Interviews Archives | Page 3 of 18 | Views, Reviews & Interviews For Savvy Photographers

Crafting An “Irresistible You” To Communicate Your Personality

November 1, 2016 by Seshu | Editor & Publisher Leave a Comment

Jenika McDavitt of Psychology for Photographers fame just announced a new resource today called Irresistible You.

Have you bought Irresistible Words or Irresistible Website from her?

If you have bought one or the other, or both, then you know how useful her tips are, right? If you haven't, please do click the links above to find out more.

Why should you buy Irresistible You?

Look, just like you, I struggle to write about myself online. The dreaded blinking cursor is a recurring nightmare. I bet some of you feel the same way.

So this course will teach you how to write about yourself in business! You get to naturally communicate your personality and connect with clients without feeling like you're boring or bragging.

Do you need help coming up with work for your website, blog or even social media posts – that sound like YOU wrote them instead of a machine?

You get that and more with Irresistible You.

The Interview With Jenika

To find out even more about this new course, I sat down to chat with Jenika a few days back. Check our our short discussion:

Finding It Hard To Stand Out?

In a crowded marketplace of amateur and professional photographers, how are you standing out? What are you doing to establish yourself as a brand? How are you showing up on the world's stage?

Here's my advice for you if you are just starting out. Before you even begin considering a website for your photography business, figure out what your client communication needs to be and how it needs to sound. I highly recommend Jenika's Irresistible Words program, but what would make your approach stronger is if you worked on Irresistible You first.

Course Contents

What do you receive when you buy Irresistible You?

You will receive a PDF and class material that's divided into four weeks. Jenika will also be sending out email reminders to keep you motivate, plus bonus interviews with the likes of Christine Tremoulet, Brooke Snow, Nick McArthur, and other experts.

Class Contents:

– What clients actually want to hear about you
– Five psychological influences that make personal sharing a smart business strategy
– Talk about yourself without feeling self-absorbed or boastful
– How to pick stories to share that draw people in
– The “it girl” secrets to dominating online (that even an introvert can steal)
– How to sound like yourself when you write
– The never-ending blog content generator – a strategy for always having something new to say
– How to write an About page that you love

Specific pain points that this class debunks and solves:

“I don't know how to show clients who I am.”?
“I don't know what people want to hear!”?
“My life is just not that interesting.”?
“I am an introvert / private person and I don't want to share that much.”?
“Whenever I go to write about myself, it comes out sounding dumb.”?
“I don't know how to sound like me.”
?”How do I avoid sounding unprofessional?”?
“I sound like every other photographer!”

Irresistible You is being offered at a special introductory offer (only $119) through November 10th. After that date the price jumps to its regular price of $219.

So, what are you going to do now? Get lost in a sea of sameness or stand out and be counted? The choice is yours. If you don't know how to go about it, that's where Irresistible You comes into play. Check out Jenika's site.

I know and trust you will make the right decision.

As A Photographer Do You Transform People’s Lives?

September 19, 2016 by Seshu | Editor & Publisher 3 Comments

Transform: it's a single word, with deep implications.

Read on if you want to make a difference, and subsequently have that change you for the better and potentially, richer.

“Do you transform people's lives through your photography business?” When I first heard Steve Saporito pose the question, I didn't know what he was talking about. I admit, it felt a little woo-woo. After a week-long workshop with him, the light bulbs started going on.

I realized that most photographers wait to discover their clients at the photo session or at the wedding. In fact, I confess doing just that.

I would excitedly send out a questionnaire the second someone came knocking on my website for a family portrait session or wedding. As soon as I had hit “send”, I figured my job was done and all I needed to do was to just wait for their responses.

All I got back in return were … crickets. Frankly, the replies came but often only minutes before a session or not fully completed. It left me feeling helpless and slightly frustrated because I did not know my clients at all. We were completely out of sync from the get-go. Can you imagine the quality of their photographs? They were emotionally flat, almost absent. And that was my doing, not theirs.

I foolishly figured my branding, website and messaging had to change. Or, was it my portfolio? Or, did I have to up my social media game?

No, in all honestly, none of that mattered more than the experience I was providing my clients. And it was poor. Something had to give and that's when I approached Steve Saporito at his New Haven, Connecticut workshop. My photography business was in a critical condition. I had to make changes and fast.

Thanks to Steve, I experienced a mind-shift. What would happen, I wondered, if I took the time to get to know my clients in a meaningful way that helped them be seen, heard and loved by the people in their lives right now? Ahead of their session, our clients would have an opportunity to reconnect with their family in a way that makes the entire process of being photographed together a joyous event. That's where and when the transformation takes place. And the transformation isn't limited to just your clients. Indeed, you as their photographer experience it as well.

Ultimately, clients reward you for giving them this beautiful experience before their session and for the artwork that become a permanent anchor to their heightened emotions. The

Really, there is a lot more to this than a blog post can cover. If you get a chance to listen to Steve speak (podcasts or at conferences), don't miss out. A couple of weeks after attending his workshops again (yes, again) in New Jersey, I invited Steve to a Skype call that I figured wouldn't last more than 10 or 15 minutes. But here we are chatting about all of this for about 45 minutes. It's a good long listen, but I assure totally worth your time:

As a business coach out of Melbourne, Australia, Steve Saporito teaches photographers through his Empower & Effortless Premières workshops and education platform called Intuition To Succeed.

I want to thank my friends Jasen Arias and Mike Allebach for persuading me to attend Steve's workshop in New Jersey. Like a lot of you, I hummed and hawed about going. I conjured up all kinds of excuses. In the end though, my goal to know how to be fully present for my portrait clients, trumped all attempts to bow out.

Without hyperbole, let me tell you that Steve's workshops ARE the best business workshops I've ever attended. And, I will go back for more in the future.

If you are spinning your wheels and have no clue how to resuscitate your photography business, ping me and I'll let you know more about my experience at the Empower & Effortless Premières workshops. The next one in North America is going to be in Toronto, Canada, from October 5th through October 11th.

To quote Jasen and Mike, “Just put it on the credit card and go dude. You'll pay it off in no time.” So true!

For One Street Photographer It’s A Disciplined Practice

August 15, 2016 by Seshu Leave a Comment

Vineet Vohra is a street photographer based in New Delhi. In 2015, he was among “top 20 most influential street photographers“.

Born in Delhi, India Vineet Vohra did a master’s in fine arts from the prestigious College of Arts. He is a self-taught photographer, and street photography is a passion that he live like a discipline. Although he started shooting as a wild life photographer for two years, Vineet switched on to street in 2001 and instantly became his passion and first nature.

In 2011, Vohra formed APF (artphotofeature.com) along with brother, Rohit Vohra, who is also a street photographer, to provide a platform for emerging photographers, artists and designers to showcase their works.

I spoke with Vineet a few weeks back because I was intrigued by his approach and his disciplined practice of street photography (scroll down below to see some of his work).

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Street Photographer's Canvas

Here's a small sample of Vineet Vohra's street photography work:

Want To Learn To Be A Street Photographer?

For the longest time I mistakenly felt workshops in street photography were a waste of time. I figured all you needed was a small quiet camera, probably with a 28mm lens and a good pair of shoes. There is definitely more to just aimlessly roaming the streets looking for photographs.

As you heard above, Vineet, has a ritual that he follows and if he is in town, he doesn't skip it or comes up with excuses. Then there are things like being acutely aware of light. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, Vineet will teach you about how to blend in and approach strangers without freaking out!

There are two opportunities coming up where you can learn from Vineet Vohra:

August 19-21, Singapore

September 23-25, New York City

Catching Up With Vineet

Vineet's work can also be seen on 500px. Along with his brother, Rohit Vohra (also an amazing street photographer), Vineet started Art Photo Feature magazine. Lastly, you can find Vineet's work as a part of The Street Collective.

Srinivas Rao Will Teach You To Be Better Than Best, He’ll Make You Unmistakable

July 29, 2016 by Seshu | Editor & Publisher Leave a Comment

The Unmistakable Creative podcast is one of the best. Why? The guest, the topics, the range of questions, the depth of the conversation, the interviewer.

Yes, all of those make it near impossible to stop listening and learning.

Srinivas, or Srini, Rao is the founder of Unmistakable Media and it's essentially his show. I've followed his online experiments and when he started the podcast, I immediately subscribed to it.

Now, after nearly 600 episodes, Srini is launching his fourth book, Unmistakable: Why Only Is Better Than Best. The book launches on August 2nd and there is still time to snag the cool bonuses he has to offer.

I sat down for a quick chat with Srini about the book, about his website and mission for creative entrepreneurs like yourself. Give the interview a listen:

Look, you are a photographer (I am going to assume you are, if you are reading articles on Tiffinbox). You chose an unconventional path to pursue. Kudos to you. As Srini will probably concur, having made that choice, finding success isn't guaranteed.

True success is playing by your own rules, creating work that no one can replicate. Don’t be the best, be the only.

Do you want to stand out in your business niche? If you are reading this, I am going to safely assume that you want to be unmistakable too. But being the best isn't the only way to stand out. In fact, Srini argues that being the ONLY one people think of in whatever space you want to reign supreme is the way to go. How do you do that? What are the steps to becoming “the only”? Well, you and I are about to find out in his new book.

So, buy Srini's book, Unmistakable: Why Only Is Better Than Best now. If Srini's podcast is any indication, I am will to bet the book is going to be super special too. Yes, I have ordered my copy!

5 Big Reasons Using JPEGmini Pro Is A No-Brainer For You

July 26, 2016 by Seshu | Editor & Publisher 2 Comments

JPEGmini Pro To The Rescue

There are five splendid reasons to use JPEGmini Pro. Before we get into those, though, I wanted to introduce you to Mitch Schneider, Director of Marketing for the slick and useful application.

Mitch and I ran into each other at the Photo Plus Expo in New York City. It's an annual event, and the trade show floor is packed with vendors and photographers from all over the world.

Having heard of JPEGmini Pro from a couple of photographer friends, I was intrigued to find out more. So, I stood a the JPEGmini booth and watched Mitch and his colleague patiently describe their software and demonstrate how quickly it minimized file sizes, and also how efficiently it did it without any perceptible loss of the quality of the final images.

My ears perked up as Mitch spoke because for years Photoshop had a “save as web” option and when Adobe released Photoshop CC, that option just disappeared. I missed that because creating web versions of my 20mb files was a quick two-step process. Now with it gone, it was just too laborious – I had to set the resolution and then manually open, crop and then save the images. One by one. Blech! Perhaps I was doing it all wrong. In any case, it was eating away at my productivity.

As a hopeful alternative, I even looked at Dr. Russell Brown's scripts, panels and actions, but for whatever reason, I simply couldn't get those to work on my system. I desperately needed a way to scale down the photographs quickly and optimize them for the web.

When I first heard about JPEGmini and the JPEGmini Pro option, I was genuinely hopeful that it would speed up my workflow. And it has. Remarkably so, with a few additional benefits that I didn't expect!

The Interview

A few weeks back, Mitch agreed to be interviewed online to chat about JPEGmini and JPEGmini Pro. He was just as excited as I was with the new Photoshop extension that allows photographers to export out their photographs directly from Photoshop CC.

My “save for web” option was essentially back!

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A Personal Example

A few months back, I upgraded to a Nikon D750. The RAW file sizes are humongous. Try 27.5 megabytes on for size! The high resolution JPEG's are approximately 14 megabytes.

Imagine if you had to upload 500 or 800 of those to ShootProof? [Affiliate Link] It would take you forever. And frankly, juggling family and professional life, who has time to baby those files like that?

So, that's why I lean on JPEGmini Pro now. If I have a batch of five or more photographs to process, they are enhanced in Photoshop and saved to a special folder. I simply drag and drop the files into JPEGmini Pro and it does its magic.

It can either save over the original files (I recommend making a copy of your files just for safety's sake) or you can have those images sent to a new folder, directing the application to constrict the photograph's width or height in the process.

Quality & Quantity

When a couple I photographed in Connecticut ordered a 20″x30″ canvas print for their home in North Carolina, I attempted to send a 14 megabyte file to Pixel2Canvas. Their online system, however, only accepts files that are 10 megabytes in size or smaller. JPEGmini Pro to the rescue!

I dropped my file into the application and it generated a 7.5 megabyte file – essentially a 47% reduction in file size – for production. And yes, I couldn't see any loss of quality and the client was thrilled with the final results.

Still not convinced? I ran into this video that shows a graphic artist who is printing large photographs for a photographer client of his. Clearly the graphic artist is stumped by how indistinguishable the regular JPEG file and the JPEGmini files are!

5 Reasons To Use JPEGmini Pro

Ok, let's get into the five reasons JPEGmini Pro is a no-brainer for any photographer.

1) Save Space

Thousands of photographs that take up space in your hard drives right now could take up even less space if you ran them through JPEGmini or JPEGmini Pro. The larger your JPG files, the greater the need you have to shrink them down. Imagine you could reduce your hard drive needs by 47%. Space saved is money saved.

2) Save Time

Do I have to tell you that uploading a 20 megabyte file takes longer than a 5 megabyte file? The time you save is money made.

3) SEO Benefits

Search engines are assigning a higher rank to those websites that load faster. If you have photographs on your site and they are 200 kilobytes or more, they are slowing your site down. Run your photographs through this app, shrink them down in file size and then upload them to your website. You'll see the difference and so will Google!

4) Extensions For Photoshop & Lightroom

Each of us has our own workflow and style. Some of us like to save full resolution JPEGs to a folder, copy the folder and then drag the files into JPEGmini Pro. Others, would prefer to send those files directly from Photoshop or Lightroom. And now you can! The company announced easy-to-install extensions into Photoshop or Lightroom that will give you direct access to JPEGmini. This again saves time (and money) in my opinion. This option is only available if you buy JPEGmini Pro, though.

5) The $99 Price

On the heels of their announcement about the Photoshop and Lightroom extensions, Beamr, JPEGmini's parent company also announced a price reduction to $99 for JPEGmini Pro. So, the price is right, right now. But this is for a limited time only.

JPEGmini or JPEGmini Pro?

I wondered that too. If I had continued using my Nikon D700, I am sure JPEGmini would have sufficed. But with the Nikon D750, the file sizes are so much bigger that I had no choice but to lean on JPEGmini Pro. That's one factor in choosing between the two options.

JPEGmini Pro as I mentioned above is now only $99 (regularly $149), whereas JPEGmini is $19.99. So, if your budget is tight, you may have to make some hard choices between the two options.

One of the five reasons should have included – speed – because JPEGmini Pro is some eight times faster than JPEGmini. It's just the way the application uses the core engines in your computer to make that magic happen.

Ok, I know making a decision sometimes can be challenging. That's why when I started to poke around this app, I downloaded the free trial to see how it worked. I suggest you do the same. Give it a try to see how much space and time you can save. I believe there is a limit of 10 photographs you can process per day. But the free trial is limited by how large your files are to begin with, so take that into consideration.

So, are you ready to give JPEGmini or JPEGmini Pro a spin?

FujiLove Supreme: Your Hub For All Things Fuji Mirrorless

July 21, 2016 by Seshu | Editor & Publisher Leave a Comment

What's a pianist, husband and father doing on Tiffinbox? Well, Tomasz Trzebiatowski happens to also be a photographer and the founder of FujiLove, a website dedicated to photographers who, yes, love everything Fujifilm.

I've been following Tomasz's work for about a year and been amazed at how quickly he grew the FujiLove website.

Since launching the website, he has also launched a beautiful magazine, Fujilove and on July 23rd of this year will launch the first FujiLove Global Photowalk.

Impressed with his persistence and drive, I had to speak with Tomasz. As a busy pianist, father, husband, photographer, and blog publisher he was genuinely hard to pin down for a quick chat, but here it is:

Thanks to Tomasz, I received three issues of the Fujilove magazine to check out. It's absolutely divine and I highly recommend you subscribe to it.

If you are going to be free on July 23rd (Saturday) of this year, I also recommend you see if a location near you is going to host and participate in the 2016 FujiLove Global Photo Walk.

If you watch the interview above all the way through, you'll hear Tomasz offering a special giveaway to one of you – a year-long subscription to the Fujilove magazine! Here's what you need to do to win it.

1) Visit Fujilove
2) Find a blog post on that site that intrigues you
3) Post that link here in the comments
4) Based on your link choice, I'll randomly pick a winner and let Tomasz know

This couldn't be easier and I am slightly envious of you (whoever the winner is going to be) because I'm going to have to pony up for my subscription!

Please be sure to use your real name when commenting. I'll publicly respond to your comment, telling you if you have won. So, you do need to come back and visit this post to see if you are the winner. If you are brave enough, include your email address in the comment, making it easier for me to contact you.

Good luck!

“Out Of Many, One” Children’s Portrait Project Takes Off

July 10, 2016 by Seshu | Editor & Publisher Leave a Comment

We Are All Connected

Kristin Chalmers, a editorial and portrait photographer based in Boston is a dynamo. Going from Philadelphia to Boston to Los Angeles and then back to Boston, she has used her resources and her skills to pivot when necessary.

Well, this summer, she “took a minute” and did just that.

What began on a whim, as a photography light test during a block party, is now a major portrait project for the Beantown photographer.

The Genesis Of The Portrait Project

A quieter than usual season got her thinking about all the political barbs one sees or hears about now on the daily news or social media. Perhaps out of a sense of frustration and a pinch of hope she embarked on her photography project, Out Of Many, One.

In of or her recent posts, Kristin says this about her portrait project:

Children have a perception of the world that’s different than adults. They are not hindered by the experiences and prejudices that we gain as we grow up, and are able to look past the differences that divide us. Every child, no matter what they look like or what country their ancestors came from were adopted into the American heritage when they were born. This project strives to dissolve barriers and bring us back together into the wonderful melting pot that is America. Through these portraits, we strive to show that physical characteristics, or names, do not define us as a nation. All of these children identify as Americans.

The Interview

Like other photographers, Kristin's passion and drive to make this photography project happen caught my attention and I had to speak with her:

Out Of Many, One … Portfolio

Kristin Chalmers has been on a tear. Here are 52 portraits for you to check out:

Want Your Child To Participate?

From Kristin:

“I am looking for children to be photographed and included in this campaign to show we are all multi-ethnic and American. If you are interested in having your child or children be a part of the #OutofMany1project, follow my Facebook Page and be on the lookout for a scheduled portrait session in your town soon.”

As she says in the video interview above, she will be in Philadelphia, on August 5th. The folks at WeWork are offering her a space to photograph children from and around Philadelphia. As I hear of more information, I will be sure to update this post with it.

Meanwhile, check out and LIKE her Facebook page for this project, Out Of Many, One. Find a way to support Kristin to make this project sing.

If you have any contacts at The White House, let them know of Kristin's desire to photograph Sasha and Malia Obama. Yes, it would be wonderful to be a part of this portrait project.

Want More Inspiration?

Kristin mentioned John Cena's recent AdCouncil video. If you haven't seen it, check it out below:

And a recent video by momondo, a unique travel company, showcases how connected we all are:

If you feel the words and actions in recent months has left you frustrated, lean into this blog post and watch the interview with Kristin again. Take into account what John Cena's message is. And lastly, think beyond your borders. You simply never know how intertwined our lives are.

Here's to connecting, building bridges and peace.