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From 27th August 2010 – 31st October 2010 (inclusive) customers in the UK and Republic of Ireland are able to claim £200 / €230 cashback on purchases of the D300S and a NIKKOR lens worth over £400 / €460 made [...]

Celebrate 10 years with Vistaprint!
Vistaprint is #1 in the online print industry! Delivering high-quality products in low volume for a great price. Products range from business cards to postcards to invitations and T-Shirts.
To celebrate the 10 year anniversary, they are giving away 10 FREE products!  Offer expires Septmeber 30, 2010.
Design your own [...]

There is a huge market and demand for headshot photography for business cards, passports, advertising, website, brochures, press kits, model & actor / actresses portfolio, etc. Every business needs this for their staff. This is a simple head & shoulder shot of a person against a plain or coloured background or backdrop. This is called [...]

Nikon UK announces ViewNX 2, a comprehensive new version of its popular bundled software package that enables users to easily import, browse, edit and share images and D-movies.
Building upon the successful ViewNX software, ViewNX 2 is a feature-packed, user-friendly suite supplied with Nikon digital cameras and available for download. The software now offers a range [...]

Here is a little gift for all our loyal visitors & customers. Our friends at Host Gator have arranged this fabulous discount of $9.94 off any hosting packing when you use the code:
SFDigital2010
Host Gator has a fantastic Control Panel for configuring a Wordpress blog which is very very easy to understand and install.

Why They are [...]

Your photography business probably gets enquiries from potential clients  via email and your contact us page on your web site and you try to send information, quotations, pdf brochures to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a booking by [...]

I’ve had quite a few emails regarding the Nikon D300s. Here is a little bit about the camera and also a video from our friends at B&H, New York. 8 years ago when my wife & I started SF Digital, our first purchase for the business was the Nikon D100. We had two bodies and [...]

Following on from last week’s post on Press Release, here are some tips to help you write an effective press release and increase your chance of having your story published. You need to make the editors’. freelancers, reporters or journalists job easier by presenting the release in a format and style that appeals to them.
Headline
Should [...]

Here is a video tutorial on how to organise and import images in Apple Aperture 3. This is the software I use for all my wedding & portrait workflow.

Aperture 3 is £139.00 and to upgrade to Aperture 3 will cost £64.99 from Warehouse Express
Feel free to comment and if you have any request for [...]

I got a call from our local BBC Three Counties Radio the next day the newspaper was released and they wanted to interview me live on air regarding the Trash the Dress story. As I was busy that morning, the journalist & presenter visited the place where I was shooting and interviewed me on-location.
Here is [...]

A press release, press statement, news release or media release is a written or recorded communication sent to the members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as news value. These days email is the best way to send them to the editors at newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations or [...]

I had the pleasure of photographing Hari & Adam’s wedding in the gorgeous island of Kita Kinabalu, Malaysia. This island in the Borneo, Sabah region of E. Malaysia and is about 2.5 hours flight from Kuala Lumpur. The wedding consisted of a traditional Indian Ceremony at the temple followed by a [...]

I’ve just been back from a wedding I shot in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. This little island is in the Sabah, Borneo region of Malaysia and is about 2.5 hrs flight away from Kuala Lumpur. It pretty much is heaven on earth. The beaches are just fantastic and I was quite fortunate to be invited to [...]

It will take you longer to read a book on an iPad or Kindle compared to the printed page, according to a recent study. Dr. Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group — a product development consultancy that is not associated with Nielsen, the metrics company — compared the reading [...]

I was proud to be part of this first ever 3-day workshop on weddings & portraits. I was accompanied by my fellow tutor and good friend Julie Oswin and 12 other delegates who were extremely keen to learn new things and techniques. We were also joined by Dave Robbins, Dennis Nicholls & James Banfield from [...]

Your Home Portrait Business
Last week I was in Nottingham & London for the ‘Your Home Portrait Business’ seminars for Calumet. The seminar was all about running a portrait business from home, without the additional overheads of a high street studio, how to scout for locations to shoot in, what equipment you require and the [...]

To help you get started in Wedding Photography, here are the Top 10 Tips for photographers who wish to get started in Wedding Photography:
1. Enjoy & Have Fun
Please do not go into Wedding Photography if you don’t enjoy weddings. You’ll need to handle pressure and always remember that you only get one chance at weddings. [...]

Free Business Photography Software by Calumet UK
Here’s your chance to get your hands on one of the best photography software for your business. Our friends at Calumet are offering a FREE Foto SF Lite worth £70.50p with every booking for the 1-day seminar ‘Your Home Portrait Business‘. The cost of the seminar £85 includes lunch [...]

This post is all about the kind of images you ought to be photographing at a wedding, the detail / accessory shots at the place where the bride is getting ready. The kind of detail shots you must have for the album. What you want to do is to keep things extremely simple as there [...]

Most people considering the switch up to or across to Aperture 3 have probably implemented their decision by now. What follows then is for people who still haven’t made up their mind or for people like me who perhaps hadn’t seriously considered Aperture before.
I’ve used Photoshop since version3 and make extensive use of the clone [...]

The summer is here at last and I hope you are now well into the peak summer season. This year for me so far has been quite different to previous years, especially with wedding bookings. These days, I don’t shoot as many weddings as I used to, but the inquiries being received are still for [...]

This seminar is for anyone starting up or has an existing photography business. Multi-award winning photographer Uzair Kharawala presents this exciting seminar on how to set up and run a thriving portrait business working from home and without the additional overheads of running a high-street studio. Whether you are a [...]

Do you want to set up an online business? Here’s everything you need to know on how to make money on the internet. You will learn in plain simple English how to get started online even if you are a complete beginner in this field. You don’t even need to know anything [...]

Nikon UK has teamed up with Amateur Photographer to offer one lucky reader a place on its forthcoming ‘Business of Wedding and Portraiture’ three day, residential training course taking place 21st-23rd June 2010 worth £695 – PLUS its award winning Nikon D700 digital SLR camera and 50mm f/1.4G AF-S [...]

What is Mehendi ?
Asian Weddings whether be it a Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Gujarati or Punjabi are considered to be very sacred and sanctified affairs.

Mehendi ceremony is one of the most important pre-wedding rituals specially for the bride and her family. It is fun filled ritual with lots of singing & dancing.This ceremony [...]

In continuation of my last post ‘Networking for Photographers’, this post is about how to get your photography business promoted by other companies. For this you will need to create some ‘Gift Vouchers’ which are personalised for the company promoting it. They will offer this ‘Gift Voucher’ to their customers as a thank you for [...]

This post is not about geeky language on how to set up a network for your computer!!! It is how to set up a network for your business. You’ve probably heard this a million times “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” This is so true in today’s interconnected society and is true [...]

The beautiful and historic town of Woburn, Bedfordshire is the venue for this unmissable three-day residential workshop led by multi-award winning wedding photographers Julie Oswin and Oz Kharawala. You’ll stay at the charming 18th century Inn at Woburn, where seminars will take place, and travel to off-site locations for photo shoots, including bridal shots and [...]

Nikon UK today announces a new super telephoto zoom lens – the AF-S NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G ED VR II. This lens replaces the highly acclaimed AF-S Zoom NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G IF-ED VR and features the new generation of Vibration Reduction technology (VR II), Nano Crystal Coat and a new A/M mode, making it an [...]

Due to the volcano eruption, the travel plans to Dublin for Photo Fest was somewhat interesting to say the least. Instead of a normal flight from Heathrow to Dublin, our journey involved a long drive to the port of Holyhead and then a fast 2-hour ferry to Dublin. However, on arrival at Holyhead, we found [...]

Neil is a New Jersey based wedding & portrait photographer. He is also the author of the book ‘On-camera Flash’. Here Neil discusses his work, gives some great tips on how to use flash either on-camera & off-camera. I would personally like to thank Neil for his time and giving some insight into his work [...]

I absolutely love Google Alerts. Its brilliant.
Google Alerts is a content monitoring service by Google that automatically notifies users when new content from the web, news, blogs, video, discussion groups matches a set of search terms selected by a user or yourself. Notifications are sent via email, as a web feed or displayed on the [...]

Is your photography studio business being strangled by convoluted administration, hampered by poor event management and bleeding cash from missed sales opportunities and not being organised? Take your eye off the ball and you can soon be mired in a swamp of disorganisation that gets you down and worse still – costs you time and [...]

20 April 2010 Edmonton, North London
Lets Go Viral (09:00-13:00)
Come and see how you can to get masses of traffic to your website and get your message across at warp speed! Uzair Kharawala presents this exciting & unique presentation on how to get indexed in Google, get incredible amount of [...]

Following the overwhelming success of Photo Fest Ireland 2009 for both Exhibitors and Visitors – IPN are delighted to announce an even larger event for 2010, which will be held in the new ’state-of-the-art’ Conference and Event Centre in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dublin Airport. Photo Fest Ireland continues to be the largest Photography Trade [...]

Juggling the day to day running of a photography business can take time & efforts on your part. This is the work which no one likes, paperwork, invoices, etc. Important thing is not to replicate and duplicate things, this takes up more time than we realise and lost time equals losing money. Every business (photography [...]

Time Lapse photography is where a camera takes a series of images of a subject with a chosen interval of time between each image. The interval of time can be set from anything from less than a second to a day or even more. When the sequence of images are played back the interval time [...]

My 5-page portfolio has just been printed in Digital Photogapher Magazine’s Issue 94.

Glistening beads of snow begin to fall as the frost bitten bride makes her entrance to the chapel, its 15 degrees below zero yet she walks defiantly in her off the shoulder angelic white dress, elegantly and effortlessly disguising [...]

Christian Keenan is an international award-winning photojournalist and has been working professionally as a photographer for over thirteen years. Having learnt his trade working for a newspaper, he moved to China to work as an editorial and documentary photographer where he won a World Press Photo Award, one of the most prestigious accolades in photojournalism. [...]

Multi-award winning photographer Uzair Kharawala returns at the flagship Apple Store, Regent Street on 12 April 2010 at 7.00pm to share his incredible experience and images from his recent trip 250km above the Arctic Circle.
The free event will feature how Uzair photographed the Northern Lights in extreme temperatures of as low as -29ºC with the [...]

Most new digital cameras can produce amazing quality images at extreme high ISO. Don’t be scared of pushing your camera body to its limits. Obviously shooting in low light requires you to have a fast lens, this does make a hell of a difference when you are struggling to get the shutter speed. Winter weddings [...]

Register for FREE account on Nikon My Picturetown (Online Storage Account) using the link below and you will be entered a draw to win Nikon COOLPIX S1000pj projector camera.  Nikon is giving away one camera every week.
Register here on the Nikon Site.

Tip of the Day
Want to save time sitting in front of your computer or laptop ? Remember this:
Get it right in camera and you’ll more than halve your workflow!
Read more…

Interview with Martin Grahame-Dunn
Listen in to this fantastic interview with Martin Grahame-Dunn. Martin talks passionately & very frankly in this 30 minute interview. Send your comments [...]

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Nikon launches a new advertising campaign throughout Europe, which highlights the brand’s rich heritage of professionalism and innovation, along with its appreciation of the fun and emotional rewards of capturing special moments. The new ‘I AM Nikon’ campaign incorporates television, print and digital media and positions Nikon [...]

I come from the old school of the film days which disciplined me to get my exposure right in camera. We could not afford to get it wrong in-camera. Correctly exposed and properly composed images every time. Well, we’ve all messed  things up from time to time!
Things have changed quite dramatically since we started to [...]

Photography Blog features my recent adventures in Sweden on their blog. Here is the link. Enjoy.

Oz

I cover a wide variety of subjects within my business – everything from portraits, weddings through to corporate events – I need portable and versatile lighting that I can easily carry around with me, takes as little as a couple of minutes to set up and start shooting. These days I use the Nikon SB900 [...]

Here is my double-page spread article printed in this month’s Photo Pro Magazine. Enjoy.
Oz Kharawala has just returned from a wedding shoot to remember which involved him making a trip to one of the world’s craziest locations, the famous Ice Hotel in Swedish Lapland
The trend for finding unusual venues for weddings has accelerated in recent [...]

In this economic climate when things are tough and very little money to splash out on advertising & marketing, how can small businesses like a home-based photography business get their brand / name out in front of potential clients with no money. Is it possible ? How can someone market themselves without spending a fortune [...]

Another one bites the dust! What a busy show it was and so good to see many friends & clients there. Firstly, thank you to everyone who attended my presentations at Nikon & Lastolite.

Some images from the show:
Here is the exhibition of Andy Rouse’s amazing images of wildlife. Andy specializes in photographing wildlife and he [...]

ORDER NOW
As a little thank you for visiting this website, here’s a DVD for you completely free of charge (you only pay P&P) worth £20.00.
This DVD showcases some incredible coverage by Uzair Kharawala in extreme conditions of as low as -29C. You will see how an engagement portrait session, wedding at the world famous Ice [...]

Learn what 95% of all Adwords advertisers don’t know. Increase your impressions, click through rate and best of all….lower your costs. You are going to learn to set up your ads properly the first time around.
You can get as much traffic as you’d like to your website using Google Ads and paying as little as [...]

Book your FREE photo surgery with me by calling 01525 383683. You can use this 30-minute session to ask / discuss any photographic subject you’d like. I can help you with:
- Improving your photography
- Discussing your portfolio
- Sales / Marketing / PR
- Business management
- Equipment & Gear
- Software
- Workflow techniques & tips
- How to set [...]

Just finish judging the entries for the annual competition for Better Photography Magazine, India. This is India’s biggest magazine. Thank you for inviting me to judge the Portrait Couples category and was a privilege to judge them. Some great shots and good luck to everyone. The results will be published next month.
Oz

What a day! Great group. Thoroughly enjoyed it and thanks to everyone for attending. Many thanks to Calumet for hosting the Event and as usual the facilities were first class. I’ll be announcing a new date for a practical workshop soon for the Foto SF clients.
Thanks for your kind comments and I look forward to [...]

Martin is one of the legends of our photography industry. Being in this industry for over 30 years and still going strong, Martin has achieved & excelled at the highest level. Not only being a great photographer, he is a brilliant trainer & tutor who has inspired thousands of photographers around the world. Its been [...]

7 – 10 March 2010, NEC, Birmingham
FOCUS ON IMAGING is Europe’s biggest annual imaging show, covering all your needs from image capture through to output and beyond.
Whether you are a professional image maker or processor, a buyer of image making equipment or materials, a manufacturer or distributor of products or a keen hobbyist, a visit [...]

Staying positive is one of the most important (and difficult) things to do, specially when things aren’t going your way and you may be going through a rough time either in your personal or business life. One cannot and should not give up when things start to go down. Giving up would be the easy [...]

Wex Blog has uploaded the feature ‘Arctic Adventures with the D3s’ on their blog.
One of the most exciting & challenging shoots I’ve ever done was during my trip to Lapland, Arctic (well about 250kms north) in Sweden. The trip came about when I was booked to photograph a wedding at the world famous Ice Hotel [...]

I’ve just finished judging the entries for the Babyworld Photo Competition. Babyworld is one of UK’s busiest websites for parenting. The quality of the entries were fantastic and I had a hard time picking up the winners. Instead of the 10 Runners Up prizes, I selected 16! All those entries deserved something and my heartiliest [...]

On my way back on the train from Calumet, Aston, Birmingham after presenting a day seminar.  Had a very enjoyable day with a group of photographers very keen to kick start their marketing & pr. Wish you guys all the best and see you guys at Focus.
Next one at Calumet, Drummond Street, London on 25 [...]

A very interesting article  I read on Wall Street Journal which will be of interest to wedding photographers.
© Brett Arends
How much should you spend on a wedding dress? For that matter, how much should you spend on the wedding?
Hundreds of young women plunged into the annual Running of the Brides wedding dress sale in Boston [...]

Prince William turned both photographer and subject to raise awareness of homelessness in the UK. This is a unique project and well done to him. He teamed up with leading photographer Rankin. This is also a first time that a Royal portrait has been taken by a member of the public. It is also the [...]

One of the most exciting & challenging shoot I’ve ever done was during my trip to the Lapland, Arctic (well about 250kms north) in Sweden. The trip came about when I was booked to photograph a wedding at the world famous Ice Hotel in Sweden. This was roughly the same time when the Nikon D3s [...]

I’ve received quite a few emails & requests as to how & why I use Aperture and how I use it for my workflow. So here it is:
Aperture 3 is an all-in-one workflow software which allows photographers to work without having to go into various programs during their workflow process. I’ve been using Aperture since [...]

Adobe are offering a fantastic 50% off to current users of Adobe Photoshop Elements. You’ll need to order directly via the Adobe website using the Code WV9V. This offer is valid for UK clients only and for registered users of Elements. You may also purchase by calling 0800 0280 148.
Offer valid until 20 Feb 2010. [...]

As per my post of Video on a DSLR a few days ago, I’m pleasantly surprised to see the first imaging software to incorporate multi-media shows with still images & HD video clips. I’ve been a big big fan of Aperture since it arrived and have been using it for my entire workflow. I can’t [...]

Nikon Europe today announced a class leading ultra-fast aperture wide angle lens, the AF-S NIKKOR 24MM F/1.4G ED. Designed for professional reportage and landscape photography, the new lens features a ground-breaking optical design for Nikon’s range of class leading FX-format DSLR cameras.
Zurab Kiknadze, Product Manager Lenses, Accessories & Software, Nikon Europe says: “Despite the award [...]

Our friends at Triple Scoop Music have kindly arranged a super 10% Discount Code for you guys. They have a huge collection of Royal-free Music and I use them for my own work all the time.
The discount code is:
sfphoto
Just use this code on the final checkout screen and save 10%. This code expires end of [...]

As per my last post, with the arrival of the video on a dslr, the fusion between stills & video and getting closer and closer. New software & workflow techniques will need to be looked at to adapt to this changing and very dynamic media. So will this have a big effect on the end [...]

This is something which we are seeing more and more on dslr. Every camera manufacturer now has models which has stills & video on them. So is it here to stay. Absolutely. The merging and convergence of both stills & video is getting better by the day and it is quite handy to have such [...]

Hi Oz
I have attended and very much enjoyed two of your Courses at Nikon (Portraits for Profit and your Wedding Course).  As taught by you,  I love the simplicity of using Nikon Speedlights to achieve pretty much anything you want.  For a while I have worked using my D700 to remotely trigger an SB-600 and [...]

Thank you to everyone who attended this workshop and to Katie Green, our model for the day. As always, Katie was brilliant. Here are some images shot from the day and a little video.
Video was shot using the Nikon D3s. I was using the D3s / D3 with a 200mm f/2 lens.
Music by Triple Scoop [...]

Guy wrote:
Sorry to bother you but I really wanted to get something like the Lastolite system you had. When we went outside you swapped to an umbrella was that just the same system but using a separate umbrella instead of the softbox? Also, if you know or could recommend a good place to buy one [...]

Received this question from Caron:
I was on your wireless flash photography course in October last year which I greatly enjoyed. I have since tried to put into practice wireless flash which worked very well for me inside but when I tried to do photographs outside the SU600 flash only triggered if I was quite near [...]

Photography Studio Management Software.

Is your photography studio business being strangled by convoluted administration, hampered by poor event management and bleeding cash from lost assets and missed sales opportunities?
You became a photographer because you love the medium. Your satisfaction comes from your skill in capturing those elusive shots that give your customers a lifetime of [...]

Birmingham 23 Feb 10
London 25 Feb 10
Bristol 22 April 10
Price £45.00
Times: 1000hrs – 1600hrs
Following the success of last year’s Business & Beyond seminars, Uzair Kharawala returns with this un-missable 1 day seminar. Oz will be covering some amazing tips & techniques which will increase your conversion rates four folds!! You’ll learn the secrets of creating [...]

Portraits for Profit Workshop – 28 Jan 2010
Nikon House, Kingston, Surrey
www.nikon.co.uk/training

If you are looking to tap into the lucrative ‘Lifestyle Portraiture’ market, join award winning photographer Oz on his hands-on workshop which focuses on the techniques for producing highly creative images on location. This course has been designed for a maximum group size of 8 [...]

Thank you to the committee of the N.Yorkshire British Institute of Professional Photography for inviting me to do a talk for their region. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and am very thankful for the warm & kind hospitality. I look forward to returning there soon.
“We’ve had a seminar today with Oz and it has been [...]

Thank you to everyone for coming along and attending my presentation. As always, I thoroughly enjoy the event and also I get a chance to see some new gizmos & gadgets at the store and also to talk to some Geniuses!!

I will be back at Regent Street in April 2010. The date is not finalised [...]

Wireless Flash

Uzair Kharawala presents this definitive guide to Nikon’s Creative Lighting System. In this DVD, you will learn: – Ease of set up and use in ‘real life’ scenarios with minimal equipment – How exceptional results are created quickly and easily with multiple Nikon SB800 wireless flashes – Amazing portability & [...]

Yes, you can learn how Uzair creates simple and stunning portraits without buying any expensive kit. The simple tips and techniques showcased in this DVD means that even a beginner can start taking pictures like a pro!

This is a ‘must have’ DVD if you are a keen photographer and want to improve your photography skills [...]

If you think wedding photography is just about clicking a few pictures at a Wedding, then think again!
Uzair Kharawala presents this DVD on how to get started in the lucrative business of wedding photography. You’ll learn everything you need to get started.
Wedding photography is one of the fastest growing areas in the photography business today. [...]