We've all been there. At the beginning. Where we didn't know anything, or we knew a few things about photography but were awfully rough at the edges.

Sure, we were proud of those first images but didn't know an f/stop from a door stop, didn't know our way around Lightroom or Photoshop, our wedding photography business was complicated and our album designs looked more like a quilt, a hodgepodge of images thrown onto a page.

Look, even I'll admit I have been there.

We all had to start somewhere. With practice and the right tools things just came together for me. One more thing helped – having the right mentors walk with me on this journey. I am sure you've felt this way as well – you wanted, no needed, somebody to hold your hand.

For me, Rob and Lauren of Photography Concentrate have done just that through their photography tutorials.

To celebrate the relaunch of their site they're having a mega sale! For a very limited time you can get any of their four tutorials for 30% off!! The sale is starting right now, so you can grab them today! They have:

• Simple Wedding Photography [affiliate link] (Reg. US$39.95, On Sale for only US$27.97)? An e-book that teaches you everything you need to know about photographing weddings, and the business behind it.
• Extremely Essential Camera Skills [affiliate link] (Reg. US$49.95, On Sale for only US$34.97)? A multi-media tutorial designed to help you get control over your camera, and get creative and confident with your photography. 
• Super Photo Editing Skills [affiliate link] (Reg. US$79.95, On Sale for only US$55.97)? A video tutorial that teaches you how to bring the best out of your images using Adobe Lightroom 4.
• Awesome Album Design Skills [affiliate link] (Reg. US$79.95, On Sale for only US$55.97)? A video tutorial that shows you how to quickly design beautiful albums using Adobe InDesign.

All of their tutorials are digital products available for immediate download, so you can start learning right away. The sale prices are automatically applied, so it's nice and easy to save big!

Thankfully, the photography industry has changed over the last 10 years where sharing information has become more of the norm. It's rather rare for Photography Concentrate to hold a sale like this, so, if you have been eyeing their tutorials, this is the time to get it.

Oooh, before I forget, you could win a $200 gift card to Amazon.com if you comment here.

If you buy any of the Photography Concentrate tutorials now through August 9th (when the sale ends), please come back here and let me know in the comments section below what you thought of them.

As always, I will never recommend anything to you unless I have given the products or services a try myself. Please do note that you should safely assume that all links in this post are affiliate links.

Salonee Pareek is the better half of Ramit Batra Photography. She assists Ramit at his shoots and chronicles their experiences on their blog. When not travelling, or writing, she loves to spend her time with her books and can be found on Twitter.

A few days ago, I had the chance to interact with a prospective client and a fellow wedding photographer. The interaction was around two terms – one listed above, mentioned by the photographer – the dream client; and another what the dream client said “… if someone can put their heart and soul into doing a great job of the photography”. This got me thinking about our expectations as photographers and our clients' expectations for us and how it is like walking a tightrope to manage both of these expectations.

For a photographer, perhaps, there is no greater feeling than working for a client that wants the photographer to put her heart and soul in her photography. What would my dream client be like?

Realistically, what does a client really want? This may not be a million dollar question, but is definitely worth a few thousand dollars to us photographers. Some of us went to school or college and studied the craft of photography and some of us learned it in a more hands-on manner. But most of us have developed a manner of photography, we call our own, even as it changes and develops over time. There are certain things one is willing to do, and quite a few things one is not prepare to commit. And at the end of a hard day, we all want a client that appreciates our work and sees in it, a good value for her money.

While I am in no position to generalise, I have worked for clients who have appreciated the hard work I put in, gone a few steps further and asked for suggestions as to what would help me do my job better. And some, who have at the very outset, communicated the desire to always be in control of me and directed me to work accordingly. It is the latter variety that I am wary of. Here's why: because that does not come across to me as being honest. It appears as though this person only requires a camera operator with good equipment, not someone who uses their mind to control their equipment and create photographs the way only they can.

And thus began my dream of my ideal client. And here’s what I dreamed of:

My dream client would have some awareness about photography, if not especially about wedding photography. She would see me as a professional doing her work and not merely a camera controller. She would not vanish at the mere mention of payments (quite frankly, I know a lot of fellow photographers who have had brides vanish as soon as they receive an estimate). She will want to hire me as she likes my work, and not because she thinks I would do well to ape another’s style. Most of all, she will inspire me to create not merely capture.

Wow! Now that is quite a wish-list.

About being the client’s dream photographer? That would be another day, another story.

Want to win Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck's book, “Worth Every Penny“? Comment below. Their book walks you through the steps you need to take to set up a boutique business. It's a great read, with lots of information that you can put to use right away in your photography business.

Respond to these questions below: Can you describe your dream client? What would she or he be like? What are your expectations? What, typically, are theirs? (I'll pick the best responses on August 1st. Winners will be notified by email so please use an email address you check regularly when you post your answers.)

When I photograph weddings, I love capturing the couple's wedding rings. For my clients, those details are important because they symbolize their connection to each other.

You may also recall Doug Levy's guest posting here, “How To Create Fun Wedding Ring Shots.”

Now, Jasmine Star has just published a post on her own blog about how she goes about quickly photographing wedding rings. I think it's always neat to see how other photographers approach a common theme. Take a look at the video she created to show you how:

Anne Ruthmann of Photolovecat once told me she packs silly putty and fishing wire to hold those rings up. So, how do you photograph wedding rings? What tips and tricks can you share with us?

A rather frazzled wedding photographer asked out aloud why her wordpress.com based blog/site was suddenly seeing advertisements that she hadn't approved. I quickly contacted her and let her know that because her site was (nameofherbusiness.wordpress.com) she was having WordPress dictate what goes on her site. What she has is a “managed” blog site. One easy solution would be to move to a self-hosted site.

Thankfully, there are ways to move your content over to a site that you have more control over. Also, if you are just starting out as a photographer and want to do it right, read on.

Full disclosure – not long ago, this site was hosted and managed by Typepad. In a future post, I'll go into more detail about why I moved from that managed option to a self-hosted solution.

I first came across this blog post: How To – Move From WordPress.com To WordPress.org. If that's a bit too geeky, check out the graphic below:

Like this infographic? Get more WordPress and hosting tips from Synthesis.

And, if that doesn't do it for you, you may want to sign up for this FREE 9-part course called Site Set-Up Kit. Produced by Wendy Cholbi and Pamela Wilson, it's targeted towards beginners and they promise that it will be jargon-free. Even though I publish this and other blogs using the WordPress platform, I signed up to learn something new.

Tiffinbox, for example, is a self-hosted site. That means, I pay to host it on a server owned by BlueHost.com [affiliate] and I get to decide on what gets published, including advertisements. When, not if, you start considering where to host your blog or your website, I recommend BlueHost as an option. They routinely rank high among website hosting companies and I have always found their customer service to be very prompt.

So, if you have a website or blog hosted and managed by say, Blogger, Typepad or LiveJournal, where you really do not have a way of controlling all of the content you see on your site, you should be going the self-hosted WordPress route.

Yes, there is a little bit of work involved in setting it up. So, if you have any questions about that feel free to ask in the comments section below. I am happy to help as best as I can, or, I will direct you to a resource who will address your concerns.

I just stumbled upon another blog post about setting up a self-hosted WordPress website by Michael Hyatt. Check it out too!

Spencer Lum is a storyteller with an indelible belief in the raw humanity of weddings. He is the founder of the photography journal, Ground Glass, and with 10 years of experience running Brooklyn-based 5 West Studios, he has developed a style that combines influences from fine art and photojournalism. He has also enjoyed time as a designer, creative director, and filmmaker, and he is a doting husband and father of two beautiful children in Brooklyn, NY.

In the simplest terms and the most basic words, you are not your business. No structure, entity, or process could ever contain the complexities and beauty that you possess. As you become intertwined with the day to day burdens of living, life, and the baggage we acquire that makes pack rats of us all, remember that you must always let your vision lead your business and not the other way around.

A friend of mine has a lasagna recipe from the old world. Passed on through the years, it was tradition that each generation added one improvement to the recipe. The current iteration is a sight to behold. Laden with grease, muddled by complexity, and very clearly the result of more than one too many a generation, it is a beastly thing that no person should have to consume.

The problem wasn't that no one cared. It was that each person who added their special touch saw only the trees and not the forest. Lamb instead of beef? Yes! Three cheeses instead of one? Yes! More layers? Yes! And so it went. No lasagna should have to suffer so merciless a fate. Yet this is life in action. It's not just lasagna and cooking and generations of people. It is the day-to-day. It is us, running our business, trying to get by. We don't have time to think about what we are at every moment in every action. But never let it get too far away.

It is tempting to treat business like that lasagna. To break it all down into a series of isolated steps, where each thing we do becomes severed from the actual goal we're after. More schwag? Yes! More follow-ups? Yes! More previews? Yes! But no amount of more will ever match the power of a simple, meaningful gesture. Each act that truly expresses who you are – your care and your value – is worth 10 times more than any generic gift or email.

What you want is not more. But better. What you want is not for people to like you, love you, be happy with you, or even recommend you. What you want is to be essential.

The rest will follow suit, but it will not work the other way around. It is when you are essential the referrals don't stop. It is when you are essential that you create bonds, and no one else can replace you. This is when people go to bat for you. To do this, you must make your beliefs theirs. You have to seek out those clients who can share your vision, and let them become a part of it.

In other words, you have to stand for something.

You must have beliefs that you put into action and let them roam the world. No one will ever hire someone for their opinion who is unwilling to express it. Yet this is exactly what you want to be hired for. Not just to know the rules of photography. Anyone can pick that up from a few online tutorials. Not even for that finely-honed instinct about where to be when. But for our decisions about what to capture and how to capture it. For each choice we make when we press the button and say that this image we create – in our way with our abilities – is the best representation of the moment and the day. When we are hired for that, our clients give us the greatest thing possible. Their trust. They are believing in us and not just in our skills.

If you want to achieve this, do not fall into the trap of “yes.” Do not pit yourself against your client as adversaries, where you are deciding how much of yourself you're willing to give in exchange for how much money they are willing to pay. You're not a parking meter, where dropping in a few more coins gets more time out of you. Yet too many of us position ourselves that way.

While “yes” is an the essential quality of good service, you must remember that good business starts when two people find a common nucleus of need. It is about mutual opportunity. What is good for you must be good for them. What is good for them must be good for you. No business is sustainable when you drive yourself into the ground in sacrifice of your client. If “yes” puts you at ends with your client, if getting it done hurts you whenever it helps them, it's time to re-examine what you're doing.

Being essential and earning trust requires two things. First, you must offer true value to your client. You must establish that it is them you are looking out for and not yourself. This seems at odds with the notion of mutual interest, but it's not. When you put your client first, what you lose in time will be returned in spades in the form of respect, trust, belief, and opportunity. In a good relationship, you will not just feel better about who you are. You will become better. Money may will be a byproduct of a good business relationship, but it cannot be the foundation for it.

Second, you must be willing to offer your truest opinion. Sometimes, you'll even need to push your clients for their own good. This is hard. We fear rejection. We are afraid to offend. We think we'll lose the business. But you cannot shelve this part of yourself. An opinion forged by the pressure of experience and the intensity of belief is everything. You are at your most potent when you can stir this mix into the soup of the present. This doesn't mean diva behavior. It doesn't mean grandstanding, showing off, and being abrasive. It means you can only give all of you when you create an environment that lets you perform your best. And that never happens if you don't show people who you are, what you're after, and what they need to know to let it all happen. If you want people to believe in you, give them something to believe in.

In reality, both of these are just flip sides of the same coin. To look out for the client is to engage the full value of your experience and judgment. Or to put it another way when “Yes” works, art and service are aligned. It is too common a misconception that we create the art for ourselves and offer service for others. It is equally common that we should create art for our clients and not for ourselves. In one model we are too invested. In the other, not enough. Neither should be the case. Service needs to foster art. Art needs to foster service.

Service is an enabler. It doesn't just hide our mistakes and fulfill our obligations. Good service should relate to the product we deliver. Use it to tell your story. To paint the picture of you and your value. Not just the technicalities of what you do. Service should guide and cradle our clients. It can make them excited and get them on board with our ideas. How much more interested will a client be if they feel like they're participating in the same journey? How much more trust will they give? Service carves out the space you need to perform your best.

Too many people sit passively by until the wedding day, then scratch their heads wondering why no one gets them. Service creates opportunity. How would anyone know what to do and what to expect if we don't let them in on it? That is our responsibility.

Good art, on the other hand, powers service. Without it, there is no way to show an opinion, fight for a perspective, or to even find the meaning of what we do. It will determine the words we use in our brand, and it will tell us the things to ask as we prepare our clients. Art demonstrates the values we espouse. It is a foundation.

Neither art nor service should exist in isolation. If things aren't working, examine the relationship between service and art. If the art is too self-serving and disconnected, it becomes detached from the service. If the art is too mundane, it gives the service no fuel for the fire. On the other hand, if your service only fulfills the duties without crafting a fully-fledged process, it won't establish the value of the art. It will leave us positioned as a vendor and nothing more. It is the duty of the business to show the value of the art.

At the end of it all, you must not be afraid to share yourself. Don't be afraid of the person you are. Don't bury the very best you, while the lesser parts slave away for a few extra dollars. It's when each part of what you do aligns and points in the same direction that everything comes together. It's when you never lose sight of what you're after that things happen. That's the sweet spot. And the formula couldn't be simpler. Make people part of your world, and let yourself become part of theirs.

Post a response below and enter to win a copy of Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck's book, “Worth Every Penny.” Book giveaway for US residents only!