Great so you’ve got your portrait business up and running? Congratulations!!!  So now what?  Are you going to put your artfully created photographs up on the web and hope and pray to the photo gods that you’ll make a sale?  Or, are you going to create a memorable bonding experience for your clients that will move them to laughter and tears.  If you are like me, it will be the bonding experience.  Leave the praying for church.

You’ve made some beautiful portraits, now what? If you’re like me, composing the image, chit-chatting with your clients (so they feel at ease), then clicking the shutter is the easy part.  After the click you run through your workflow and voila, you have some sweet images and that’s why your clients hired you, well for that and your good looks.  But, what are you going to do with those killer images now?  How are you going to turn your pixels into profit?

I love photographing with big soft boxes.  And I really love octabanks.  These, shallow, octagonal soft boxes give off a lovely, soft, wrapping, light, without the dramatic fall-off of a traditional rectangular soft box.  The images of the kids are made with only one light source, a traditional, Chimera, 4ft., soft box (notice the fall off on the side of the face of the young girl standing with fishnet.  An easy fix for the shadow side would have been a fill card, but I like the mysterious mood.  Metered for the main light source (the soft box) and photographed at 5.6, 125th sec.

Being a business owner, you will always hit some speed bumps. Ya know, those little things that get in your way of getting a problem solved. How you navigate speed bumps can save you some stress. Skillful navigation of these little bumps will take your business to the next level.