I'm starting a series of live roundtables, one photography niche at a time, and the first one is for wedding photographers: Tuesday, December 8, at noon New York time (5pm London).

The idea: a few working wedding photographers sit together on Zoom and share what has actually worked for them to get more clients, some of it over the years and some of it just this year. Other wedding photographers watch live and send in their questions, so we all learn from each other. I haven't seen this done before, and I think it's a good way to make connections and draw on each other's experience.

The panel came together faster than I expected: Ryan Brenizer in New York, Dennis Aliaksandrou of Charleston Photo Art, and Simon Dewey in Derbyshire, plus Ariel Cannon, a newborn and family photographer in Los Angeles, for the outside view. I host and ask the questions, and after each round I add a short bit on what it means for your website.

Registration opens in November, and the link will be here. It's free, and the replay goes to everyone who registers.

Andrew S. Gibson, the writer and photographer behind The Creative Photographer, has a new ebook out called The Garden Photography Workshop, and it's the one I'd point you to if flowers and gardens are anywhere in your work, or you'd like them to be.

It comes out of 18 months he spent photographing gardens across south-west England, and it runs in 3 parts: what to sort out before you get to the garden (gear, close-up work, planning the visit), what to do once you're in it (light and composition in any weather, plus bees and butterflies), and what to do with the photos afterwards (developing them with masks and selections in Lightroom, then web galleries, prints, zines and photo books). Andrew calls that last part the often neglected one, and it's the part your website lives off.

It runs to 145 double-page spreads with over 150 photos, it comes with a bonus monograph and a set of photo tips cards, and he refunds it within 2 months if it isn't for you.

Have a look at The Garden Photography Workshop »

QUICK TIPS

A couple compares 4 named collections much more easily than an hourly rate plus a list of extras, I'd say.

When I built a wedding photographer's website, his pricing changed on the way: an hourly rate with the add-ons listed underneath became 4 collections by launch, written on his side rather than mine.

The hours and the add-ons didn't disappear, they moved inside the collections, each with a name and a price.

An hourly rate on a wedding site hands the couple homework. They have to guess how many hours a wedding takes (most have never planned one), add the extras they think they'll need, and compare that sum with a photographer who shows 3 packages. I think most people give up and write to the photographer whose price they could read.

A named collection does the arithmetic for them. "Full day, 2 photographers, an album" is something a couple can picture and a price they can compare, and the one most couples pick tells them what a wedding usually costs with you.

If you quote by the hour, last year's bookings probably already hold 3 or 4 combinations that keep coming back. Those are your collections, they just don't have names yet.

How do YOU show wedding prices right now, by the hour or in packages?

Open your portfolio page and run the mouse across your thumbnails without clicking.

If a photo lifts under the cursor, or a title fades in over it, that's the thing worth looking at.

A grid works because it's a pattern, same spacing and same rhythm, your eye moving across photos without stopping to read. A caption breaks that pattern at whatever your cursor happens to touch, and the visitor switches from scanning to reading a title for a photo they haven't decided they care about yet. There isn't room for a caption there either. At thumbnail size that text either sits on top of the photo or gets cut off halfway.

The lightbox is where the caption belongs. There's space under the image, and the person looking has actually asked for that photo.

So in your gallery settings, turn the hover caption off (it's usually called something like "caption on hover" or "hover overlay") and drop the zoom with it. Then open the lightbox options and make sure title and caption are switched on there.

The photographer who had me strip this out got to the reason before I did: "It's a bit of a gimmick, I think I insisted on it before, because I really liked it."

Whose idea was the last effect you had removed from YOUR site?