This is Episode 5 of LIME’s Happy Hour. As always we hope you enjoy it and we are hoping to get lot’s of feedback from all of you using the comments or by sending us an e-mail.

In this Episode :

• General introduction
• What’s up with LIME ? What have we been doing the past week & what have got in store for you in the near future ? This is where you’ll find out !
• Dear LIME In this section Bert & Pieter will be answering your questions. Got a question ? Please send it to us @ dearlime@squeezethelime.com
  We’ll be talking about using gels, selling pictures, posing, the Canon 100mm macro and gray cards.
• The feature segment Every week we will be talking about one specific subject. This time we talk about available light vs flash.

You can listen to this podcast by using the player below or download it as an mp3 (right click/Save As).

Here’s a list of some lodging options for those who have to travel to our workshops. For the workshops before April, it’s not sure if we can already use the new studio/workshop space. As we speak, Sven-the-builder is working hard to get it ready and I’ll be lending him a left hand (I have two of those) after I finish writing this list. But don’t worry (be happy), we have options on alternative locations nearby for the workshops in February/March.

Here’s the list:

• Charming Escape (Steenokkerzeel)
  Stylish bed & breakfast (two rooms) at walking distance (if you like walking, that is) from the studio (less than 3 kilometers).
• De Orangerie (Perk)
  A small but cosy bed & breakfast (only two rooms) at less than 4 kilometers from the studio. They can arrange airport transfers for you. Very reasonable rates.
• Hobbit Hotel (Zaventem)
  A hotel with 26 rooms and reasonable rates located only 5 minutes from the airport and only 10 minutes from the studio. It’s one of the preferred hotels for the company my wife works for. Be sure to book the hotel in Zaventem, not the one in Mechelen.
• Campanile Hotel (Zaventem)
  This hotel has 60 rooms and is located only 5 minutes from the airport and 10-15 minutes from the studio. Rates appear to be a tiny bit higher than the Hobbit Hotel but check if they have any discounts.
• Best Western Axis Hotel (Kortenberg)
  Located in the middle between Brussels and Leuven at less than 10 minutes from the studio. Rates are higher than the others but it’s a three star hotel with many services.

We haven’t had the chance to visit these places, but by what we’ve heard and read, they seem to be good choices. There are other lodging options nearby, certainly in the Zaventem/Diegem area since that’s right in the business area close to Brussels airport.
Share your experiences with us and if you find other good places to stay, let us know.

People want to look good in their photos, but they tell you they won’t pose for it or they won’t be directed. Sounds familiar? It does to me … weekly …

When I meet with potential clients one of the things I hear a lot is that they are not willing to pose for a shot, they want it all very natural and spontaneous and they don’t want to be told how to stand & what to do. What do you think, is that possible? No?
Think again!

As a photographer you are in the perfect spot to get people to do whatever you want them to do, the key here is delivery. When working with professional models you can simply tell them what to do, and because they are pro’s it will still look very natural. Not so when working with couples … They will freeze up and you get very posed, unnatural, uptight looking shots.

How can you solve that ? Well, let’s find out what makes for a truly natural, spontaneous, romantic image.

First of all and withouth a doubt the most important element: the couple is relaxed.
When a couple takes place in front of your camera, they feel a bit awkward, silly maybe, don’t really know what to do or what you expect from them.
This is where your charming, funny, communicative personality comes into play! Make them laugh by either telling a joke or acting silly. If you act a little crazy they will feel less silly and thus more at ease.
On a sidenote : watch out which jokes you tell, they might not have the same sense of humour as you do. Making a joke about yourself though works almost every time and it tells them you are a relaxed, down-to-earth person.

Earlier this year I was working with a couple and I wanted her to sit on his lap with her legs in a certain direction. I walked up to them and asked the guy to take a seat, then explained my idea and added “but I’m not gonna show it to you since that might hurt a bit”. Take into account I weigh a bit more than might be healthy in combination with the mental picture of me sitting on the guys’ lap and you have instant laughter. The mood was set, they felt more at ease & acted more relaxed.

Time for step 2 : Make sure they look more at each other than at you.
Face it, we have been taught from when we where a baby to look into the lens of the camera. Look at the birdie this, look at the birdie that. Forget the birdie! Having them look into the lens = posed, and that’s what we are trying to avoid here.
So how would you handle that ?

Simple, just have them tell you what looks best. Ask them what looks more natural & unposed to them : a shot where they look at each other or a shot where they look straight at your camera. They will tell you, obviously, that it’s the one where they look at each other. Bingo ! They get the point and you are one step closer to a very relaxed, natural portrait.
(if they keep looking at me I always ask them who they would rather look at, me or the person they love and want to spend the rest of their life with : unless they are having a fight, this always does the trick )

So where are we ? The couple is now relaxed & no longer constantly looking into your lens. We are getting pretty close are we ?

What else do we want ? Well, I would want them to interact with each other so that it looks like a very natural, spontaneous, sweet moment in time that captured their love for each other. How you do this depends a bit on the couple and it would make this article a little bit too long, so I’ll talk about this in a next article.

Next time you are shooting a couple give it a try, see what works for you and let me know how it went !

Pieter Van Impe

It may come as a complete surprise to you but I sometimes make pictures without using a flash. In fact, I do this quite often. Just before we gave our new house a complete make-over, we went to shoot there for a short shoot with professional model Sylviane. We had less than an hour to shoot the pictures and the video. That includes: a guided tour in the house, chatting and two wardrobe changes.
But for me (and probably most of you) this is the kind of situation that happens pretty often and then it’s back to basics to get some decent shots.

VIDEO

Quick Available Light Portraits by Bert Stephani from SqueezeTheLime.com on Vimeo.

In case you can’t play the video, you can also see it on YouTube.

For a better version of the pics, check the Flickr slideshow below.

This was the second time I worked with Sylviane, and the second time we had to do a short improvised shoot. I would really love to do a bigger shoot with her one day, any ideas?

This is Episode 4 of LIME’s Happy Hour. As always we hope you enjoy it and we are hoping to get lot’s of feedback from all of you using the comments or by sending us an e-mail.

In this Episode :

• General introduction
• What’s up with LIME ? What have we been doing the past week & what have got in store for you in the near future ? This is where you’ll find out !
• Dear LIME In this section Bert & Pieter will be answering your questions. Got a question ? Please send it to us @ dearlime@squeezethelime.com
  We’ll talk about how we think about the importance of having an “official” degree in photography, if we take each shot only once or if it takes more than one try, when you can use your fish eye lens, how to get over being too self conscious when shooting in public locations and how to make sure your non-professional model shows up.
• The feature segment Every week we will be talking about one specific subject. This time we talk about keeping your photography & motivation fresh.

You can listen to this podcast by using the player below or download it as an mp3 (right click/Save As).

The chair of a successful photographer has four legs. You may be able to sit on a chair with just one leg but it won’t take long before you fall over. A second leg might buy you a little extra time on the chair but you will fall. It’s possible to sit on a three legged chair for the duration of a career but it won’t be a comfortable one. So you need a chair with four solid legs if you want to make it as a pro shooter. After talking about QUALITY, SERVICE and BUSINESS in the previous articles, we’ll devote this final leg of the chair to VISION.

It’s time to strap your jet pack to your back, start the engine and take off because you need  a birds view to take a look at your career, your photography and your life. Having a long term vision makes dealing with every day decision making surprisingly easy. Things that may have seemed complicated problems become just little annoyances once you’ve developed your vision.

I believe you should have two kinds of long term vision. The first is your LIFESTYLE VISION. Try to picture yourself at different ages. What kind of life would you want to lead by then? Where would you live? What kind of futuristic hovering car would you fly? What kind of values do you hope your kids will have learned from you? … Just imagine what you would do in an day or week.
This exercise is not in the first place about money, but it will give you a good idea of what you have to earn to live the life of your dreams.

The second long term overview you’ll need to find for yourself is CREATIVE VISION. What does photography mean to you? Is it about creating an ideal world or is it about shaking up the world with the raw truth? Is it about capturing romance or is it about documenting rare poisoned frogs with five legs? You’ll get my point and if you take a good look at your own favorite pictures, you’ll probably find your vision.
Creative vision is not the same as style. Style will be a result of your creative vision, but you could use different styles within the same creative vision.

It’s not like these visions have to be left unchanged for the length of your career. If you are anything like me these visions will shift, evolve and sometimes dramatically change over time. And I think there is nothing wrong with that. To me my VISION is not so much a goal, it rather is my reference point that helps me answer most of my business related questions in a certain point of time.

What camera should I buy? That’s a question that is responsible for countless sleepless nights for photographers all over the world. Although the answer is often simple when you ask yourself this question: “which camera helps me the best to exercise my creative vision?” Off-course money comes in to play too, but by asking the same question for all your gear you will set your priorities straight. Often you will find out that the gear you really need is often surprisingly within reach is you get only the stuff you need for your creative vision.

Another such question is: “What price should I set for this assignment?”. Your creative vision will tell you what your cost of doing business is. Your lifestyle vision will dictate how much you need to make to live the lifestyle you want. This makes it easy to set your minimum price and will make it easier to say no to clients who are just trying to take advantage of you.

Your creative and lifestyle vision should be the center of your business. All the rest should be build around it. Will you be able to shoot the stuff you believe in and at the same time live the life of your dreams? Well that depends mostly on how well you do with the three other legs of your chair.

I hope you enjoyed this series of articles. I don’t claim to be a business guru, but I know this worked for me and will work even better the day I get the legs attached more firmly to my chair.

Bert Stephani

The last few weeks have been way too busy for the LIME team, so we were extremely happy that we didn’t have to produce a video ourselves this time. Instead we got a great behind-the-scenes look on a shoot by one of our best friends in the business. Tom Museeuw is an incredible photographer who specializes in kids en teen fashion photography. The best thing is that Tom is going to do a workshop about shooting kids and teens for LIME. Check out the workshop here.

LIME003 - Tom shoots teens on location from Lime Photography on Vimeo.

In case you can’t play the video, you can also see it on YouTube.

For a better version of the pics, check the Flickr slideshow below.

This is Episode 3 of LIME’s Happy Hour and the very first one for 2009, as always we hope you enjoy it and we are hoping to get lot’s of feedback from all of you using the comments or by sending us an e-mail.

In this Episode :

• General introduction
• What’s up with LIME ?What have we been doing the past week & what have got in store for you in the near future ? This is where you’ll find out !
• Dear LIMEIn this section Bert & Pieter will be answering your questions. Got a question ? Please send it to us @ dearlime@squeezethelime.com
  We’ll talk about how we use the AF points on our cameras, how to decide between a 50D or a 5D, using stock photography as an extra income, working with models & clients while on a shoot and scouting locations, .
• The feature segmentEvery week we will be talking about one specific subject. This time we talk about the importance of backup gear, or even better, redundant gear.

You can listen to this podcast by using the player below or download it as an mp3 (right click/Save As)) or m4a (iPod/iTunes/Apple) (right click / Save link as).

The chair of a successful photographer has four legs. You may be able to sit on a chair with just one leg but it won’t take long before you fall over. A second leg might buy you a little extra time on the chair but you will fall. It’s possible to sit on a three legged chair for the duration of a career but it won’t be a comfortable one. So you need a chair with four solid legs if you want to make it as a pro shooter. In the first article we talked about QUALITY and in the second one we focused on SERVICE. In this third part we’ll talk about what most photographers struggle with most: BEING A BUSINESS PERSON.

Let’s face it, we want to be creative artists, not boring businessmen. We want to talk numbers as long as it’s shutterspeeds, f-stops and iso ratings, not profit margins or tax percentages. We want to brainstorm about our first book project, not about marketing our services. Well, it’s time to wake up. If you want to have a good photography business, you’ll have to be a good photographer as well as a business person. Even if you can afford to pay someone to crush the numbers for you, you’ll have to know about that stuff too unless you want to end up with a bankruptcy and a wealthy former assistant.

If you are serious about making a good and long term living out of photography, the place to start is to make a business plan. This is a task that I’ve kept putting ahead of me for a while too when I just got started. But then the moment came that I needed to invest in equipment that I couldn’t pay for at that time. I was lucky that my parents wanted to loan me some money but they needed to be sure that I was serious about this photography thing. Sure, I could have smart talked them into it without too much trouble but I decided that this was a good time to finally make this business plan.
It’s beyond the scope of this series of articles to tell you how to make a business plan but there’s plenty of information on this subject out there. I found free software that helps you getting the right numbers and calculate the outcomes on my bank’s website and on the site of an organization that stimulates starting entrepreneurs. I’m pretty sure, there’s something similar in your area. Speak your plan through with experts (accountant, bank manager).
A biz plan doesn’t have to be about numbers only. Add your marketing strategies, long term goals and predictions to it too. This whole document will be your roadmap and every decision you make should be based on what’s in the plan. It will make you work harder when you haven’t reached your target for the month yet, it will stop you from buying gear that you don’t really need and it be very rewarding when your reach your goal.
Don’t be afraid to go off the track on your roadmap but don’t do it in an impulse. Tweak, change and adapt your business plan when you feel you need to but keep in mind that any change will change the other numbers too.

Business is not something that you do for half a day every six months. There’s the everyday practical stuff, like invoices, taxes, … But I also try to spend at least a few hours a week on just thinking about the business. Thinking of new services, products, investments can be done while waiting for a client to show up or when you are stuck in traffic. Just make sure you can write down your ideas. I usually am too busy to act upon those new ideas immediately but when you have written them down you can review them when you have time for it.

I get lots of questions about how to price a certain assignment and like many other photographer I have felt the need to drop a horse’s head into the beds of those guys who are ruining the business by charging ridiculously low prices. But pricing isn’t a difficult thing at all if you have done your business plan. If you know your costs, figured out how many hours a week you want/can work on actual paying assignments and know how much you want to earn, you can simply calculate the minimum amount of money you have to charge for an hour of work. You don’t have to bill for time, you can also charge per picture or per assignment but by calculating the time you’ll need to make that one picture or assignment you know how much to charge minimally for it. You may charge more than what’s required to keep you afloat, I hope you can. But you should NEVER EVER charge less. If you do, you are cheating on yourself, you are even robbing yourself. If you feel like doing something pro bono, you can, but not in the time you set aside for yourself to make money.

The last important part of being a business person is to make sure you can fill up your shooting time with assignments from clients who want to pay you enough money to live comfortably of your photography. And that’s where MARKETING comes in. Marketing is making sure that the right people know what you do and are convinced that you can provide the services or products that they want at a competitive price. When done wrong it can costs you lots of money and still be ineffective but the good news is that with some clever thinking it can be done effectively on a shoestring too. Knowing your market is key in defining your marketing strategy. Don’t put all your money on one horse but make sure you have what’s called a marketing mix. Use your creativity and you can go a long way.

Being a business person is still the weak spot in my business. But slowly I’m starting to learn something from hitting many walls with my head. I still (and always will) hate paperwork, quotes, … but once you start understanding the principles of doing business, it can become even interesting and fun (in a very twisted nerdy way).

Bert Stephani

It’s the second week in the existence of LIME and time for our second video. Video can be a really powerful tool to educate and get inspired so we are going to produce lots of video’s on different topics for you.

In this second video for LIME I’m going to take you on a shoot with Bert’s favorite model Erika in an abandoned factory. In yesterday’s podcast we talked about the pro’s of being a jack-of-all-trades. As a wedding photographer shooting models is something I rarely do, so this was a chance to get out of my comfort zone, experiment, improve my skills and thus grow into a better photographer overall. I prefer using available light, so I don’t use off-camera flash very often. I hope this movie can get those of you who are affraid to try off-camera flash in the mood to just push yourself one step further and just do it. I did it, as you can see in the movie below, so why not give it a try yourself ?

I’m very much looking forward to your comments !

Pieter shoots Erika on Location from SqueezeTheLime.com on Vimeo.

In case you can’t play the video, you can also see it on YouTube.

For a better version of the pics, check the Flickr slideshow below.