If you follow my posts, you’ll know that I have a studio. At the moment, I mostly do high-key sessions with children. High-key is something that many photographers try to imitate and sometimes fail miserably simply because of a lack of understanding about light (and I only know this because I am one of those people!) Out of necessity, my photographic evolution has been a fast one and I laugh to think that only a few short months ago, I was in torrents of frustration and tears because I just couldn’t manage to take photos like the ones I was seeing from amazing studios such as Venture.

I’d like to write a post soon about exactly how I went from hobbyist to pro so I’ll save that story for another day. But in terms of studio, I started out borrowing a friend’s set-up to photograph a school. He’s a filmmaker, so the equipment wasn’t ideal for photography. It consisted of  a roll of white background paper, two continuous lights on softboxes in the front and two lighting the background. It was a bit of a horrible experience now that I look back on it! The light temp from these lights was way orange/yellow and they were HOT HOT HOT. Even with diligent and time consuming post production work, the colours were dark and muddy and the kids were sweating like crazy which didn’t put them in such a great mood. Excellent learning experience.

After that, I began getting a lot of requests for studio work without any equipment of my own so I spoke to a studio lighting consultant who helped me make sense of it all and decide on the set-up I needed for the type of work I wanted to produce. Which as luck would have it was top-of-the-line and cost a pretty penny.

There are much more affordable versions of the set-up I chose, but I didn’t want it to be something where I found myself outgrowing the equipment and wanting something better before I had even broken even on what I’d purchased. So this is my kit and why I chose them:

During the week one of our readers – wedding photographer Martin Whitton – shot me a list of his ‘10 rules for editing digital images’. I thought I’d share them today as a discussion starter for readers.

Martin comments that ‘these ideas may seem a little elementary, but sticking to the basics keeps our editing focused, maintains consistency from image to image and keeps our clients happy’.

1. Tone of space (a room, for example) should be balanced and neutral, with no overall bias;
2. Blacks (like tuxes) should be black;
3. Whites (like wedding gowns) should be white;
4. Don’t over-saturate images (my personal pet peeve)! Final edited image should be representative of what the human eye saw when photographing occurred;
5. Flesh tones should be realistic and consistent. If he looks red and she looks pale white, something’s

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A few weeks back I asked a loaded question: If You Could Only Have One Lens, What Would It Be? I knew from the start that it’d be tough question for most, as it was for me. Picking one lens when many of us shoot varied subject matter would present special problems.

I was, however, encouraged by the responses, especially the explanations. It was evident that a lot of DSLR owners would keep their current lens, especially those with the Nikon 18-200mm VR. And while a zoom seemed like the obvious choice for all around use, nearly one third of those responding chose a fixed focal length lens (and half of those were a 50mm of one type or another). After scouring through the results I …

I’d like to take a moment to talk about power.  Electric power that is.  We all have a craving for it as it powers everything we do with digital photography.  If you’re completely digital gone are the days of being able to manually adjust your camera and still get shots without the need for a battery of some kind.  And that’s why it’s even more important to consider where you’ll get your power when traveling.

In this article I’ll concentrate on just the what/how/where of keeping your camera shooting while in populated cities and towns.  I will write later about the unique aspect of filling your power needs while in more remote locations.

For those traveling to and through ‘modern civilization’, charging of batteries has various needs; camera, flash, portable storage drive, laptop to name a few.  Concentrating on mainly camera and flash batteries (typically AA) let’s take a look at some of the basics needed to keep the juice flowing.

A guest post By Cliff Kolber from www.kolberphotography.com.

The Florida Everglades and other wetlands cover thousands of square miles between the east and west coast of Florida. Everglades National Park is the centerpiece of the region, but there is a long list of other great places to explore and photograph. Here are seven of my favorite destinations for bird and landscape photography in South Florida. Some are well-known while others are obscure or out-of-the-way. They are all well worth the effort and should result in great fun and great photography. More details on Loop Road and Pahayokee can be found in my website under the Newsletters tab.

The list is by no means all-inclusive but it does give you a rich menu of some great places to visit. Bring your longest lens (at least 400mm) for bird and wildlife photography along with a quality tripod and you should have a successful trip.

The best time to visit is during the South Florida winter, from November through early April. Birds are abundant, the weather is pleasant, and mosquitoes should be few and far between (hopefully). Winter is also the dry season; it rains very little during these months. In some of these locations you will see alligators and possible encounter one on the road. Let them have their space. Alligators are more afraid of you than you of them.