My first interview! Joy Bianchi Brown graced with me a spot on Jules Cafe!

Jules Cafe is operated by Joy Bianchi and Jules Bianchi – awesome photographers and lovely sisters! Jules Cafe interviews various photographers on many topics. My interview was on Learn – Grow – Share.

These were my questions:

LEARN: What’s something that you feel like you’d like to learn more about, something you are continually learning?

What is something that you wish someone would have told you before you had to learn it the hard way?

GROW: How have you grown in the past five years in your business, in your own personal quest for growth, in your awareness of the world around you? How would you recommend others grow-do you have a favorite marketing tip,workshop suggestion, or convention to attend?

SHARE: How do you feel that you contribute to the industry? What is something you would like to share with your follow colleagues? How can they turn around and do the same for others? Favorite charitable contribution?

Read my responses here!

Best,

Lawrence Chan

P.S. Coffee break time… My favorite is Iced Americano (which is made completely different in Europe).

Hello everyone,

As you might know, I am leaving for Europe for six weeks. If it piques your interest, read the following article for all of the countries I am visiting! I will try to tweet / post here and there, but know that I undergo great lengths to find a cyber cafe to say “hello!”

subscribe | follow @tofurious

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Did you know that Tofurious started a WordPress blog in February 2009?

I am not saying that I am an expert blogger, but I’ve learned a thing or two over the years. And most of my knowledge was acquired by observing successful bloggers (especially those within our own photography industry). So the first step toward becoming an effective blogger is to…

Observe Successful Bloggers

I use the word “successful” loosely, but what I really mean is “effective” [bloggers]. Just like photography, we study images that “work” and with time create our own styles. I will be listing a number of blogs that I have learned from, but it does not limit them to only that trait.

Interview Someone

When I think of interviews, I immediately think of Jules Bianchi’s Cafe; interviews by her lovely sister Joy – @joybianchibrown. Using the informality of coffee breaks, Jules interviews various industry leaders at Jules Cafe.

What does this establish?

• It creates a relationship between the interviewer and interviewee
• The interviewee will promote said interview, thus promoting the interviewer
• Creates community

This is a good way for both parties to promote each other. Additionally, the interview will provide good content for readers, which is sort of the point. So…try to get interviewed, or interview someone (like me)! No one has interviewed me yet and it makes me sad.

Twitter

If you do not have twitter, go to www.twitter.com and register for an account. After that, follow @tofurious (that’s me) hehe!

Zack Arias @zarias recently wrote an interesting article about Twitter and “Six Degrees” of separation.

…helped the photography industry build community. Both virtual and real. Twitter is a key to my marketing plans over the next year but beyond that, it keeps me in touch with so many people that I would normally fall out of touch with due to time or distance. Not to mention how many new friends I have thanks to social networking.

In a nutshell, Twitter allows for a number of things, but not limited to what’s listed below:

• Follow activities of people through an instant feed of 140 characters
• You can connect with others
• Others can connect with you
• Spreading of ideas through #, RT, etc.

Less Is More

Jose Villa is the epitome of “less.” I was given the great pleasure of designing his new blog (not public yet) recently and his ideas truly inspired me. As a search engine specialist, I kept pushing for certain elements for his blog, but Jose dimissed them all. And I admire him for that.

So how does this apply to us photographers? Vu Bui once told me over breakfast that he discourages people to post more than 10 images on their blogs.

Vu preached that everyone has the same images over and over again. So rather than creating the same sink hole of bandwidth-sucking blog posts, post only 10 images that would knock the socks off of viewers. After that, post your 100+ images in a slideshow or something.

Jose uses minimalism in his photography artwork. He is, after all, one of the “Top 10 Wedding Photographers” in the world, so he is doing something right.

Transparency

I once asked Aaron Dieppa about something in his personal life, which I read on his website. “It’s something private, but it’s cool that you shared it.”

“Yeah, I believe in transparency. I want my clients to know me for me,” responded Aaron.

I had this similar conversation with [B]ecker and his poker aspirations. He and Jessica Claire are the only two people I know that post publicly their love for poker on their business websites.

Does this help / harm them? It’s relative. However, I believe that it helps them more than anything. By posting about one’s personal life, viewers can get to know the blogger on a personal level.

How does this apply to photographers? Brides have booked me [and the aforementioned] to shoot various weddings without even meeting in person. Great, isn’t it? Brides do this because they already have this informal / personal relationship with us. Before they even email or call us, they already have a good feeling how we operate as professionals and as regular individuals.

Take away the occupational titles, we are just humans. And humans like
to connect with other humans. We build bridges through common grounds, so express them!

Consistency

Have you ever read a blog post by Jasmine Star? She is one of the most eloquent writers I know [of]. (I hope to change “know of” to just “know” because I hear she is a fabulous person). All of Jasmine’s articles are like tiny excerpts of her clients’s lives.

Rather than telling a story only with pictures, Jasmine precedes it with a text-based story. And she consistently delivers every time!

So how does this apply? If you are consistent with a certain style, readers will expect it over time. However, I am not saying that you should not try new things. Just imagine cooking… Always bake your delicious cookies at the same temperature, but try throwing in raisins or chocolate chips to spice things up!

Cheers,

Lawrence

P.S. Transparency: I tried getting a pedicure for the first time on Wednesday. I liked it! I even got my eyebrows waxed. I liked that too! I think I will be visiting this one salon quite often now. By chance, you might bump into me

Honey Nail Spa – they ROCK

626-844-7299

563 S. Lake Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91101

Greetings,

subscribe | follow @tofurious

Thank you everyone who could make it out! We had local photographers from Orange County to super cool ones from far away – San Francisco, San Jose, San Antonio(Texas).

Due to overwhelming interest, the beginner’s workshop sold out in a few hours. Intermediate and advanced ones coming in the near future. They will be much smaller than this one because of the technical aspects of learning creative lighting.

Beginners – 3 hours

• Understand what equipment to use
• Get a feel of the difference between studio strobes and mobile lighting kits
• Locate sources of ambient light and how to angle / compensate for them

Goal: Student will be able to setup a 2-3 point lighting scenario and properly calibrate for subjects

Intermediate – 5 hours

• Learn how to frame an image effectively
• Use of harsh / creative shadows
• Understand how to reflect or deflect light
• Play with ring lights, barn doors, honeycombs, grids, etc.

Goal: Student will be able to use creative lighting setups and calibrate for virtually any scenario in a matter of a few minutes

Advanced – 5 hours

• Must have strong grasp of lighting
• Use of snoots for pin-point lighting
• Advanced level post production
• Learn how to fashionably pose subjects

Goal: Student will be able to book badass gigs based on flippin’ sweet lighting setups

Models Information

Need a model or makeup artist? In fact, they can even do their own makeup and hair so it saves you the trouble!

Tracie Cotta – model / makeup artist

http://traciecotta.com

http://modelmayhem.com/ivebeenshot

traciecotta@gmail.com
@traciecotta

Kyuri – model

http://www.modelmayhem.com/880296

headcase.kyur@gmail.com

Some Student Work

The first image (my fave) is by Jenny Liu Photography (Orange County photographer)

All images taken at Ritz Carlton (Laguna Niguel) after marketing workshop

Cheers,

Lawrence

P.S. You all ROCKED! Just too bad, I did not take any pictures myself boo…