We are thrilled to announce GuruShots’ newest creative contest: the “Artful Still Life” photo challenge. This endeavor is a tribute to the enduring beauty of still life photography. Photographers are encouraged to delve into the tranquil allure and story-telling possibilities of still life compositions in this venture. Light and shadow will work together to tell mesmerizing stories visually, and you are about to enter a world where everything has meaning.
Each of the winning submissions exemplifies the spirit of “Artful Still Life” by its stunning composition, expert lighting, and overall excellence. Their extraordinary skill in capturing the spirit of still life through their lenses is further demonstrated by the tremendous amount of talent and inventiveness displayed in this challenge.
We are pleased to present the Top Photographer, Top Photo, and Guru’s Top Pick, along with seven outstanding runners-up. Be sure to check out the gallery that showcases the other contestants in the ‘Artful Still Life’ challenge. Also, if you want to see what’s new in artistic creativity, download GuruShots’ latest software, AI Art Master.
Winning Images
Sanja B, Bosnia and Herzegovina – Top Photographer
In 2016, Nikon first introduced SnapBridge, an app designed to create a “seamless connection between a camera and a smart device.” I first used this app a year later on a trip to Australia, where I intended to use it primarily as a remote shutter release for my Nikon D500. In that respect, the app didn’t work very well for me at the time, so I quickly returned to the old-fashioned hardware solution.
Ensuring client satisfaction is fundamentally the main objective for any interior designer – designing an ideal living space for them is the reason behind your professional choices.
However, managing interior design client relationships throughout the entire project is crucial to making sure they are happy from start to finish.
Today, I’ve enlisted the help of interior designers Amy & Athina from Topology who will showcase the key steps you’ll need to cover to ensure your client relationship is happy throughout the process and will leave them recommending you to everyone they know.
We all know that setting up an interior business has a number of elements we must nail in order to make it a success. Whether it’s how you show your client your designs or how you structure your pricing etc.
But, one of the key elements to nail is how to deal with your client relationships. After all, a satisfied client not only gives you a needed boost of confidence but can lead to return work and recommendations to their friends and family.
Essentially a happy client means a happy business. So, in this post, we’re going to go over 5 key steps to nailing a client relationship built upon what we think are the most important factors. Scroll on down to learn more…
Communication is key.
interior designers need to appear ‘available’. Reply to your client’s email or missed calls within 12-18 hours or even within the hour if you can. If you can’t reply in detail, it’s better to send an email acknowledging theirs and letting them know that you’ll reply in more detail asap. The client needs to be reassured you’ll get on the case asap.
Listen to your client.
Value your client’s opinion and prioritise their main needs over anything. You’re there to help them, but try not to let your own creative ideas take over.
Your client’s vision needs to be kept in mind at every step along the way. For example, if it’s vital that your client needs a project finished by 31st December and the armchair you know will look great won’t arrive until 1st Jan, you choose a different one that can arrive on time.
It’s always worthwhile to construct an initial interior designer questionnaire so that you get all the vital details that will guide you throughout the design process and mean you don’t lose sight of the client’s needs.
Under Promise and Over Deliver
This is especially important when it comes to deadlines. Don’t tell a client that you can have a design ready in one week just to get them to go ahead with your service if it’s going to be potentially unachievable and there’s a chance you’ll have to push back the deadline.
Instead, tell the client it’ll take two weeks (or whatever is realistic) and if you finish after a week and a half, great, you’ve exceeded expectations. If it does take two weeks, great, you’ve done it on time.
Be transparent.
Although it’s tempting to tell your client what they want to hear, it’s much better to be open with them about what is realistic and also to always share your professional opinion, even if it’s against their preference.
The same goes for mistakes – if a problem occurs that will directly affect your client, it’s much better to be open with them. Unhappy clients can be transformed into loyal clients if the interior designer handles the problem and solves it well.
Maintain a positive attitude.
It’s possible that your client can become stressed or overwhelmed during the design process (especially if they are mid-renovation!) It’s your duty as the interior designer to exude positivity and face your client with energy, enthusiasm and confidence.
Even in the very beginning in your initial emails. Use positive and enthusiastic language, for example: ‘It sounds like a really interesting project – I’m excited to get started’ or ‘I can definitely recreate that boho chic style you like in your bedroom’. If you appear confident and positive, your client will bounce that right back to you.
So there you have it – 5 steps to achieving a positive client relationship as an interior designer. Next time you have a client sign up to your service, go back over these 5 steps and think about exactly how you’re going to deal with them over the entire process bearing these ideas in mind and see what good can be taken from it.
A firm understanding of how to blur portions of an image is essential if you want to create nature photos with maximum impact in which the key subject really stands out from other areas within the frame. This seven-minute tutorial from the Birdman Photography YouTube channel explains an easy Lightroom technique for getting the job done.
Instructor Sean Leahy is an accomplished pro based in North Carolina whose shooting and editing videos involve simple techniques for creating stunning images of our feathered friends. But many of his lessons, including this one, also work wonders for other form of wildlife photos, and even when environmental portraiture is the name of the game.
Like most serious shooters Leahy isn’t afraid to switch things up when a better methods comes along, and in this episode he explains why “it’s a lot easier to blur images in Lightroom than with Photoshop.” Today you’ll learn the step-by-step Lightroom process he developed after giving up on Photoshop for this particular task.
Leahy’s sample image is a nice photo of a White Crowned Sparrow near the middle of the frame that he greatly improves by blurring sharply focused branches and foliage surrounding the bird. He also deals with other distracting areas that are neither what you’d call sharp or acceptably blurred. The idea, just like when photographing flowers, macro subjects, or people, is to accentuate the main subject while making other areas recede into the background.
The first step is clicking on the Develop tab atop the Lightroom workspace, and then selecting the Lens Blur option in the panel—making sure to click the box that says Apply.” Then turn your attention to the Blur Amount Slider that’s directly beneath the box you just checked. This becomes super important once you’ve identified the areas you want to blur.
As you’ll see, there are a couple more easy-to-use sliders for perfecting the effect, and Leahy explains how they work for selectively blurring various types of images. You’ll also learn how to add an overly to the image when using Lightroom’s Focus Range slider to help you determine specific areas that need to be pulled out of focus.
Then you can use a simple brush to paint over the portions of your shot that require softening. There’s a cool trick for using the wheel on a mouse to quickly modify brush size—either smaller or larger—as you move around the frame. Leahy illustrates how the technique works by saying this: “When you take areas out of focus it literally makes them look further back in the scene.”
Be sure to visit Leahy’s instructional YouTube channel, especially if you love photographing birds, where there are many more straightforward shooting and editing tips to help you out.
