don’t or should not list surrounding towns, it's comical and sad.

You are missing out on organic traffic because you are underestimating Google’s algorithms. Why fight where everyone is fighting instead of going after alternative keywords, venues, wedding types, surrounding cities, and actually words and phrases clients really use like pictures of engagement photos, kids, children and not words like lifestyle, portrait, and industry related words?

Competitive keywords don’t always mean more traffic so be very careful.

2) Use The Same 2-3 Keyword Phrase On Every Single Blog Post And On All Pages Of Your Website

Although SEO is all about text and yes you should have as much text as possible and even be repetitive, variety matters.

For an engagement photo session gallery page, your page titles and description should be related to engagement photography and variations of that and not have words like Family or San Diego Wedding Photographer.

Yes Google knows that those when two things are relatable like wedding and engagement but making the page as concise and specific as possible will help the search engines navigate better and know where to go within your website. This also matters when choosing what to name your links within your pages in your category dropdowns and sub categories. Don’t use cute names for sessions but use more day to day words clients will know.

The other problem with using the same keyword all over is that it will be considered duplicate content and your pages will compete with each other and you sure don’t want that because the Google bots will leave. Remember its not your over all domain url that gets ranked per say but it is your pages and one page can be much stronger than the other and get better results. So if a search engine comes into your website and all the pages are “Seattle Wedding Photographer” it will get stuck and not know how to navigate and this will cause higher bounce rates so change your page titles, change your descriptions. Being too repetitive is also called keyword stuffing which Google has been frowning upon over and over. It can get you short term results but the long term can get you banned from Google and most of us can’t risk grey hat practices because lets face it we don’t have the bucks to pay some technician to go fix the problem if we magically disappear from google one day.

How to know if you are keyword stuffing? Optimize for humans! Make it sound natural and if it looks odd then take it out. We can optimize for the search engines all day long but at the end of the day it is humans that book us so keep your clients in mind.

3) Clients Don’t Type More Than Two or Three Keyword Phrases In Their Search

(insert jaw drop)

Longer phrase words are called “long tail” and yes there may be less traffic but if you nail a long tail keyword, Google will love you and give you priority with ranking!

As Photographer's SEO put it:

“A great thing about knowing how to choose long tail keywords is that even though the search volume for that particular keyword phrase may be lower you’ll find that there is less competition for it there for you’ll have a much better chance of breaking higher for them very quickly.”

Statics state that 20% of what has been searched in Google in the last 90 days has NEVER which indicates we humans have a lot to say and alot has not been said yet. SEO MOZ’s long term graph shows:

“It's wonderful to deal with keywords that have 5,000 searches a day, or even 500 searches a day, but in reality, these “popular” search terms actually make up less than 30% of the searches performed on the web. The remaining 70% lie in what's called the “long tail” of search. The long tail contains hundreds of millions of unique searches that might be conducted a few times in any given day, but, when taken together, they comprise the majority of the world's demand for information through search engines.”

Another point I want to state in regards to using long tail phrases is that for the most types of photography services offered, it is more women than men doing the actual search: think of brides, moms, secretaries, teens etc. Of course men search too. In fact, I have a lot of grooms calling me but I believe men do more the paying and showing up and women do more the searching online. So if it's women mostly searching for my service (of course this is my opinion and there are many exceptions) and women speak on average 10,000 words a day vs men who generally speak 3,000 words a day, do you really think women while searching will want to save on vocabulary? Is is true that we live in a fast paced society and people can save some words because they are in a rush but the words saved based on what you see on Google keyword tool result are prepositions. When searching for something new and an unfamiliar topic like hiring a photographer for an event, wedding, portrait session, we will use more words to describe what we are looking for because for most of our clients this is something new to them completely.

I had to recently search about pulling teeth since my eight year son’s teeth are growing in before falling out and they were very loose too. Do you think I searched 2 word phrases like tooth pulling or a full sentence? I actually searched something like: “how do you when to pull a child’s tooth? How to safely pull a tooth? Is it safe to pull your child’s teeth and so forth?”

Brides, moms and people for the most part when searching online for a topic they are not used to will elaborate using their words. Things like “where to find? what is? who is the best?,” and so forth.

So, don’t ignore longer keyword phrases especially when blogging.

4) Creating Dummy Pages

Cringe and cringe. How could I call creating content pages for my clients, the ones who book me, pay for my services dummy pages? Or worse, create fake urls to link back to my website? This can be done if you are an expert but you have to know what you are doing so just be aware of possible consequences in doing so.

So you ask: “Feuza, you have never purchased an url with keywords?” Of course I have and will in a heartbeat if a keyword is available. But I am a huge fan of creating content pages on your actual website and even blog because it can be huge for SEO. Perhaps do a redirect or forward the URL once but not a dozen times and create fake websites. And please don’t purchase any backlinks on fiverr!

At the end of the day, I don’t care if you are getting business from referrals only, from Facebook only or from online only the number one tip to book new clients is BE A RESOURCE. One of the things I teach for blogging is think of every customer service question you have ever had and do a blog post to answer it for present clients and future clients.

When you help someone find a place to buy something, to photograph at a venue, they will remember you and be your fan. That is the power of social media sometimes. You will get your return-on-investment, or ROI, later and it can be hard to tell the true source of that booking. But by providing valuable information to your end user, you will see results.

Be genuine about your content pages and optimize for humans especially since Google has been coming down on these kinds of methods more and more. You should try and have variety in content you do provide. You can also break down your frequently asked questions and have a page for each question. However, remember not to write the exact same thing on blog content page that you do on your website content page because it can be viewed as duplicate content.

5) “I Can’t Be In Google Places Because I Work From Home”

Some of you don’t want strangers to have your home address. I get that. But, as service providers many of us do work from home and some of our work, like boudoir photography, is more of a private service.

While you do indeed need to provide your real address, you can mask the address in your Google Places listing by providing many cities you do serve. Yelp does something similar.

As per Google’s guidelines:

“Address (required): The address should look exactly the way you'd write it on a standard mailing envelope. If you are a service-area business, you'll be able to hide your address in a few steps. We recommend listing suite numbers in Address Line 2.”

To view the rest of the guidelines visit HERE!

So don’t hesitate in getting your Google listings as local SEO gets more and more powerful. Another good tip is to Google yourself under Google Maps to see what comes up and to see if you are listed or Google has wrong information about your business.

As you can see my listing does not have my actual address but just the town I live in:

In summary it is up to each business to do due diligence and be compliant. Some may disagree with my views on some things but there are some facts that can not be ignored. I suggest white hat practices especially if you don’t know what you are doing and don’t have an SEO support team to get found!

Jim Mortram is a documentary photographer. That's perhaps the easiest way to describe him. The images on his website – Small Town Inertia – gripped me like a vice for their gritty portrayal of lives lived in rural England. I was surprised by how quickly I cared for those people Mortram photographed. There is compassion and clarity in Mortram's approach and it is a refreshing change from the synthetic and saccharine images we are all subjected to every day. Mortram has published a limited edition book called “Electric Tears & All Their Portent” – limited and sold out! Please follow Jim Mortram on Twitter.

1) Who are you and how did you get your start in documentary photography?

About six years ago I'd become quite insular. Working as a caregiver for my Mother in my family home; it's an intense situation, quite highly stressed, with odd hours. Before you're even aware of it, the ties you once had – friends and the connection to the outside word – erode. It's a subtle shift, and by the time I noticed, it was too late to cease that evolution. I was loaned a camera by a friend and immediately knew I had to document people. The challenge was where and how. I live in a very rural, low-population part of East Anglia, UK; I was tied to my duties as a caregiver. Long periods away from home to shoot were out of the question due to both responsibilities and financially. I hated the situation. I wanted to escape, wanted an escape for everyone involved … I wanted to click my fingers and make my Mother well, Father freed of the pain of seeing his wife in pain everyday but there was no way that was going to happen. After having this effect me profoundly it was then a long road of rebuilding everything.

One relationship really helped pull me out of my shell and pull my photography into focus. It was because of a person close to me, 2 doors from the family home, in fact. I'd known W.H. since I was a child. In his late 80's, I would visit often to hear his stories. Gradually I began to make portraits. He encouraged me greatly. The whole process was very organic and instinctive. He became ill with cancer, and I ended up being one of the last people to talk with him – certainly the last to photograph him. This experience really forged the understanding of why I had to document local people. I began to understand that everyone has a story; that they are all important. It also made me re-appraise my location and my relationship to it. I finally harmonized with where I lived. Where I had felt suffocated suddenly transformed into a place that was of the highest importance : Dereham, one of those small forgotten towns, with a distinct strata of the population that have also been forgotten.

I still work at home, caring for my Mother, that's never changed, I don't shoot for money, I fit shoots in and around duties etc. It's a big balancing act but like water finds it's way from mountains to sea, you find a way!

2) Do you have a sense of the documentary tradition – as in, have you studied it, or did this all come about naturally for you?

I'm an autodidact really, I studied fine art painting before being forced to quit early in my degree to return home to be a Carer. Regarding photography or documentaries I've always been aware of it and when I turned to it, it was a very natural extension of myself.

3) Why is it so important for you to document the lives in your own community?

I think this has been answered through the other Q&A's : )

4) How do you cope with the emotional baggage that usually comes with working in this genre of photography?

I could not see myself working in any other way than long form. Without the time invested, on both sides of the lens, I think I would document in a much shallower, ephemeral way, so taking months, years to constantly document and share it gives the series context, there is a evolution within the lives, to tell any story you have to do more than read chapter one you have to read from the front to the back cover. That's all far more important to me than how it might touch ‘me' emotionally, even if it and often is quite really stressful or saddening and you know if it did not affect me, touch me … I'd really worry.

5) How do you go about choosing people to photograph? How do you get access into their lives? Why are they so eager to tell their story to you?

I just ask … or sometimes I'll get a call from someone or someone who knows someone and wants to be involved. I always treat people, as I myself like to be treated. You can never feign nor fake interest in a person. I’ve never singled out people with an eye that they might make a good story for example; it’s a very organic evolvement. People are very giving and that humbles me greatly, my greatest debt is always to the person the other side of the lens. It’s such a great honor to be accepted and brought into another person’s life and given the access to document it. I’m sure I could work in a faster fashion but for me long form documentary is where my heart is. Often I’ll visit people and not even take an image, just talk and more importantly listen, and I listen more than I shoot. I have an equation that I always bear in mind talk more than you shoot and listen more than you talk and it serves me well. I break shoots up into periods of straight documentary and periods to shoot portraits, make interviews and shoot video.

Initially, for the people I work with it’s a way to have an opportunity, ANY opportunity to share their experiences and to be heard. It’s, I feel, a really empowering step for someone to make the decision to get involved, stay involved. It’s a way for many people to take a positive step, to maybe take some control where there might be a huge absence of any control in their lives. It’s also a mirror for many people, it might be the first time that they have paused for thought as every day is just surviving, enduring and when you live just to make it through one day to the next it’s often hard to distance yourself from that experience and take a moment for reflection.

6) Typically, how long do you spend photographing someone? When do you know you are “done” telling their story?

I'll shoot a person, their story forever, I don't think you can ever be ‘done'.

7) Your images are almost always black & white. Was that by design or were you limited to black & white film? Do you shoot in color?

I get asked this a lot and there's a simple and fast answer and also one I might expound upon. When I started shooting I was using borrowed equipment, digital equipment, cameras, lenses and the monitor I had was broken, the colours were way off and no way to calibrate etc. so I turned the colour off and worked in mono. Mono suited me as I related to it having watched my Father hand develop images in the kitchen or the bathroom when I was young. My formative years were spent experiencing images in mono, newspapers, books from the library, most were featuring mono so that language was imprinted within me I think, the shapes within mono, the way composition is highlighted. I've never found a B&W image to be more abstract than a colour and I'm aware of all the arguments VS … likewise film VS digital … truth be told, from day one of shooting I'd planned to shoot colour (Film, medium format) portraits in tandem with the mono DSLR it was just a fact that I was not able to fund it immediately so I've had to wait a few years.

8) You've used social media quite effectively to spread your message. Which platform do you feel best helps you do that?

Twitter is amazing. On first glimpse it's easy to see it as quite an ephemeral platform, fast, impersonal but if you apply patience and dedication the friendships and relationships that have evolved from Twitter have been so rewarding, I've met and become firm friends with so many incredible people via Twitter. I've never seen the Internet as ‘other' to our non on-line lives, just different. It's like photography (or anything else) you'll get back what you put in and it's only going to be as honest as your own intent.

9) I can see how one could feel a sense of satisfaction narrating the lives of your fellow neighbors. But, what do your subjects receive in return for their time?

I've never felt satisfied, I feel driven, obliged, motivated to make photographs and share stories the way I do. It's all about addressing an imbalance, I find everyone around me is in a situation where they are subjected to prejudice or stereotyping, especially now via mainstream media and our current government. I have no satisfaction depicting lives, real lives lived that are sometimes filled with suffering, struggle … of course some stories feature great happiness, great strengths and endurances. As for the people I document, I never use the term or perceive anyone as a subject, I'd really have to ask them … were I to assume, I'd think as for me, it's good to have someone to talk to, share with, someone to listen and often the people I'm working with know they are never heard, never noticed and want to be, want an opportunity to have their life experienced rather than have it written about in text or policy by some far away pen that's no experience of their situation.

10) You were accepted into Aletheia, the documentary photography and film collective. How has that helped you personally and professionally?

It's just amazing to be included with a group of such amazing documentary makers and afforded the opportunity to share work as part of a collective and a collective that shares a very similar world view.

11) What are your plans for Small Town Inertia? Have you been approached to create a book or a country-wide exhibit?

I just keep shooting and what comes along, comes along. If nothing ever happened I'd still do everything exactly the same.

12) You came at this from a very personal angle – your mom suffers from epilepsy. Is having a personal stake important in creating images and pursuing personal projects?

Having emotions and having empathy is important. I'm not alone in experiencing pain or struggle in life, in witnessing it. I'm not alone in allowing the sum of ones life to inform, to be fuel for ideas, to inform ethical or moral views, to be the compass, direction and engine.

I'm a big believer in the now, right now, to be alive in the now you can't ignore the situations around you. Here in the UK right now … it's a hugely volatile time, divisive … real fractures are appearing in society … and I feel compelled as you either to choose to ignore it and the lives situations around you or you feel it, experience it and react.

Documenting, to document “Something, such as a recording or a photograph, that can be used to furnish evidence or information,” is so important, important to the lives lived and important lest they now be forgotten.

Would you like to see more interviews such as this on Tiffinbox? Can you recommend other documentary photographers who are pursuing personal projects? Please do so in the comments section below. Your participation is crucial!

It's spring and you want to post new images to your website and create a photography portfolio your clients are going to love. But you don't know how to go about it. Either you are just starting out in the business or you have been in the photography industry for a while. Either way, your portfolio needs a kickstart. What's your next step?

Being flummoxed is natural. So, with me, deep breath in. Deep breath out. You still with me? I'll cut to the chase.

PhotoShelter, again, has published a guide that is worth checking out. It's called “Creating A Successful Photography Portfolio.”

The guide includes:

– 11 secrets to creating a successful photography portfolio website
– Tips to set the right tone and attract dream clients
– Ideas for showcasing personal projects to help win jobs
– 5 portfolio review myths debunked

Those who download the free guide will also automatically be entered to win a free Website Image Edit with top consultant Amanda Sosa Stone. Details about this special opportunity on the PhotoShelter blog.

The guide is free, useful and timely, especially if you are starting to refresh your websites a new photography portfolio. I recommend you download it now!

Angela Pointon is an inspirationalist and advocate for professional photographers. She is a monthly columnist for Professional Photographer mag and offers Photo Business Renovations to photographers everywhere. Her brief e-book, “The Art Of A Photo Business: what every photographer wished they knew before starting their photography business” is available for download in all digital formats. Follow Angela on Twitter or Facebook.

DesignAglow recently posted a question to the photography community on Facebook:

“What is something you still want to learn how to do?”

The overwhelming majority of responders who said “how to juggle life and a photo business” snuffed out the occasional “learn Photoshop techniques” or “how to pose newborns”.

I firmly believe that if you're talking about struggling to juggle, there is something concretely wrong with your business. It might be something huge, or it might be something small. I suppose it all has to do with the severity of the needing-to-juggle feeling.

So I figured I'd put together a few tips. They're just plain old things that have helped me. Hopefully you'll find them extremely simple and adoptable.

1. Figure out your desired lifestyle, first.

I follow a ton of entrepreneurial business leaders, and I feel bad about not being able to credit the single person who gave me this advice early on.

Because the advice was awesome and impacted the decisions I make greatly.

What they said was, “figure out the lifestyle you want, first. Then build the business to match it.”

As I was personally contemplating my own business, I was ever so grateful to have had the advantage of learning this right from the beginning.

For me, my weekends were sacred. They were focused on family, and, since both my husband and I work, it's the only time that we can all be together. Work, therefore, is off limits on the weekend. I could not build a business that required working on the weekend, or it would break a fundamental lifestyle rule for us.

I also wanted one day per week where I could focus on something mandatory for my family or me. I have one day set aside for cleaning, organizing, doctor's appointments, or whatever else is required to keep life moving, in general. This day is reserved for these types of activities so I don't feel guilty for doing them when I “should” be working.

2. Crunch the numbers and build a budget.

Jumping into a business headfirst is awesome, and in some cases, really exciting. However, not knowing how much you need to make and how the business will impact your ability to juggle it all is a huge mistake.

As I started crunching numbers for my business, my first pass included a plan for only working two days per week. That first pass, however, proved to not make me enough money. I either had a pricing problem, a frequency of work problem, or both. I eventually struck a balance and figured out how much money I had to make per day I worked.

This exercise greatly assisted me in a few ways:

a) I could see (quickly) how pricing myself too low was going to kill me. I was just going to have to work too much to make what I needed to make.

b) I could play around with working 2 days vs. 3 days vs. 4 days per week, and see what lifestyle sacrifices would gain me, financially.

c) I knew exactly why I couldn't make less than my final scenario illustrated. It made turning down business that was priced at a lower rate way easier.

3. Plan to occasionally turn it all off.

I highly value driving, reading, shooting and watching videos. More times than not, when I allow myself pockets of time to do these things, grand business ideas or ideas for books I can write myself, come to be.

Without pre-planning time to think, shoot for no reason, read or just plain think, I'd never get to do those things and my business would ultimately suffer from a lack of creativity.

There is a misnomer that if you're so busy juggling, you have no time for time off.

Wrong.

Constantly juggling is going to get you nowhere. Taking time off (albeit carefully planned time off) can take you to amazing places with your business.

4. Know what works, what doesn't, and continuously refine.

Nothing is more meaningless and wasteful than doing things that have little impact on the greater good of your business. Whether it's pushing a service that isn't profitable, a marketing exercise with a low return, or being a member of a group you don't gain anything from.

If there is something in your business that isn't getting you to your goals, stop it or change it. Quickly.

Don't be shy or scared to hurt someone's feelings, either. If it isn't working, be upfront and take the time to explain why. As fellow business people, we should all be able to understand this.

5. Let go and know what to outsource.

You cannot do it all.

Yes, we're all perfectionists. Yes, no one edits like we do. Yes, no one handles client calls like we do.

But it's possible to train people, and you might be surprised. If you pick the right person to outsource to or take the time to hire the right person, they might actually do it better.

What things have you found or done in your business to help you juggle it all?

I suspect, a tragedy that took place a little over three months ago, far from where you live is a distant memory. I happen to live an hour from Newtown, Connecticut, where on December 14, a deranged killer murdered 20 children and six adults. So, that memory is fresh and very raw.

To say that this tragedy shook the surrounding communities would be a gross understatement. As my wife and I struggled to make sense of it all, we made sure to hug our kids a little tighter, spend more time with them and simply be more present for each other. That hasn't changed, but I wanted to do something more to remember those innocent souls.

A few days before this disaster, as I was driving around the New Britain (a town near Hartford, Connecticut) one foggy morning, I came upon Batterson Park Pond. The fog was so dense that I couldn't see past 30 or 40 feet. As I got out of the car with my camera, I could hear the flutter of birds taking off. I couldn't actually see them. And then everything went quiet, except for sound my feet were making as I walked over the wet grass. Since I couldn't see anything anyway, I closed my eyes for a few months and took a few deep breaths in. Slowing down felt good. I had been running from one assignment to another and things were starting to blur.

I opened my eyes again and I saw this image you see below.

I made four or six frames and felt in my gut that I had captured something I would go back to some day in the future. These images were made deliberately because I truly felt the urge to create them.

The sounds I heard but birds and animals I didn't see left an indelible mark on me. There was solitude and peace amidst the chaos of life. After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, I couldn't help but think of my time at the pond and the images I created there. I pulled them into Lightroom and as the images popped up, I think I surprised myself a bit by choking up. As I said, emotions here are still running high.

As fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and grandparents we have to find a way to pull together and find that peace amongst us. Somehow. I am not sure the passing of time will make things any easier for the parents of those 20 babies. That line people use often is trite and rather ambiguous at best. It leaves us nothing to hold on to, which is what I think as a parent I would want to do.

As a photographer, I'll continue to make quiet images like the one you see above. That may be the way I survive through this. It's not so much to keep my mind off of it but to bring more presence into what I am doing any way. It's not about “moving on” but carrying on with more purpose. Does that make sense?

When Ann Curry, the news correspondent, urged us to ask ourselves – “what can I do?” – and proposed 26 act of kindness, I wondered if I could share the image as a large print with 26 individuals. I first proposed the idea to my neighbor Carmine Masi, who didn't flinch even for a second before diving for his check book and making a donation.

These prints aren't for sale in the traditional way they would be available on one of my sites. No, what I am asking people to do is to make a donation of $100 or more to the Sandy Hook School Support Fund, c/o Newtown Savings Bank, 39 Main St., Newtown, Conn. 06470. Once you make that donation, simply email me your receipt and include your full name and shipping address so that I can send you the print. Email me with your receipt and contact information here – seshu {at} tiffinbox.org. Please use the subject line – “Sandy Hook Elementary School Fund.”

A word about the print and the printing: I approached Caitlin & Jeffrey Lazo, who own the award-winning custom print lab ProDPI, at the annual Mystic Seminars. They readily agreed to sponsor this initiative and print and mount this image as a 16″x20″ print. I am truly grateful to them and want to recognize how incredibly generous they are towards photographers. By the way, if you haven't guessed yet, ProDPI is my preferred lab for all of my client and personal prints.

Please note that no one is attempting to make any money on this gesture. I have simply supplied ProDPI one of my images, which they have agreed to print free of charge. This image will never be printed again as a 16×20, and in fact may never be offered again. Right now, I am just focused on delivering 26 prints to 26 homes to remember the 26 people we lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

If you are interested in displaying this image on your wall, now is the time to make that commitment to the Sandy Hook School Support Fund. Thank you for being you!

Bangladesh. For those of us in the west, it's a land that is far off. Over there, mostly to be forgotten and only reminded when the traditional media is quick to paint a picture of its poverty, its political strife, its annual flooding and perhaps its religious conflicts. It's all negative.

I am calling their bluff.

While I am not from Bangladesh, I've been there once. My memory is similar to Mikey Leung‘s – that the country is a vibrant place, that people are hospitable and welcoming and that there are many more things that are positive about Bangladesh than there are negative.

Yes, it took a visit to dispel the myths that I had constructed in my head. While not everyone can travel to Bangladesh (I think they should), Mikey Leung, in cooperation with Drik has produced a book, a photo essay of Bangladesh that is wholly positive. It's a called “Positive Light.”

Here is Drik's founder Shahidul Alam talking about the project:

This post is an appeal to you my readers. I am not pitching you anything. I hope this book makes you think differently about Bangladesh.

Support the production of this book here. They are looking to raise $10,000 in the next 5 days and I know they will do it. Their ultimate goal is to raise $20,000 so that the book is distributed far and wide.

Will you consider making a difference in the way a country and its people are perceived?

Think about it for a second – why do you photograph? For me, it is a way of discovering people, emotions, places and culture. Your “why” may be similar or different, but I'm sure you'll find “Positive Light” a welcome inspiration of all that is possible.

Join me!

It's almost April and taxes are due. Trust me, I am feeling your pain. Well, almost. This year, for my new portrait business, I chose to work with a bookkeeper and an account. You see, numbers and I are like oil and water. We rarely mix, so outsourcing something I didn't like to do simply made sense.

While I fought with myself and said I could take care of tracking my mileage, reconciling my books and itemizing my receipts, letting go really felt liberating. I could now return my focus back on making images.

But if you are just starting out, or you have attempted to keep your own accounting straight and you are disciplined, I have something for you that might quickly ease your frustration.

Most of us have to keep accounts somehow. Some resort to Excel spreadsheets and some use online or offline software programs. If the word: “QuickBooks” makes you shudder in fear, consider QuickBooks For Photographers, a series of step-by-step video tutorials that will walk you through the program, setting you up and bringing you peace of mind.

Jenny and Josh Solar are the brains behind this and the other programs I am going to tell you about today. Not only were they super helpful through the video series, they also resolved the questions I had after I had watched the program. The reason I am recommending this and their other programs is because they are well organized and useful from the get go. While I had off-loaded my QuickBooks work to my bookkeeper, I still went back to my desktop program to see if I could follow along and set things up as I was instructed. It was super easy and the fact that I could see the results right away made it all the more useful to me.

QuickBooks For Photographers is available for both Macintosh and Windows users. So, rest easy people!

Mastering Tax Time E-Book for Photographers is also something I would recommend to you, so that you can be prepared for next year's taxes. Right now Mastering Tax Time E-Book for Photographers is on sale for $19.00, saving you $10 right off the bat. If you are a pack-rat like me, hoarding receipts for years (but not being able to track them), you will get much relief in hearing how the Solars keep track of everything and can easily find all those pesky bits of paper when you absolutely must (that is, during tax time).

“This guide is designed to help you get organized and stay organized with all things tax related. It covers everything from bookkeeping to mileage, home office deductions to equipment lists and more!”

Lastly, there would be no numbers to plug in if you didn't have any sales, right? Well, you may have a ton of expenses, but it's always nice to run a business in the black, not red.

The Solars have a product called In-Person Sales. If you have been posting your images to an online gallery and haven't seen an uptick in sales, this 29-page guide book is for you. Given Jenny and Josh's long experience as wedding and family portrait photographers, I trust what they have to teach me about this topic. In fact, In-Person Sales is one of the books I am consulting right now as I structure my portrait business in Connecticut.

Here's the deal: If you Solar power your business and buy all three products mentioned above, I'll give three (3) of you 1/2 hour of my time ($150 value each) via a Skype video call. We can talk about your business. We can talk about specific photography issues you are encountering. We can talk about how you are using social media. I am not promising you that I know everything, so if you stump me, I'll either figure it out and let you know or will direct you to someone who does. So, come back here and tell me you bought QuickBooks For Photographers, Mastering Tax Time and In-Person Sales. I'll confirm with the Solars and then I'll pick three names out of the hat. Deal?

My photography business is Solar powered. Is yours?