This is a guest post by Kristy Dickerson, an Atlanta, Georgia based photographer and entrepreneur.

I figured I would start a give you a brief background on myself. My degree is in business finance and I met the love of my life while working at a bank. Yep, he was one of my customers. I fell in love with photography at my own wedding, and after having my first son Roman, I was determined not to go back to the corporate world, but rather pursue my passion photography. Read more about my story here.

Photography to me was a way to still be a mom, pursue my passion and also incorporate the business practices that I love. While searching for educational resources on the web all I could find were local photography schools here in Atlanta. Little did I know, there was this whole world of workshops and tours by photography instructors where a lot of them came to my backyard.
 
The more I got immersed into the photography industry, the more I realized that different organizations and companies promoted instructors. However, I noticed there wasn’t a way for the aspiring photographer to see all the available quality workshops in one location. So I created Fisheye Connect, to help these new emerging photographers like myself get the education that we need in both business and technical aspects.

Coming very soon, Fisheye Connect is having a huge launch! I figured I would share it with you guys and give you a little preview. Did you ever wish there was one “social” website that you could go and connect with other photographers like yourself? Or, search for photogs in your local area? Or, have a forum to ask questions? Do you now have a place to discuss past workshops or share the awesome blogs you follow?  Or how about finding resources like this awesome blog? Stayed tuned for more information! We are hoping to launch prior to WPPI!

Did you ever feel overwhelmed by all the workshop choices you have? Would you use a service like Fisheye Connect to get a better sense of what that photography workshop may offer you? Lend us your thoughts below!

Going to a trade show and conference like WPPI, in Las Vegas, is no gamble. Take my word for it. I have been and it's truly an awesome experience. It's a great opportunity to meet friends whom you have only “met” online, or vendors whose new products you want to check out first-hand. But, yes, it can get expensive, and that's where Tiffinbox is hoping to help you.

Thanks to Fundy SOS, two lucky readers of Tiffinbox will receive passes to go to WPPI 2011. The mega conference for photographers runs from February 17 – 24, 2011.

Will that be YOU? How badly do you want to go?

Here is how you could win one of two passes:

1) Tell us in the comments WHY you would want to win? What do you expect to get out of this awesome gathering of wedding and portrait photographer?

2) Tweet this: “I just posted a comment on Tiffinbox.org, for a chance to win a trip to @RFWPPI 2011. Thanks to @FundySOS + @PicSeshu! Please RT”

3) Tag @Fundy SOS in Facebook when you post a little blurb about this contest on your own wall

That's IT.

Now, the rules:

If you win, you should be able to go. Obvious, right? So, if you can't go, please let us know right away.

What you are going to win is a full registration pass ($199-259 value). The only stipulations are that MASTER Classes are NOT included and that you have to stay at the MGM Grand Hotel. Read this description of what is included in your WPPI registration pass.

Airfare, gambling chips, food and other entertainment expenses are NOT included. All that is on you. Cool?

Now, let's play. Get those comments coming. Andrew Funderburg of Fundy SOS will pick a winner among those who have left a comment and Tweeted the message on February 1.

This is a guest blog post by Trevor Dean Rideout, a lifestyle and family photographer based in central Newfoundland.

So you’ve conquered exposure, you confident in your ability to shoot in manual or priority modes and your getting some great feedback on your photography. What next? Well here are three things to apply to your craft, that don't cost money, you can apply in-camera, and will improve your photography overnight!

These techniques are simple in theory but take time to become second nature. Don't fret and as the saying goes, “practice makes perfect”.

1. Focus On The Eyes

You've probably heard this expression more than once and may be wondering to yourself, “well what does that mean?”. The concept is simple. Set your focus mode to center focus. Most if not all camera's today have the ability to move your focus zone around between those little squares in your camera, but for now let's just focus on the very center. When shooting portraits, it is usually the most ascetically pleasing to shoot with a wider aperture. This helps to separate your subject from the background and gives you nice creamy backdrops. The biggest issue here, is that the result of opening your aperture nice and wide, decreases you “depth of field” (DOF). Wherever you zone in that focus point, is where your subject will be most in focus. To guarantee the best results you need to focus on the eyes. As humans, our first instinct when viewing a photograph is to look at what's in focus, and in portraiture, the most important element is the eyes.

So, have a look through your viewfinder, line up that little square right over the eye that is closest to you and press your shutter half way down. This will lock in that focal area and give you nice sharp results on the eye that you've chosen. Whatever else falls outside of the DOF at this point is irrelevant. Sometimes, you may not be able to frame the scene exactly the way you want it, if you just focus and shoot in the one spot. This is where locking in your focus (half press of the shutter) and then recomposing your shot, comes in to play. As long as you do not move the camera forward and backward, you will stay within your focal plane, and the chosen point will stay in focus. This is absolutely essential when shooting at anything wider than f5.6 but should become common practice whenever your photographing people.

2. Watch Your Crop!

I see this mistake made probably more than any other when photographing people. If you're not careful about where you frame your subject, you may end up cutting off fingers, toes, limbs, etc. While this is probably something you may have never noticed, it is commonly accepted rule in Art. There are though, what we call “crop points”. The general rule you need to remember, is don't crop at anything that bends. Most commonly you will see fingers cropped at the edges of the frame. Standard crop could include about midway down the bicep, above the waist (midway between the sternum and waistline) and about midway between the waist line and knees. When you crop at other sections of the body it tends to make the subject look amputated and is not considered ascetically pleasing.

3. Watch Your Backgrounds

This is also one of those things that you need to become completely aware of when photographing people. It requires what you might refer to as “situational awareness”. When you’re composing your photo you may want to include some of the background to help better portray the story you’re trying to tell. What you need to watch for is objects passing through your main subject. Commonly it would end up being power lines, tree branches and other architectural features; although I have seen some instances that involve much more hilarity. You have to keep in mind that we see in 3 dimensions, but our camera's only have the ability to convert that scene into 2 dimensions. This means that you may see your subject in front of a very compelling backdrop with lots of people and things behind them, but your camera may tell a different story. Deeper in the frame, objects tend to shrink, in relation to your subject. This could mean that although you see a person walking down the street, once compressed, that person could be walking right into your subjects ear (as a less likely, but more comical example). So keep your eyes open and make a habit of scanning the entire viewfinder area. When we're first starting out, we tend to focus on one thing … whatever the main subject we're trying to photograph. Try to make a conscious effort, whenever you’re composing your shot, to take a quick scan around the entire area of the viewfinder. This will also help to better express your vision. Think about what you want to include in the frame and what you don't. Even though our higher resolution sensors allow us to do some pretty heavy cropping in post, it is always better to nail it, in camera, and have the ability to work with the entire resolution of the photo.

So there you have it! Three simple techniques that you can apply right now. They don't cost any money, don't require any special software but they will take time to perfect and make second nature. Practice these techniques daily and before you know, you won't even know you're thinking about it!

Since this blog is all about learning and sharing, how about dropping a link to one of your images (use Flickr if you have to) that uses one or possibly all that Trevor has talked about in this post? Don't spam the comment box. One entry per person please. So, what are you waiting for? Let's see some of your images! If you do post anonymously, I reserve the right to delete your comment.

This guest post is by John Simoneau the founder of “The Directory of Specialized Photographers” at LocalPhotographyGuides.com. He says, “I am a proud husband and dad to 2 Disney Princesses and love to chat about photography.

Photographers. What if I was to tell you that search engine optimization (SEO) simply doesn't matter anymore? Don't worry about it! Stop link building, stop forcing keywords in your blog titles, don't worry about what “meta tags” are or even what Google's new “Caffeine” search index is. Just kick your feet up and relax. Use all that spare time to spend with your family or being creative as a photographer.

Well, unfortunately I'm not here to tell you that. Search engine optimization is the most practical way to gain new photography clients at this time. The reason why is that it is a “direct” marketing approach rather then a “creative” one such as print ads in magazines and coupon books. It's quite simple really. We live in a time that people use Google for anything and everything. When someone uses Google for the term “photographers,” they are looking for a photographer. When they purchase a magazine, see your vehicle graphics, or view some Google adwords, they are not looking for a photographer. Only problem with SEO is that it's so time consuming and that it's been figured out. Sometimes a couple hundred photographers in each city are all competing daily for the 1st page of 10 results that search engines provide. It's really quite stressful and something photographers shouldn't have to worry about!

Then we have Social Media. In 2009-2010 studies showed that 78% of people trust peer-to-peer recommendations rather than ads. Not only that but social media networks is a step ahead of SEO in the sense that you can actually attract new clients in BEFORE they are even looking for a photographer. They notice and remember your photography from a friend sharing on Facebook and other social networks. It's free “creative” advertising with no-telling how many thousands of impressions your branded portraits are getting. Social media sharing is also a quick way to get your photography noticed worldwide for traveling photographers. Search engines can be quite weak in some of these areas.

Coming from the photography industry myself, I really wanted to research, analyze, and embrace the very best method to combine as much of this as possible and build the very best resource on the planet for connecting photography clients with quality photographers. I wanted to create a system that could eventually take some of this unnecessary technical marketing weight off of our photographer's shoulders. The problem was that the photography industry is so riddled with websites trying to make photographers feel as though they have such a miracle solution that it was going to be a really tough sell.

Our team finally came to the realization that the strongest offering was going to be to build a photographer directory. The sound of it almost made me cringe after seeing so many others online who focus on ads, affiliates, selling links, giving links, etc. None of them seemed to be focusing on connecting clients to photographers and most of them had very poor quality of photographers listed. It was quite a mess and a scary idea to start but seemed like the only solution that could force this much needed and entirely new direct marketing approach into the photography industry. So “The Directory of Specialized Photographers” was born.

From our launch we had support from several very popular and highly talented photographers including Baby As Art, Daniela Degrassi, Ashley McNamara, Nicole Goddard and many more! We have even featured some of these photographers on our homepage in a very unique way by quoting their styles which helps in setting our theme. We've created profiles to highly complement any styles of photography that may be needed in the future. Our social media sharing buttons have brought many thousands of visitors to our website alone and has been a huge hit! We are search engine friendly and offer no ads to any vendor outside our own featured photographer banners. We have finally created a virtual photographer phonebook for clients to utilize that focuses 100% on showcasing each and every one of our featured photographer's talents!

Please join us in pioneering this new amazing photography product that is beginning to bypass photography clients from utilizing search engines entirely. Visit “The Directory of Specialized Photographers” at LocalPhotographyGuides.com (link) and request a free or featured listing anywhere in the United States! Some of our guides have just recently been released so if this is your 1st time visiting then you be sure to visit one of our more filled listing pages such as our Los Angeles Wedding Photographers or San Diego Newborn Photographers.

Some time in the future I'd love to speak a little about our brand new international community and how it integrates with our directory offering but until then please visit our forums to register and post an introduction. Your account will be upgraded to 6 Months of Pro Access FREE for the next week! I look forward to working with you!

What are you doing to be found locally? Please sound off in the comments section below.

This is a guest post by Stuart Sipahigil. He is an amateur photographer in the traditional sense of the word; that is, he does it for the love of the craft. His photographs have won awards, appeared in publications, and have made their way into homes and businesses around the country. Stuart also teaches workshops to help other amateur photographers find great photographs close to home. Stuart’s work can be found at TheLightWithout.com.

So, you're “just” an amateur photographer… but you've discovered that you have a love for making photographs and you seem to be pretty good at it. Your friends and family are telling you they love your photographs and several have said you are “good enough to be a professional.” Maybe you've entered a local photography contest or two, and you've done pretty well. Or perhaps you've even sold a few prints of your photographs to the local coffee shop or restaurant.

Now you're thinking to yourself, “maybe I could be a professional photographer,” and then, “how would I do that?” So you check out a couple of books about being a pro photographer — David duChemin's VisionMongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography or Dane Sanders' Fast Track Photographer, for example — and discover that it's actually quite a bit of hard work. You already have a career right now and well, it's paying the bills and you're doing okay, even in this economy. Shifting gears to becoming a pro is a big change and would disrupt your life quite a bit. It might be doable, but it would be painful, and you're just not sure it would be worth it.

So now what do you do?

Traditionally, there were the only two paths available to you: turn pro, with all of the responsibilities that entails and the costs associated with it. Or remain an enthusiastic amateur, occasionally selling a print or two at your local art fair, or maybe shooting your cousin's wedding for a few hundred bucks (and thus, pissing off an entire group of professionals—but that's another story). However, I think there are several other choices you can make; several other paths you can trod that don't involve becoming a traditional “pro” to find satisfaction as a talented amateur photographer.

The Internet has changed everything. You have many more outlets for your work now than ever before. Traditionally, if you wanted to get your photographic work out into the public eye you had only a few choices; magazines, gallery showings, or stock photography, for example. Today, you can sign up for a blogging service and start your own photography blog, publishing your work to a worldwide audience in about five minutes. If you're a little more ambitious, you can self-publish your own “coffee table” book of your photographs using services like Blurb or Inkubook. Or publish a photography ebook, either on your own or through a publisher like Craft & Vision. All of these things were prohibitively expensive and perhaps even impossible to do on your own only five years ago.

There used to be an old saying, “Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.” That's simply not true these days (and it never really was). Many professional photographers like Joe McNally, David duChemin, and Zack Arias — all terrific photographers — offer workshops and seminars about the vision, the craft, and the business of photography. But not everyone is ready for (or can afford) workshops with these big names.This can create an opportunity for you to step up and use your skills to help others that are as passionate about this craft as you are. Is there a local arts center in your town? This can be a great place to start and to hone your teaching skills. If you don't have that opportunity, why not just try leading a few photo walks, either on your own or in concert with Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk in July? Signing up to be a walk leader is easy and can get you started on the path to becoming a photographic instructor.

Are you good at talking about photographic tips and techniques? Do you think you can interview other photographers? Maybe you should start a photography podcast. In a few minutes, you can set one up in Apple's iTunes and publish it to a worldwide audience on a regular basis. The folks at Faded & Blurred have done just that, combining it with their own regular photo walks and a lively online community to create a terrific resource for passionate photographers.

If you are currently a professional photographer, you too can benefit from “going amateur.” I don't mean that you should give up your business and find something else to do, but to try to carve out a little time in your life to do some work for yourself. Personal projects are your connection back to why you started in the field to begin with: your love of photography, the feel of the camera in your hands, and the joy of seeing something that moved you appear on film or in the LCD. There is enormous value in removing the pressures of running a successful photography business and just do it for yourself.

Maybe there are other opportunities that you could use to expand your business (and reputation) as well. Matt Brandon, a professional travel and humanitarian photographer, publishes regular interviews with other pros like Ami Vitale, Gary S. Chapman, and Chris Orwig on his Depth of Field podcast. David duChemin created the Craft & Vision eBook publishing business by starting with a few of his own ideas about photography. Chase Jarvis has added The Best Camera, a best-selling book and phone app, as well as the Creative Live educational video series to his successful endeavors. Many other pros are adding to their repertoire of services by taking advantage of these new avenues.

And if your photography business isn't very successful, why not step back and take a fresh look? Is it just a production job for you now: prepare, shoot, post-process, deliver? Have you lost that love for the art that you used to make? Perhaps it's time to re-think photography as a professional career. That may seem a bit harsh, but I'm simply saying your photographic life might be more rewarding without the pressures of trying to make a living at it. Or perhaps you just need to shift gears and, like some of these other pros, add some new roles to your career, such as broadcaster or teacher. There may be opportunities available to you that you just haven't considered.

There are great rewards to becoming a professional photographer if you're willing and able to put in the time and effort it requires, but there is no shame in trying to be a great amateur photographer. Making money with photography doesn't always equate to making exceptional photography. If you love photography and want to do more than just make slideshows for your friends and family, there are more opportunities now than ever before. Overcome your doubt and hesitation, step out and see what you can accomplish as “just” an amateur.

Please support this site and buy Stuart's awesome e-book, Close To Home, through the Craft & Vision website. [affiliate link]