My Blog of the Week for this week is Planet Neil, by Neil van Niekerk.

Neil is a photographer based in New Jersey, specializing in wedding and portrait photography.

While Neil is a great photographer and produces stunning work for his clients, that isn’t why his blog is Blog of the Week. I chose Neil’s blog because of the fantastic way he has stepped up and shared his knowledge with other photographers.

When I got back into wedding photography and had to get up the learning curve of this newfangled digital thing, Neil’s site and his posts over at Digital Wedding Forum were a tremendous help. I’m lucky in that Neil uses the same Nikon system as I do, so I’ve been able to take advantage of all the time and effort he has put into really learning the best way to set up these tools – knowledge he makes available for anyone wanting to learn.

He is also an expert in lighting – particularly in the art of getting good results from on-camera flash. I think there is a generation of photographers doing better work because of what Neil has taught.

In addition to his great blog, Neil also takes part in a lot of seminars and also has a book on lighting being published soon. He has a list of his upcoming workshops here. I see there is one soon in Boston, I might just have to attend! Neil’s book isn’t published yet, but you can pre-order at Amazon. I have.

So Neil van Niekerk is a great photographer and a great guy that loves to share and make things better. That is why Planet Neil is Blog of the Week! If you want to improve your photography head over there NOW!

And if you happen to be planning a wedding in the Mid-Atlantic area, you better contact Neil quick to see if he is available.