I’m often asked what software and programmes I use to help organise my time, plan my work or edit my images, so I thought I’d put together a list of softwares I can’t live without.  I’m always looking for ways in which I can help my business run smoother, so I hope this is helpful to you! 

Adobe Suite

Lightroom, Photoshop & Premiere Pro – As a photographer, these are three programmes I can’t live without!  I use Lightroom to select and edit all my images.  You can do everything from changing the contrast or lighting, experimenting with colours in the imagery – Lightroom is a must have for photographers looking to produce quality imagery.  I then use Photoshop to retouch or touch-up any images.  If you’re looking to smooth skin, add highlights or remove distractions in the backgrounds, this is the application for you! Finally, Premiere Pro is a programme designed to put together and make videos.  I use it to make all my reels and BTS videos, and although at first it may be a little confusing, there are so many great tutorials online and on YouTube to find out how to use it.  From simple 10 second videos, to elaborate 10 minute tutorials, Premiere Pro can be used by people of all calibre. Quick tip – if you’re not looking to make any videos, you can buy the Photographers package rather then the whole creative suite – and save some money! 

Capture One

If you’re on a shoot and want to show your clients the images your shooting, as you’re shooting, Capture One is a brilliant programme to help tether all of your imagery straight to your laptop. It’ll save all the images in a file so that when you’re planning to edit the images, they’re all in one place. I occasionally use it for editing, as unlike Lightroom, you can create layers to edit your images.  For example, if you want to work on an image by adding or subtracting layers.  Additionally, if  you’ve got a preset you want to pull down, you can reduce the amount of preset you use by using a slider tool.  

FloDesk

Flodesk is an email marketing software tool that helps organise and send out emails (just like this one!) I think it’s the perfect tool to help organise and plan my emails – and make them look great too!  They have great templates, it’s simple to use and you can schedule emails to be sent out to selected groups of people.  Whether you’re emailing brands with your updated pitch deck, or photographers wanting tips, Flodesk is a great tool to use and share your blogs and knowledge. If you fancy trying it out, you can use my link here and get 50% off when signing up –

https://flodesk.com/c/TAMSIN50

Pinterest

You probably already use Pinterest, but I think it’s the best tool to use as a photographer to help find inspiration, plan and organise a styled shoot. You may have already received my email last week about ‘How to use Pinterest to plan a photoshoot’ – if not, you can read all about it on my blog here.

Instagram

 A no-brainer – and perhaps the most obvious! As a photo-sharing app, used by millions of people, you can use Instagram to share your images and use it as an online portfolio.  You can also connect with brands and models to find work, or people to collaborate with! It’s free to sign up, so sign up and get posting your creative work!

Quickbooks

Not the most exciting topic, but as a creative, one of the last things we may want to spend time on is accounting! However, leaving all your accounting to the last minute is the worst (trust me!) so getting into the habit of keeping records of all your receipts / invoices / expenses is essential.  When running your own business, by keeping on-top of all your accounts you’ll be prepared when the tax return day comes!  Quickbooks makes it easy to keep track and records all your accounting and makes it simple – even for us creative people! 

WeTransfer

When sending final and edited images to my clients, I will always use WeTransfer to send them.  It’s free (up to 2GB) – or you can pay for a pro version and send up to 200GB – to send images or files and the clients can download them and store them wherever they wish.  WeTransfer will send out a reminder too if a client forget to download them in time. 

Pixiset

 If you’re wanting to create beautiful galleries for your clients, where they can download the images to whatever quality they desire, Pixiset is a great software for you. Unlike Dropbox or WeTransfer, your images are displayed beautifully online. You can create client galleries and clients can make a favourite folder of all their loved images.  If there are images that they love, they can buy prints or design albums through Pixiset’s store.  This programme could be ideal if, for example, you shoot weddings as the couple can share the gallery with all their guests, they can select their favourite pictures and even make an album! Another great thing about Pixiset is that unlike WeTransfer, there’s no rush in downloading images or having to send out files again if clients forget to download them. 

A quick summary of programmes I use weekly ! 

Canva –  If you’re wanting to make beautiful pitch decks or proposals but don’t have Adobe InDesign, Canva is a great alternative programme to use – and you can set up a free account or upgrade to premium.  They have pre-made templates and designs that you can alter and adapt depending on your theme and then export these to send to clients easily.

Planoly –  Planoly is an app that’s great to use if you’re wanting to schedule posts for instagram and make sure your feed looks great!  It’s free to sign up – or you can upgrade to premium too – and start planning your dream feed!

Dropbox –  Whether you need to upload flies, share images to your clients or backup your own images and files – dropbox has a use for everything! 

Microsoft office –  I find excel to be a really helpful tool to help organise my business.  Whether I’m scheduling my time, keeping a record of brands or businesses I’m contacting or putting all my expenses in one place, Excel helps me stay on top of everything. 

I want to reassure you that I don’t think it’s necessary for you to have every single one of these programmes immediately, but if you’re looking to step up your photography game, I really recommend having a browse around at what might work best for you! Please message and let me know if you’ve found this helpful, and I’ll chat to you soon.

Pinterest can be an incredible tool to help you bring your vision to life ! Odds are, you already have a vision in mind of what images you want to capture in this shoot.  But sometimes, that vision can be hard to describe.  As a brand, you may have images or a style in mind that you’d like to show your photographer, or as a photographer, you may have an aesthetic in mind that you’d like to show your client – using Pinterest will help you share your visions. By collaborating on Pinterest, you can create a shared moodboard to help encapsulate everything you want to achieve from your shoot day. Creating a vision board on Pinterest could not only help you identify every element and detail in the story that you want to tell, but could also help you discover even more ways to capture and showcase your story than you’d originally envisioned. So… to start…

Create a Pinterest account 

Pinterest search  

Do you have a clear vision in your mind of what images you want to capture? Do you know what location you want to hold the shoot?  If you do, think of key words you could type in to help get images of these places / style together at first. Example – do you want to shoot a flower inspired beauty photoshoot? You could type in ‘floral beauty shoot’, ‘flower photoshoot ’ or ‘floral beauty editorial’.  For those that don’t yet know what vision they have for their photoshoot yet, I find it really helpful to jump onto Pinterest just to help ignite that initial spark! You could type in ‘photoshoot inspiration’ and see what images pop up. 

Your goal is to work out what vibe you’re hoping to achieve – is it fun, flirty, colourful, bold, moody or dark? Are you using one model or two? Where will the setting be?  When you’ve found an image you love – Pin it!  

Pinning an image to a board 

It’ll now ask you where you want to save it? An example above is to now create your own board. We’ve called it ‘Flower Inspired Beauty Shoot’.

Create Board

Sub folders 

For starters, you could just save these to your general aesthetic Pinterest board, however, when you start getting more specific, we recommend saving the detail oriented pins in their own sub-boards within your general aesthetic board. This will help you separate all the different sections of your shoot.  For example… 

Imagery Inspiration | Hair | Makeup | Model poses | Location inspiration | Fashion and clothing | Accessories | Props

The great thing about Pinterest is that you’re not restricted to just finding images off of Pinterest – if you’ve found an image online or on a web browser, you can use the ‘Pin it button’ on your browser, or copy the URL of the website and upload a pin by ‘Saving it from a website’. On top of that, if there are images you’ve saved on your phone as inspiration, you can upload those by selecting ‘Upload a Pin’.

Uploading your own images and using the ‘Pin it’ button to save images from the web

Suggested Images 

Another feature to mention is the ‘More like this’ feature as you scroll down from a selected pin or ‘Find some more ideas like this’ as you scroll down from a board – which will help to recommend similar imagery that may suit the style of your shoot. 

Share with team 

After a short while, your collaborative Pinterest board will be full of an array of ideas and pictures that offer the exact vision of your future shoot! You can now share this with your client or with your team members.   I always recommend inviting them to add images to the boards too, so they can make their own creative input and the shoot vision is a collective one!  If you need to add someone else onto your collaborative board, click onto the board, under the board title you’ll see your profile picture and a ‘+’ sign. If you click onto the + you will be able to copy the link to send to people directly, or search for them on Pinterest! 

Now you can add images together and if you have questions to send your team, you can add notes – for example ‘where can I find a dress like this’ – and other people who collaborate on the board will see them too!

I really hope you’ve found this helpful. I use Pinterest daily, so I can’t recommend a website enough for helping organise your dream shoot! I’ve written this all up in a Blog incase you need to look back at it in the future, just click the link below.

We had 6 hours at PS studios in Wimbledon. You can follow along with the shoot here which walks through my go-to beauty light set up.

My go-to lighting set-up. 

When organising our lighting set-up, our main aim was to create beautiful, soft lighting on the model’s face.  We wanted even, soft glowing skin, and to capture the light reflecting in the model’s eyes – here’s how we did it. 

We used a single light with a deep umbrella, which is perfect for creating a softer, and more even spread of light. I used the Profoto deep sliver umbrella in XL, along with one Broncolor Siros Light. Under the models, we placed a large reflector to help bounce the light onto their faces and created a more even spread and glow. We varied between using the silver and white sides of the reflector, depending on the look we were trying to achieve. Reflectors can also help create contrast in your imagery, so have a play around and see what you like best! Around the models, we used black Polyboards to help shut out any noise and to help add definition.

We had the light facing away into the umbrella, to reflect the light evenly and avoid hotspots. The light was positioned 1.5 metres away from the models at a tilt of 45 degrees, to avoid creating dark shadows around the model’s eyes. We set the light to approximately half power, but adjusted it, depending on the skin tone of our models.  I shot on my Canon 5D Mark IV with a 100mm macro lens and kept the settings fairly constant at around F11, 1/60 shutter, and ISO 100. I always adjusted the external lights rather than changing the ISO on my camera. Keep an eye out on my Instagram as I’ll be posting more from the shoot! 

So to summarise, we used –

Canon 5D Mark IV camera 

Canon 100mm macro lens 

Tethering cable and laptop – Shooting to Capture One

Broncolor Siros light

Extra large Profoto deep silver umbrella

Large reflector

2 Polyboards and coloured Colorama 

If you get inspiration from my shoot, I’d love to see your results so please tag me! Finally, I’m wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, and hope you have a lovely winter break!

Planning your first photoshoot as a brand or photographer can feel really daunting…but with some simple and easy steps, you’ll be shooting in no time!  I’ve put together 7 simple steps to help make your shoot a success! 

1. What is your concept?

Before planning your shoot, you need to work out what your main goal and idea is? What do you want to capture? What message do you want to convey through your imagery? Who is your audience? It’s really helpful to have a clear image of what your shoot will entail, so that all your preparation is guided towards that goal. 

2. Pinterest is your new bestfriend!

Moodboarding is an essential way to gather your thoughts and ideas for your shoot. Whether you’re looking for style inspiration, makeup looks, or examples of poses for models, making a moodboard can help direct your focus and also, help the other members on your team understand which direction the shoot will go. Click the link below on how to use Pinterest.

3. Gathering your team!

As a brand, what’s your budget? After booking your photographer, do you have enough budget for a studio or stylist? Would having a makeup artist help your images stand out? It’s important to think of every aspect and creative you may need before your shoot. As a photographer could you collaborate with stylists and MUAs to help take your work to the next level!

4. Production

It’s time to get organised. After setting down your budget, you need to arrange the shoot day. Put together your shot lists, call sheets (detailing times and locations), styling, makeup, props, and production design. As a photographer, do you need to hire lighting or lens’? Having a clear idea of how your shoot day will run, will help the day run as smoothly as possible! 

5. Pack-up

As a photographer, there’s nothing worse than manic packing in the morning of your shoot, and then realising you left those all important SD cards at home! To avoid this nightmare, prepare a standard kit-list and use this pack your kit bag before every shoot.  As a brand, make sure your team knows clearly who’s bringing what – that way, there’s less chance of someone forgetting something!

6.Arrive early!

Not only will you have some time to settle, prepare your kit and have one last look at the moodboard, but your mind will be restful and ready to get creative!

7. Lastly…

Enjoy! You’ve worked hard towards this shoot, so for now, get your creative mind working, set up your moodboard, and experiment if you feel your creative juices flowing – enjoy it!