The winners were chosen completely subjectively – basically they were ones that I really liked the creative ideas that were behind them.

The first winner did an amazing job of capturing the feeling of being left out of a group. I love love love this photo.
Jamie from Ever After Photography wins a set of actions from Ashley McNamara! Jamie, please send me your email address!

And the other winner just tickled me with all of her fun ideas for the Scooby gang.
Congratulations Kayla Bate!, you win The Photo Book! Please send me your mailing address!

We have a surprise giveaway tomorrow, so check back to see how to win!

We have two fun prizes this time, first is The Photo Book. If you are new to photography or self-taught, you would be amazed to learn just how much you DON’T know about the history of photography. This book is full of amazing photos from incredible photographers from the mid-19th century to today. It’s a really neat book, so if you don’t have it already go shoot some toys so you can get it!

The second super awesome prize we have is a set of actions from the talented Ashley McNamara. If you’re not following her blog . . . well, I can’t even imagine that. That’s just crazy talk. Of course you are following her blog. How else would you get the best Photoshop tutorials around and see some amazing photography? Since you’re already following her, you must be really wishing you had her action set by now. She was generous enough to give away a set to a challenge winner here on Two Photogs, so wish no more!

To finish up this post, I’m including my attempt at toy photography from this past weekend. It was lots more fun, yet a bit harder than I expected. I think I’m kind of addicted though, because it was my daughter’s birthday on Saturday and I was eyeing up all her new toys, lol! Next attempt I will try to set up more elaborate scenes with more storytelling.

When we found this blog a couple of months ago, we were immediately engaged. What a cool idea, to take pictures of TOYS!
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/40-brilliant-creative-examples-of-toy-figure-photography/

As moms, we have plenty of toys around the house just waiting to play subject in a creative portrait. Toys are small enough to be shot indoors or out, and it’s a lot easier to create complex sets for them with the simplest of items.

If you want more inspiration, take a look through Flickr – it’s chock full of amazing toy photography.
Here’s just a few groups we found that sparked our interest:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/danbo-love/pool/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/travellingtoys/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/secretlifeoftoys/

We’ll be announcing the prizes for this challenge next week, and the winners will be announced on April 20th. Contest closes at 5pm ET April 19th. Blog your photos and then come back here and post the link in the comments section.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with – enjoy this challenge and get creative!

I’ve been using Moo for some cool uses of my own for the past year. Because my business name is not my actual name, I need to find ways for people to associate my own name with Fresh Sugar Photography. One of the ways I do it is with a Moo sticker on the bag of each print. I signed my name using my Wacom and made it into a cute little sticker. This way I am letting my clients know that they have purchased one-of-a-kind artwork, and I am also keeping my own name in their minds, as well as my business name.

I use the Moo MiniCards as a way to incorporate new faces into my portfolio. I made “you’ve been spotted” cards to give out anytime I see a child or family that I would love to photograph. They are cute and fun, and a less-creepy way of saying “Are you a model?”.

I also ordered sets of cards for myself and Danna before WPPI. At $19.99 for 100 cute little cards, it was the perfect solution for small run needs. The cards are seriously yummy, so thick and sturdy – you won’t believe them until you see them. Plus, you can have 100 different images on 100 different cards. So cool!

So if all of this hasn’t convinced you to give Moo a try, then how about a discount on your first order? Moo is generously giving our readers 15% off their first Moo order. Use code 2RB2CK at checkout, and anxiously await your order! You’ll love their packaging too, totally cute!

It’s been a great lesson to me, and maybe can be to you as well. Honesty rules. You all responded the way you did because my article was honest, and it made me realize that the less pretension the better! I’m pretty much WYSIWYG both online and with my clients, but I have sometimes held back a bit in the past.

In all of this excitement over the blog post, (seriously, we have quadrupled our readership this week) one common theme kept popping up. A bunch of people told me that I was in for some great karma. Then I heard it again yesterday. And as with karma, you kind of think of it as some far away time, maybe even another life when you reap the reward. But imagine my surprise when I learned this morning that I was in for a huge karmic payback!

I’ve been listed as one of the Top 20 in Rangefinder/WPPI’s Fresh Faces contest. My image of my daughter Emma’s first day of school is #14. It just goes to show you what a lucky shot and some good karma can get you! I’d appreciate any votes that anyone wants to throw my way. I don’t care how dorky it sounds – heck yes, I want to WIN! The prize is a spread in Rangefinder and a possible cover. Seriously, who wouldn’t want that? So vote for me if you like the image, or vote for someone else’s if you like it better. Just go vote for someone, because it will probably mean the world to whomever wins!

One final note about the emails I received. They were so heartfelt and sincere that they really inspired me. I’ve recently discovered Jasmine Star (I know, where have I been hiding?) and when I thought about how much the emails that I got meant to me, I figured that no matter how “famous” a photographer got, who doesn’t like hearing that they had a positive effect on another human being? So I wrote her a dorky little note telling her how much I admired her honesty and positive attitude. Class act that she is, she wrote me back the very next day and told me that my email made HER day!

So I’m asking all of you to take a moment to think about who inspires you and to drop them a note. I guarantee that it will mean the world to them. And what goes around, comes around.

We’ve certainly been hyping this challenge up enough, lol. It took us awhile to be able to get to this challenge – we wanted to do it justice and have people be able to participate. The month of January is typically slower for a photographer, so hopefully lots of people can participate in this one! We are still securing some awesome prizes for this contest – we are going to have a first, second and third place – each with a prize! So cool! But we aren’t going to tell you what they are going to be just yet. Let’s get to the challenge!

It’s up to you to make this challenge as complicated or as easy as you want. Use your iPhone, use an old Polaroid, use a Zumi, a Diana, an Instax. Use a point and shoot, use your kid’s Fisher Price digital camera. You just can’t use your regular DSLR (or SLR if you shoot film). Have fun, get creative and don’t get too serious. Don’t think about it too much, just have FUN! There are no rules except you must a different camera other than the one you normally shoot with.

We are giving you a whole month to complete this challenge. Why? Because cameras need to be found, film needs to be developed. You can enter at any time though, and we’re going to limit it to 3 entries per person and they must all be contained to the same blog post.

To enter – just post your image(s) on your blog and come here and link us in the comments section. We can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with! Winners will be revealed on February 12th!

It may seem strange that I would be recommending a web designing blog to photographers, but I have two reasons:
#1-We all have websites, or at least we should. It’s not the worst idea in the world to be knowledgeable about something that is important to your business.
#2-You never know how you will be inspired. I love looking at non-photography sites, we as photographers tend to all like the same things (can we say Bludomain, lol?) and it’s really interesting to see other designs and fonts and colors and . . . you get the idea. If you want to be infused with inspiration, it’s great to look beyond the photography world – there are a lot of other really creative fields out there.

The blog has lots of good advice, and some really neat articles like The Most Controversial Magazine Covers of All Time and 100 Creative Business Card Ideas.
Take a look around and I promise you will find at least one thing on the blog that’s interesting to you. Come back and let us know what you liked/learned!

(Also, if you’ve got or know of a great blog we should feature, send me an email: brandy@twophotogs.com

Gina and Jodi counted as 1 & 2, so therefore our winner is #4 – Joy from http://www.capturesphotography.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much to all who participated, and don’t forget to check out the amazing discounts at Pixel2Canvas by using codes FRESH30 (for new customers) and THANKS (for existing customers)

It’s a way to keep the creativity flowing, and coming up with new ideas and inspiration for our portrait clients.

So our first challenge will be a color challenge. It’s pretty straightforward: pick a color, then go shoot it. It might be trickier or easier than you think. Depending on the color you choose, where you live, etc. As I look out my window right now, I am very tempted to choose brown as my color, since I know it will be easier than a bright vivid color at this time of year. But for me, the purpose of these challenges isn’t to be easy, it’s to be creative and to have fun. It’s not homework, it’s more like a group activity.

So I’m choosing pink. I’m going to spend the weekend scouring the city looking for pink-ness and photographing as much as I can, when I can. On Monday, I’ll be back here to post my images, and Danna will post hers too. Remember to look in places large and small. A sign, a door, a wall, a building. The light can affect color too, making a whole scene orange, blue, red, etc.

We’d be tickled (pink, lol) if you all would join us in this color challenge, and post your own results on your blog, come back here and link us to them so we can see them all! No blog, no time? Send us your results and we’ll post them here! And to help everyone make their masterpieces, I’ve created a little collage template for your images. Keep in mind that I am hardly a Photoshop guru, so this may not be the slickest template but hey, it’s free – and who doesn’t like free? It holds 12 images, so that can be your goal – 12 photographs of your chosen color.

Color Collage

Also, the most fabulous canvas company on the planet: Pixel 2 Canvas has generously donated a 20X24 canvas to one lucky challenge participant so that they can hang their color masterpiece! They’ve also provided a discount code to use to print these awesome creations. Danna and I both use P2C for our canvases, and they are top quality, truly beautiful. Come back on Monday and share your experiments with our color challenge, and you could be walking away with a new canvas! I’ll share all the details about the contest and the discount on Monday, so I’ll meet you all back here then. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!