Home of Myrtle Beach Photographer Ryan Smith

About Ryan Smith

Ryan Smith Photography of Myrtle Beach

NEW! If you want to see me in action a recent client put all their pictures as well as wedding video online at http://unitingasone.com/.

I'm 34 years old and I started out as a hobbyist doing things like nature photography and slowly worked my way into doing portrait and wedding photography full time. I'm proud of the fact, like many great photographers, I just had a passion for the subject and taught myself through books, podcast, and other resources. I very much enjoy photography and do it as my hobby as well as professionally.  You can see some of my landscape photography that I do for fun in the AboutMe menu above.  I'm experienced using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom so I do the post processing and touch up as well. I also do all the work on the website myself.

I don't know how artistic I am, but I seem to have a good ability to get clients relaxed and having fun, which I find is when I get the best shots. I also seem to have a good eye for light. I don't spend so much time on setting up a perfect shot as trying to catch just the right look or expression. I keep having clients tell me how much they like my work, so I must be doing something right. Of course I do set up poses, but I really like candid and fun shots enjoying the beach and the outdoors. I'm very open to suggestions, anything a client wants to try I'm generally happy to do. I think being a good photographer is not so much about some amazing talent as it is just working hard and trying your best to make a client happy.

About Ryan Smith Photography as a Business

Everything that gets done in the business I do myself.  I'm the photographer, accountant, webmaster, etc.  I just prefer keeping things small, taking on the amount of work that I can handle, and not having the stress of getting big and having to worry about employees and all that comes with that. I'm never going to be rich working this way, but I get to enjoy what I do and it pays the bills while letting me have top of the line photography equipment to enjoy. The one thing I don't do myself is the actual printing, the high end printing service I use is faster and better than any type of equipment I could have myself.

I work out of my home office, there is more information below. Since all the work I do is on location, I just can't see any reason to open up an actual retail location. All this would do is cause me more expense, there is nothing I could do at a retail location that I can't do now. I have my home office fixed up for clients to come by to discuss wedding details which they do frequently, no one ever indicated they didn't want to work with me because I work out of my home, it just seems smart to me.

I carry general liability insurance through Auto Owners, Indemnity Coverage through the PPA, and equipment insurance through the PPA as well.

Equipment

I use a Nikon D700 with the FX full frame sensor (amazing low light performance), Nikon D300 and Nikon D80 Body.  My main two lenses are Nikon's top of the line 70-200 2.8VR and 24-70 2.8 both ED glass.  These lenses are about $2000 each, but they are worth every penny.  Other lenses are a Nikon 50mm Prime, Sigma 28mm 1.8 Prime, and Tamron 10-24mm for super wide angle shots. I also use the Nikon Creative Lighting System with the new SB-900 and SB-600 Speedlights.

Something I'm proud of is this website that I built myself. I know this might not directly relate to photography, but it shows I don't like to do things half way. I believe one reason my site is ranking so well on Google is that it is very clean, usable, and even the code is very clean and correct.  In fact I'm proud that each of my pages has fully validated code. Click the little W3C icon at the bottom of each page if your at all interested. I hope you find the site to be nice to use as well.

I'm a proud member of the Professional Photographers of America Association.

My Computer and Photo Processing Hardware:

In case you are curious about how the images are processed and protected. I use a special Dell IPS LCD (much more accurate than your typical LCD) that I keep color calibrated with a Spyder 3 to make sure what I see is what you will get from your prints.  I protect your images with a Data Robotics Drobo for redundancy as well as an external backup drive and an off site backup just in case.  My PC is a custom built Intel Core 2 Duo running Windows 7 RC.  I use Adobe Photoshop CS4 as well as Adobe Lightroom.  In other words, I'm very up to date and take great care and protection of your images, they are much more valuable than the equipment used to store them. 

I do all my work out of my home office where I have a nice setup for post processing. With the transition of photography into a fully digital process, I can do all processing using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop without a studio location, which helps keep my cost down. I also love my Wacom tablet that I use for Photoshop touchups.

Albums and most prints are sent off to an outside professional printing service that will drop ship the order right to you. All my displays are color calibrated which allows me to make sure the print you get from my printing service will look correct. 

Ryan Smith Photography Myrtle Beach is a registered and licensed retail business in the state of SC.