May | 2012 | The SMUGS Blog

The Oklahoma City SMUG learns how to sell fine art photography!

May 31, 2012 1 comment

The OKC SMUG meeting took place at Baker’s Learning Center, with the meeting starting off with a discussion about some articles about the most expensive photograph ever sold, and the 15 most expensive photographs in history prior to the sale of Rhine II. We then discussed the infamous Space Shuttle Twitpic, and how it was very well known, highly viewed, and the photographer was hardly compensated for the photo.

Our guest speaker, Romy Owens, was then introduced to us as an accomplished fine artist. Her art is like nothing I have ever seen before. Romy mentioned that she wants the viewer to pause and pay attention to what they are viewing, which she accomplishes in her work.

She began creating art while she was studying for her photography degree. She wanted her work to be big but did not have the resources to make such giant images, so she started overlapping and somewhat scrap booking images together. Then, eventually, she decided that she could sew them together and highlight the seams.

Romy spends 50-60 hours sewing photos together to complete a single piece of art. One time she spent 2 months sewing one of her projects together. It was 4 ft tall by 56ft long. Romy refers to her art as non-functional quilts. As Romy hand stiches each piece she will write comments on the back. It could be something about the movie she is viewing or something that she was doing in life at the time. Looking at the back of her art work was amazing to see the words, detail, and precision of each and every stitch.

Romy talked about finding your own style and challenged the group to not be afraid to step out of the box and create something different. An attribute that you will need to possess is a thick skin. When you find those who do not like your work, don’t let it get you down. She also talked about how you should value your work and include the cost of your time into your pricing.

Romy is a very active member of the local art community. She finds that by helping to promote others she in turn gets promotion. Participating in community activities helps to be seen and get your name out there. Romy suggested that folks get involved with Oklahoma Visual Arts Council. OVAC does more for Oklahoma visual artists than any other organization.

Submitted by the OKC SMUG Scribe: Sherri Smith.

Sherri loves to photograph families, high school seniors, and weddings. Sherri loves the OKC SMUG meetings because of the learning experience, and the people who attend are great to network with. Stop by and check out their next meeting. You will not be disappointed!

The Austin SMUG learns about customization!

May 24, 2012 Leave a comment

The Austin SMUG group held its March meeting on Thursday, April 26. This was our largest meeting yet, with about 50 photographers in attendance at the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Austin.

A lot of folks in our SMUG had requested some assistance with SmugMug site customization, and our requests were answered by a visit from Melissa Crain of New Skin Media. Melissa is one of SmugMug’s Certified Customizers and her company specializes in creating advanced custom websites for every kind of photographer on SmugMug.

Melissa demonstrated some of the things that are possible on the SmugMug platform by showing off some of her clients’ sites. I believe many of us in attendance did not realize the potential for customization that is possible with SmugMug. Melissa’s customization work yielded some great results for her clients! Some of the sites were so radically different from what many of us were accustomed to seeing that it was almost hard to believe that they were customized SmugMug sites. She also showed us the layout that she uses on her own SmugMug site.

Melissa also talked about the importance of planning your site before you start making changes. Organization is a key factor here. You have to keep your clients in mind and lay things out in such a way that your site is visually appealing and easy to navigate. She recommended drawing your site layout first. Simple boxes and text are fine at this step. A good basic site layout is something like this:

Once you know the structure of your site, you can start to build the framework and fill in the details. A lot of the basic tasks of site structure are done in the SmugMug Easy Customizer. Melissa walked us through this fairly simple interface that allows you to set the overall look of your site.

The Navigation Bar Builder is one of the most important customization options. This is where you will create links to direct your site’s visitors to the different areas of your site, such as your galleries, services, and contact information.

One tip that Melissa suggested was to just use a leading slash “/” when linking to your site’s internal pages. This will prevent broken links should you get custom domain name for your site. For example, instead of creating a link to “http://melissaraephoto.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Adventures” , just type “/Portfolio/Adventures/”.

All of the pages on a SmugMug site are based on galleries. We learned that a gallery doesn’t have to have any photos and that a gallery’s description can be populated with HTML to create a custom content page. Using the description field for a gallery, you can create a basic HTML web page with text and photos laid out however you like.

This comes in handy for something like an “About” page. The trick here is that SmugMug will display a warning when a gallery is empty. You don’t want your site visitors to see that! This warning is easily disabled with a bit of code that you can add to the CSS section of the Advanced Site-wide Customization section in your site’s Control Panel:

/******************************
* HIDE ‘THIS GALLERY NEEDS PHOTOS’
* BOX ON EMPTY GALLERIES
*****************************/
.notLoggedIn .emptyGallery {
display:none;}

Content pages are just one of the many ways to customize the look of your site on the SmugMug platform. Melissa was kind enough to send out a CSS file with a few of her favorite customization tweaks to those in attendance. If you are handy with HTML and CSS, the additional possibilities are almost limitless.

If you get stuck with a customization issue, help is available on SmugMug’s customization forum. Coding in HTML or CSS isn’t for everyone, and if you’re not comfortable diving into site customization on your own, you can find certified SmugMug customization professionals like Melissa in the forum to give you a hand.

Melissa also shared a couple of her favorite online tools that aid in site customization. Adobe Kuler is an easy to use tool for putting together a color theme for web sites. Wufoo is a form creation service that simplifies the addition of things like contact forms on your web site.

Melissa’s presentation really grabbed the group’s attention, and she fielded a lot of questions. Site customization is not a topic that can be thoroughly condensed down into such a short time frame, but Melissa did give us a good start in tweaking our SmugMug sites. In fact, I ran home and put her content page lesson into practice. I was able to condense my cluttered navigation bar by consolidating my social networking links down to a single content page!

Thanks to Melissa for visiting the Austin group and thanks to SmugMug for sending her out!

Submitted by Austin SMUG Scribe: Michael Connell
Michael enjoys photography in his spare time. Urban landscapes, night photography, and environmental portraits are his favorite photographic pursuits. He shoots with a Canon 5D and a Fujifilm X100.

Categories: SMUGs Tags: Austin photo groups, Austin photographers, Austin SMUG, Landscape Photography, Photo groups, Photographer's Networking, Photography, Photography User Groups, Portrait Photography, SMUG, SmugMug, SmugMug User Groups, smugs, Wedding Photography

The Portland SMUG learns about off camera lighting!

May 17, 2012 2 comments

Held again at the Newspace Center for Photography, this monthʼs Portland SMUG meeting was all about using off camera lighting and light modifiers.

Jayesunn, our group leader, demonstrated the Rogue bendable bounce card/reﬂectors, which come in two different sizes and can be bent into various positions to allow you to control where your light is directed. An additional diffusion panel can be attached to the reflector to make it into a miniature portable soft box. There were also some Rogue Grid Flash Gels, which are handy for adding color to a background or to selected areas in your compositions.

The meeting was very well attended and interactive – everyone got involved with trying out the equipment, and most people brought their own cameras and lights so they could walk away with some test shots. We tried out different lighting techniques, including short, broad, and split.

I think everyone came away from this meeting with a little bit more photographic knowledge and it was also a great opportunity to meet other Portland photographers. We are all looking forward to the next meeting!

Submitted by the Portland SMUG Scribe: Michelle du Bois
Michelle is an ophthalmic photographer by profession, and a continuously learning enthusiastic photographer in her spare time. She has recently moved from London, UK to Portland, Oregon. You can check out her SmugMug account here.

Categories: SMUGs Tags: Landscape Photography, Photo groups, Photographer's Networking, Photography, Photography User Groups, portland photo groups, portland photographers, portland smug, Portrait Photography, SMUG, SmugMug, SmugMug User Groups, smugs, Wedding Photography

The San Francisco SMUG welcomes Jessica Quintal!

May 4, 2012 Leave a comment

The San Francisco SMUG had a great turnout for their latest meeting at the Sports Basement with special guest, Jessica Quintal. Jessica Quintal offers portrait sessions for high school seniors and families, along with weddings and engagement shoots.

She began the meeting by outlining her techniques for posing clients, as she takes many cues from fashion magazines. The model poses in the magazines are often extreme and can be toned down for your clients but can still have the same exciting effects.

Standing poses:

Crossing the legs can create and/or enhance shape.
Place a hand behind the neck and under the hair.
A step to the side can create some motion or tension.
Move the hair behind an ear, with or without a hand.
Tilt the client’s head down and then look up with the eyes at the camera.
If there is a wall, touch it.
hold the wrists, pick at the nails or twirl the hair.
Accessories can help, like hats, which is one of Jessica’s favorites props to use.
Ask them to bring their hands up along their body and then hug themselves.

Jessica also gave us some great advice for our businesses:

Confidence – Be confident and positive when working with the client. It will lighten the situation and put them at ease. Show them several poses at a time.
Communication – Be as clear and up front as you can be.
Creativity – Do anything you want. Get your client involved in the environment, touching things and using the surroundings. Use props and accessories like umbrellas, scarves and hats (and not just on their heads).
Use your resources – Send your clients pictures of what styles you want them to wear or at least the color tones they should stick to. Pinterest is a good resource for clothing examples.

All in all, give your clients something they were not expecting. Make them a model for the day.

Jessica’s super power is that, when meeting the client for the session, she immediately creates a friendly relationship. She is always happy, very talkative, able to quickly size up the client, and put them at ease.

Gina, Jessica’s marketing correspondent, gave a few valuable marketing tips.

Know your client base and how to communicate to them – High school seniors respond well to text messages, while older clients answer email or phone calls.
Keep it simple – Jessica basically offers 2 packages- shoot you the way you show up or create a full-blown stylized session.
Facebook may be their best marketing site.