livebooks blog

In today’s world we are rarely ever found without our cell phones within arm’s reach. It seems our devices have become an extension of ourselves in every possible way – relying on them for even the most basic of functions. While many things we do on our phones can be frivolous and unnecessary, there are actually a lot of ways in which they enhance and make our lives easier. We’ve compiled a list of must-have apps specifically for photographers – to make your lives easier and your businesses run smoother.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE)

The Photographer’s Ephemeris is incredibly valuable for natural light shooters and landscape photographers. The app uses your current location ( or prospective shooting spot) to tell you the heading and angle of the moon, the hours of twilight, the size of shadows, upcoming celestial events, golden hour times, and more. This app also has a “visual search” feature which will tell you the exact date and time the sun and moon will be in a specific location in the sky for a given shooting spot.

$8.99 – iOS

$4.99 – Google Play

Easy Release

If you’re a street photographer or work with a lot of models, Easy Release is the perfect on-the-go app for you. With Easy Release, you can set up a custom release form (or multiple ones for different situations, depending on the type of work you do) that can be signed using a finger. This will instantly generate a PDF document that you can email to everyone that require a copy of the release. Bonus: major image houses like Getty and iStockPhoto approve of its use. However, we always encourage you to consult a lawyer on any legal matter to make sure your releases and contracts are legally binding.

$9.99 – iOS

$9.99 – Google Play

Instagram

We know, we know. Instagram isn’t necessarily an app just for photographers. However, we think it’s important and beneficial enough for your photography business that we had to include it here. Instagram is a way to showcase your amazing photography with the world – literally. Utilizing hashtags correctly can result in thousands of new followers and tons of engagement with your work – which can all lead to increased business and name recognition. Plus, by following other photographers or hashtags that are interesting or relevant to your business, you could learn new things, become inspired to try a new type of shot, and even network with people around the world. We could go on and on about the importance of this app, especially for newer photographers looking to establish themselves, but we urge you to check it out for yourself. Already have an Instagram account? Follow ours – @liveBookswebsites – so we can follow you back and #regram your best pics!

Free – iOS

Free – Google Play

iWatermark

With the increase in photo sharing on social media, there is a higher risk that someone might be able to steal your work. However, we believe that the benefits of sharing on social media gar outweigh the potential risks, and with apps like iWatermark you can further protect yourself. This app gives you the ability to add your logo to images before you post them. You can either water with text or imagery (like your logo) and save the photo back to your camera roll or share it directly to social media from the app.

$1.99 – iOS

$1.99 – Google Play

Photographer’s Tools

Photographer’s Tools provides easy access to some of photography’s most commonly used properties. This app includes a depth of field calculator, sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset times, twilight, blue, and holden hour windows, plus an ND filter calculator for determining how much to compensate an exposure. We also really love the clean, uncluttered format that the app presents everything so that you can quickly access what you need and get back to what you really want to be doing: shooting.

Free – iOS

Free – Google Play

Wireless Mobile Utility

This app creates a two-way wireless connection between Nikon cameras and iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. This means that pictures taken with the camera can be downloaded to any iOS device, and the camera can be controlled remotely, using the iOS device. Plus, the photo sharing feature makes it super easy to upload pictures to social media sites and attach them to email messages.

Free – iOS

DropBox

We think any cloud storage app is always a great idea (long gone are the days of crashed hard drives and losing all of your work!) DropBox is our favorite because it lets you access all of your photos, documents, and videos from anywhere and share them easily. Plus, you can access any file you save to DropBox on any of your devices, computer, phone, tablet, etc.

Free – iOS

Free- Google Play

What are some of your favorite photography apps that you just can’t live without? Let us know in the comments below or feel free to email us at social@livebooks.com.

We are thrilled to have just wrapped up our first ever Instagram contest – we absolutely loved seeing all of the amazing photos! We wanted to share with you the winning snaps (the decision was incredibly difficult!)

This photo by Stephane Malassine is absolutely gorgeous – it makes us feel tranquil and relaxed, and the colors are so incredibly vibrant! Check out more of his work at his website: www.malassine.com and on Instagram: @s.malassine

We are mesmerized by this pic from Greg Anthon – the colors, the way he expertly captures a wave at its peak, and the clean lines. See more of his unique style on Instagram: @greganthon.

Our third winner is this breathtaking snap by Jamie Chan in Bali, Indonesia. Check her out at www.jamiecphotos.com and on Instagram: @jamiecphotos.

Stay tuned for our next Instagram contest – and thanks to all those that participated!

Guest blogger Manuela Marin Salcedo is a research and development team leader at Momenta Workshops. Her expertise is in visual communications and social media. In addition to her work for Momenta, Manuela is working on long-term, independent multimedia projects.

Unless you are a social media manager with experience engaging virtual audiences, social media as a promotional tool for your photography business can be intimidating and exhausting to manage. While it can also be a social and fun experience, keeping up with all your feeds takes maintenance. Therefore, the team at Momenta Workshops has put together a short list of tips and tricks to help you re-evaluate and invigorate your social media feeds to further your photo business strategy.

Develop Social Media Goals

Whether you are new to social media pages or a seasoned pro in need of a social media boost in creativity, it is important to plan and evaluate your social media outreach. If social media success by way of increased follower engagement is your destination, you’re going to need a road map to success. Consider the following as you create your goals:

• How is social media important to your company?
• How does social media relate to your goals?
• How are you using social media as a voice of your brand?
• Are more followers the goal or better dialogue with current followers?
• Do you use all your feeds equally? If you’re neglecting one, do you need it?

The answers to these important questions will give you direction, and that will be essential in creating a new strategy or refreshing an old one.

Add to the Story

Taking the above tips into consideration, with every post you put your valuable time into, ask yourself:

• What am I saying?
• Did I just say the same thing with a previous post?
• Am I adding to my brand’s story?
• Is this post encouraging people to follow me or just adding content?
• Would *I* want to follow posts like the ones I’m sending?

If you are bombarding your audience with the same perspective or information multiple times in a short span of time, you could become irritating.

Live-Post From Events

Are you attending a film festival this weekend? Did you recently attend a gallery opening? What about a lecture? Were they interesting, exciting, mind-blowing? Talk about it! Share content from it, such as favorite quotes or photos. Chances are, others who attended these events have social media accounts and will be talking about it too and your posts can add to the dialogue and give you lots of exposure to new people. If the event has a specific hashtag, make sure to use it. This will make your posts visible on a grander scale and allow you to interact with brands and individuals.

Interact With Your Followers

Think of your social media as an invitation for followers to interact and engage with you and your portfolio. Your posts initiate a dialogue. When followers respond, don’t leave them hanging. Turn those replies into a conversation; your followers will be more likely to chime in with their two cents in the future.

Get Visual!

As visual creators, you’re in luck. Research and analytics show adding images to your social media posts can increase click-through rates anywhere from 18%-27%. What does this mean exactly? People love pretty pictures! So let it rip and share your greatest asset: your beautiful images!

What are some other tips that you’ve employed to invigorate your social media channels? Let us know in the comments!

Hopefully by now you all know about the importance of social media for the success of your business. At this stage in the social game, Facebook and Twitter should be old hat. But what about some of the newer platforms that are quickly becoming more popular – even surpassing – some of the old favorites? Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr are the networks to watch in 2015 – and the good news for all you creative professionals – all of these platforms are dominated by photo and video content.

Instagram – With 300 million monthly active users and Citigroup just raising the valuation of the network from $19 billion to $35 billion, Instagram has officially surpassed Twitter. With a number of recent updates to the app, such as looping videos, like its main competitor, Vine, does, Instagram has made some huge strides in overall user experience. Instagram also just released a whole slew of new photo editing tools – from creative tools, to brand new filter choices – making it the ideal space for creative professionals to share their photos. If you aren’t on Instagram already, this should be the first social network that you check out ASAP so you can connect with customers, showcase your work, and develop your brand. (Also, make sure to follow @liveBookswebsites!)

Pinterest – With another round of funding, Pinterest is rumored to now be valued at $11 billion with an 111% growth in active users in the past six months. Pinterest has also been making some pretty significant updates to its platform – a smarter search tool called Guided Search that allows a user to filter their searches by adding specific filters relevant to the original search term. Plus, much like Instagram’s Direct feature, Pinterest also recently released the ability for users to have private conversations about specific pins. Since up to 80% of all pins on Pinterest are repins – this is a huge opportunity for photographers to organically “pin” their own content with a high likelihood that it will be re-pinned by the Pinterest community. Everyone – from agency’s (for commercial/editorial work) to consumers (for portraits and weddings) are searching photos on Pinterest. This is a great platform to showcase your work and get noticed – and don’t forget to #hashtag!

Tumblr – While Tumblr has actually been around since 2007, because of some updates and a refreshed interface, its active users grew by 120% in the past six months. To put this all in perspective, Facebook’s active users grew by just 2% in the past six months.  And while Tumblr is mostly known as a microblogging platform, the reason to be on Tumblr is its highly engaged community. Posts are shared, reblogged, liked, and commented on with great frequency, and it has become known as the “Twitterized version of WordPress.”  While you can share and post pretty much any content you want, from text, photos, quotes, links, chat, audio, and video, unsurprisingly in this day and age, the most shared and liked content is photos. Since 83% of Tumblr posts are photos, and most users do not create their own content, adding your original photos to the content pool will set you apart in the Tumblr world. Check out Harrison Jacobs “7 Tumblr Tips for Photographers” for some really great info on how to best utilize this platform for your business.

I think we all know that social media is here for the long haul, and the good news is that it’s a great opportunity to show off your creativity and add meaningful content to the conversation. Take advantage of all of these free ways to get your brand out there – because it will be imperative for the future of your business.