There’s a quite a bit that you can do in there so I’ll go over some of that now.

When you first head over there, you’ll be able to view all of the posts and discussions, but not able to actually participate until you register. Registration is completely free and literally takes about 10 sec. After that, you can sign in with facebook, twitter, or the e-mail that you registered with. (Don’t worry, I’ll never sell or distribute your info. The world already has enough spam.)

There’s plenty of categories on there already for you to start discussions in and if you ever think that there should be a different one, just let me know I’ll see what I can do.

You’ll also see some stats about each discussion including the options to vote for or to follow a particular topic. The voting doesn’t really affect anything but will just help show the popularity of posts. If you want to vote for a particular post, just click “vote” and watch the tally increase by one. When you follow a post, you’ll receive notifications (if you have it set up in your preferences) when there’s updates to that discussion.

I’ve made it pretty easy to get to know the other members of the community as well. Everyone will have their own profile page which includes some Basic information and a little more information about interests if you’d like to add. You’ll also have your own profile photo with an adjustable thumbnail image.

You’ll be able to keep track of posts that you make and receive notifications about certain things that you can determine inside of your profile such as when people reply to your topics or post on your wall. Yes, you also have a wall where people can send you comments.

There’s also the option of updating your status. The status will display on your personal profile as well as the Activity tab. The activity tab is basically a news feed for the community.

Basically, I don’t want the typical forum atmosphere but an actual social networking community where we can all have our own little space and grow together as photographers.

Head over there today and join in the conversations!

There are a ton of different aspects that affect your style as a photographer. One was is how you compose your images. Do you zoom in tight or prefer the wide angle? Do you use natural light or prefer the control of studio lighting? In reference to posing, do you have a strict set of poses or instead leave your subjects free to interact and just capture them naturally?

Maybe it’s a combination of the above. I know that I love the wide angle but still value my zoom lens and will take a sinking sunset over a of couple alien bees any day. While my style is constantly evolving and redeveloping itself, I feel like I have control over its direction and I know where I want to end up. It wasn’t an easy road by any means but it’s the struggle that makes you stronger and when looking back at where I started to where I am today it’s pretty clear that there was a lot of struggle.

I started out in photography like many have been doing lately. With a Canon rebel and a kit lens. I stayed away from really calling myself a professional before upgrading all of my gear, but it was with that rebel and kit lens that I began developing my style which greatly affected the work that I now  produce.

There is a lot that goes into developing a style, but the most important are time and consistency. No one starts out from the beginning with their “dream” style. It takes a lot of trial and error and thus time.

As you continue on as a photographer you learn new things about your camera and image composition and how to handle certain situations. You adapt to changes in the industry and situations that may arise. You grow in experience and understanding of your limitations (limitations are always only temporary though.) As you learn, adapt, and grow, your style will adapt and grow with you. Your style is never settled and if you ever feel that it has, it’s time to make some changes.

It may seem a little counter-intuitive after my previous point, but consistency also plays a huge role in your style. I do not mean literally doing the same thing over and over again. I mean providing a consistently high quality service to your clients and a consistently positive experience for your clients. Referrals, especially in the photography industry, are an extremely important aspect to your business. If one extremely pleased client refers you to a friend by saying that you were the most relaxed and calm photographer ever, then the friend comes to you and you’re suddenly extremely high energy and intense. How do you think that your new client is going to feel when they chose you based on a referral on your style of client interaction and you deliver the opposite?

Making huge changes – even if the change is for the better in your opinion – may actually hurt your business.

If you feel that you want to make some changes in your business, composition, editing or really anything related to your style, taking a slower approach might be best. It’s seen all too often, especially with newer photographers overwhelmed with all the different things that Photoshop, Lightroom, actions and presets can do. Their post processing techniques are all over the place. There’ll be everything from ultra high contrast grunge looks to extremely faded glowy edits. There’s no consistency in their processing and it makes me take a moment and wonder who they’re trying to market to.

I admit, I was there once. Being an inexperienced and a “shoot first, aim later” photographer, I had no idea how I wanted the photos to turn out in the end. I went out and purchased nearly every action and preset that I could find thinking that there has to a one-click-to-awesome effect somewhere. I was wrong and not only did I pay the price monetarily, but my development as a photographer was also hurt. I rushed in too fast and never stopped to take a breath. Sure, one reason was because I passionate and in love with the art form, but if I had just taken a moment and really looked at where I was at the time and where I wanted to be in the future, I could have saved myself a lot of frustration and time.

Here’s a couple photos that I showed the client from the very first senior session I shot. Notice the extreme inconsistency in their processing. Sure, now I’m embarrassed and kick myself for doing it, but it I’ve learned from that experience.

Some people will argue that it’s in those mistakes that you really learn. Well, I’ll agree with that. I did learn a lot. I also wasted a lot. Mistakes are keenly different from accidents. Formatting a memory card at a wedding then realizing that it contained all of the photos from that morning is an accident. Formatting that memory card knowing that those photos are on there is a mistake. I made many mistakes that could have been avoided had I slowed down and tried to learn from my current situation and grow from it.

With an industry that’s becoming more and more crowded everyday, you have to have something that sets you apart from the competition. It may be how you interact with clients, the way that you maintain contact with clients after their session is over or, probably the most obvious, how you process photos. (Since most people are using the internet and your website to find you, having consistent and great post processing is pretty important.) No matter how you choose to set yourself apart, it’s part of your style – who you are – and that’s what clients come to you for. Stay consistent but never stop growing.

A couple unofficial rules to sign off with: don’t try to set yourself apart with price – that’s what the department stores are for; and never, ever, ever go with selective color. Really.

Well it’s happened. Change is here and I think it’s for the better. The overall look of the site is much improved, navigation is cleaner, and the editing tools are better than ever. Photo Flavors is going to operate a little differently from now and I think it’ll be better for everyone. You’ll notice there’s no more pages just for actions, presets, recipes or samples and instead are replaced with education and effects pages.

The education link comes right after the home page because I want education and helping photographers with more than just their editing to take a prominent role on this site. Over the coming weeks, I have an indepth series on Lightroom planned that I think will answer a lot of questions that some of you may have about the program. I’ll be covering pretty much everything from importing photos through creating your own presets without using Lightroom. If you have any questions about Lightroom that you want to make sure that I cover, just send me and e-mail and I’ll do my best to help you out.

There’s also a BIG reason why the Actions and Presets links have been replaced with the universal Effects page. That’s because I’ve decided not to offer actions and presets as individual products but instead to offer small editing sets that are created with a distinct editing style in mind. The sets may contain actions, presets, textures, or a combination. Not only with the sets be smaller in size and more refined in style and quality, they’ll be extremely limited in the amount that are sold. There’ll be editions between 50 and 1,500 and that’ll help make sure that your look and style stays unique to you. Once each edition is sold out, those effects will never be sold again.

Change has come and it feels like a good fit. There’s still a few more things to finish up but over the next week or so, I’ll be posting some more information about the effects, maybe a video or two for the Lightroom series, and hopefully do a complete release of the first few kinds of effects sets that are going to be offered.

Take a look around, get comfortable, and welcome to the new PhotoFlavors.com.

I’m still as devoted as ever to making awesome products at affordable prices – just going to try to help photographers maintain a unique look that can set them apart from the competition. I do not want to give away all of the details now but stay tuned for updates. I’m pretty excited about all of this and I think that you will be too.

A common pitfall that many people fall into by doing link exchanges is that they don’t have relevant links coming in. Some photographer sites might have links shared with auto dealerships, video game blogs, etc… That is a big red-flag for search engines and it can actually hurt your rank in the long run. A simple and extremely effective workaround for this is to have a content moderated link exchange -which is exactly what I’m talking about here.

One great aspect to this is that once you do the initial upload and link, that’s all that you have to do. I add the additional links here, remotely from you, and your uploaded page will automatically receive the new links with no work on your side. Basically, I have two files – one “reader” and one “writer.” You upload and link to the “reader” page and I keep the “writer” page. When I put something on the “writer” page, the “reader” page will automatically grab that information and it’ll show up on that page. Quick, easy, awesome.

So, if you think that you want to join in on the fun then just do the following and it’ll be all easy-peasy.

1. First thing is to download this file: CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LINK EXCHANGE PACK.

2. After you have it all downloaded and unzipped, upload it to your server. Preferably, it should be uploaded to your root directory which makes it a little easier on the Search Engine crawlers and makes it seem a little more important/relevant on your site. However if you have it a little deeper down, it’s still OK. Personally I use Adobe Dreamweaver to upload stuff to my site, but it’s still easy enough to go through your server’s dashboard and upload it manually.

3. On your site’s HOMEPAGE, add a link to this file. When I go looking for your link, if I can’t find it on your homepage, I won’t add you to the list. It doesn’t have to be blatantly obvious that it’s there. On my personal photography site, the link is in the footer and is a little period. On other sites, I used to have it as a space between a couple words on my site. So long as you tell me where on your homepage it is, we’re all good. If you have it all uploaded correctly, you’ll see THIS PAGE when you click on the link.

4. Fill out the form below. Fill out everything and then allow about 2-3 weeks for your link to show up on the page. If you don’t see it after a few weeks, feel free to contact me about getting it added.

It can seem a little intimidating but it’s actually a pretty simple process. If you do have some questions about it, feel free to send us a message and we’ll be glad to help you out.