How Spam Comments Waste My Time and Yours

Tasty on white bread, but insulting on your website!

How Spam Comments Waste my Time and Yours

It has been very exciting to watch this website grow over the past several years. My readership has continued to grow and I receive comments from readers all over the world, many of them thanking me for the lighting information I offer or asking valid questions about things I haven’t covered yet.

However, as bona fide comments and questions have grown, so have their evil twins, SPAM COMMENTS.

There is a lot of erroneous, confusing and just WRONG information out there about how to increase your website traffic through link backs and ping backs. All of it boils down to trying to optimize your search engine rankings aka SEO. The best SEO in the world is based on good, solid pertinent CONTENT that readers will step over ANYTHING to get at. That kind of content takes focus, work, time and patience. Period. […]

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Photo Collages Increase Profit Margins for Your Photography Studio

Or, How to Do Things Your Customers Will Love

People are always asking me what are some of the ways, in the portrait market, I close a sale and bring in revenue. Before I even begin to speak about one of my favorite, tried and true methods, let me say I hope NO ONE is still using paper proofs.  Not only are they so last decade, they are also detrimental to your bottom line.  They’re there, already printed and so tempting for people to want to take home and ‘think about’ (translation: scan).  Also, they can encourage clients to devalue your work, because well….there they are, in those convenient little sizes that just seem so…….cheap.  And you’re not going to do anything with these anyway, so why can’t I take them home with me????[…]

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Passive Income from Microstock Photography

Or, The Unexpected ‘Sleeper’ Hit

The image below is a masterpiece.  A work of art.  A thing of  beauty.  Right?  Nah.  Not even.

However, this little jewel has downloaded a stunning 282 times in the first half of February.   It has earned $93 for me during that time.  And what was I doing, while that money was pouring in?  A little web surfing, some grocery shopping, a tad of house cleaning, a few marketing calls, a couple of marketing emails, some nice long walks around the neighborhood.  In other words, for THAT money, I wasn’t doing a thing even remotely associated with that image.  Since I originally uploaded it, more than three years ago, it has downloaded more than 500 times, earning around $200.  I’m not exactly sure why there has been such a run on this particular image over the past 12 days, but I’m happy to take the money : )

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Studio Lighting for Headshots – Tutorial

Or, The Other Money Shot

There are at least as many ways to shoot a headshot as there are ways to skin a cat.  We won’t go into WHY someone would want to skin a cat, but I can tell you why people would want to shoot headshots.  This is a great basic skill to have in your repertoire.  Think of it as The Little Black Dress of photography.

It’s amazing at all the different types of people and professions who need headshots; realtors, editors, authors, entertainers, models, CEOs, dancers, moguls, rock stars, travel agents, ministers, entrepreneurs, business owners, internet marketers and even the occasional porn star, just to name a few. Being able to shoot reliable, polished headshots can bring in infusions of cash, and hey, who doesn’t like a little infusion, from time to time?

Studio Lighting for Headshots - Photography Tutorial[…]

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My 7 Most Embarrassing Moments In Photography

Or, Uh Oh Say It Ain’t So!

I know I’ve said this a few thousand times, but it really IS true I’ve had a camera in my hand since I was nine years old.  I celebrated my 50th birthday last May (yeah I know, hard to believe huh?) So, I’ve had a few years to rack up some doozies.

Here are some of my favorites.

1. EMBARRASSMENT COMES EARLY

My very first moment of embarrassment came right along with my first camera, which was a gift from my parents on my 9th birthday. It was a Brownie box camera, which you had to open up completely to load with roll film. We’re talking way old school here. In my excitement, I ran next door to share with our neighbors, a married couple with no children of their own at the moment. The husband, who had befriended me, marveled over it, ooh’ing and aah’ing. With a wicked gleam in his eye, he said, “betcha there’s no film in that camera.”  And I’m all “uh huh, there is too film in my camera” and he’s all “nah, couldn’t be” and I’m all “well just look then!”   Quick as a wink, before you could say ‘bad idea’, I ripped open the camera, exposing the film. Of course, I didn’t understand that at the time. I just knew he GASPED, looked SHOCKED, then burst out laughing. I did what any reasonable 9 year old would do and ran home crying. I was mortally embarrassed and vowed to never leave the house again. I still see him almost every time I go home for a visit, and he has NEVER let me live that one down.

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