Hello everyone! Finally, a new informative post! lol
As mentioned in the previous post, I am starting a new format for Marketing Finds! Each month, I will focus on one specific avenue of marketing your product/business instead of mixing it up completely every week. so for this month, I’m focusing on photography! Fun!
A little background:
I love taking pictures. Just love it. I’ve been taking pictures since I was 13 when my friend gave me my first 35mm camera and a photo album. I love to capture moments and expressions that people can look back at and say “aww, I remember that!” or “oh, why did I look like that!” It’s just fun for me 
After college, I took up a job at The Picture People and I learned so much – lighting, angles, head shots, group shots and more. I used a SLR camera and had lots of fun with it. Post-Picture People, I use a regular point-and-shoot Sony Cybershot to take these shots (which is being sold over at niecynotes):
Pretty nice, huh?
So how does photography relate to marketing? To sell anything online, you need good pics. Maybe even great pics. the better the picture, the more credible you look. the more credible, the more positive feedback from customers/consumers/readers. You don’t need a fancy-schmancy camera to take nice pictures. But you do need the following:
* Great lighting – Natural sunlight is best, but if there’s no sufficient light, try using halogen lights (like those little lights from Ikea). Nicole from Making It Lovely, gives us this nice tutorial about product photography and lighting.
* Great angles – Have fun with moving your camera (and body even) by taking photos on an angle, from below looking up, from the side or from the top looking down. You can also utilize the zoom-in/zoom-out buttons to feature a detail in a product.
* Great photo software – of course, Photoshop is the top option. But if you can’t afford it or have run out of free trials for it, try out Paint.Net or Gimp. they are free alternatives to Photoshop and have similar features. or if you have a Google account, try Picasa on your desktop. all of these software programs enhances your picture – whether to lighten up dark spots, adjust the hue and saturation and much more (I’ll explain what those are in the future posts). the main thing about using these programs is to enhance and not replace. You don’t want to spend more time adjusting your picture; rather, you should spend time photographing the picture as best as possible.
* Lots of patience: if you feel the pictures aren’t coming out the way you want them to, it’s ok. You are learning and it does take lots of practice to get them right. Don’t beat yourself (or camera, or computer) up!
That’s it for now. Stay tuned next week for Marketing Finds! – Photo 102…