Monthly Archives: July 2012

Engagement Photos

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These are the first engagement photos I have taken. When I woke up that morning, I could hear the rain coming down, and I was afraid we would have to cancel the shoot. Luckily, the couple decided they were up for shooting in the rain, and we made the best of it. I found a tunnel where we could stay dry. I worked with that for a bit, then decided to try something else. I had seen images online where a speedlight was placed inside a photography umbrella, and the umbrella was used as a prop in the shot. I wanted to try back-lighting the rain to make it show up in the picture, so I put my speedlight on a stand directly behind the couple. Then I pointed it up into the umbrella to light their faces. After that the rain let up, so we tried a few other locations. I like how the shots turned out, and I’m glad they decided to brave the rain.

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Senior Portraits

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Here are some senior portraits I shot last weekend. Even though it was a sunny day, I stayed in the shade, and used my Westcott Apollo Orb for light. I had my 580EX II inside the softbox. I always like the nice, soft light I get this way. It’s much better than contrasty, late morning sun. It also allows me to underexpose the background a little for deep, rich colors and a sense of depth in the photo.
I converted some of them to a high contrast black and white inside Lightroom.

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Another YouTube Video

Some more of my work below…

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Content Marketing How-To Video

A video I created about how to refinish a deck.

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The Benefits of Publishing Regularly On YouTube

I recently started helping to develop a YouTube channel that has been around since 2010. I joined the team that creates content for the channel, and have been sharing some of my ideas to improve our efforts. One of the things we started to do right away was create an editorial calendar with the goal of publishing one video per week.

It’s no secret that publishing regularly will help the performance of a channel. This is one of the first, and most frequently appearing pieces of advice I have encountered while studying up on YouTube. What I did find surprising, however, is that our publishing frequency appears to be helping our overall views in a very specific way.

Video views via YouTube’s suggested video feature have risen dramatically. It almost seems like YouTube is rewarding us for publishing frequently by recommending content from our channel. And it’s not just the fresh content that is getting recommended. Videos that are over a year old, and that have almost never been viewed as a YouTube suggested video before, are suddenly getting tons of views this way.

There are lots of theories on the web about how to optimize your channel for YouTube’s algorithms. I’ve read many of them, but I have yet to see where anyone else attributes publishing frequency to how often your videos get suggested. Based on the dates that this sudden rise of views occurred, I can’t think of anything else that would have caused it.

If you are trying to build views on a YouTube channel, then I’m sure you already know to publish on frequent, regular intervals. But if you’re not doing it yet, make it a priority, and keep an eye on your YouTube Analytics. I’d be willing to bet the traffic from YouTube suggested videos gets a nice bump.

For all kinds of other tips straight from YouTube, download the Creator Playbook at http://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/playbook.html.

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