Free Photo Contest/Exhibit Clearing House

Entering photography contests can be an enhancement to prestige and CV. It’s always a boost to me to get a print accepted in a show or win a juried exhibit. Working toward professional society awards is another venue, long kept separate, but there’s no reason today’s artistic photographer…

Videos and photos from radio controlled helicopters

Piloting and camera operating a radio controlled helicopter video/photo platform are new, lucrative niche jobs in an expanding market. With many types of imaging services experiencing lower profits, here’s one that is gaining serious momentum. Aerial filming. Sure, traditional film and even stills from the air was a really cushy job, hard to break into. Real helicopters, real small planes and old school film cameras at insane hourly rates to rent, with serious technical requirements.

Back again! Free Canvas Wrap Contest from The Giclee Factory

The newest buzz in inkjet printing is all about black and white. All inkjet printers will offer black and white printing, however very few will make the effort to deliver real monochrome inkjet.

How to make money with really big portraits

Would how to pre-select, serve and provide the right products for our clients in this cost-cutter, amateur wanna-be, do-it-yourself world help your business model for now and ten years from now as well? Family portraiture used to be big business all around. We all know how prices have sunk very low, but there are contemporary answers of how to make a profit. Even in a depressed market, Master Photographer Ken Whitmire details how to succeed - during one of the best (and cheapest) week-long workshops I know. I’ve been at this workshop to hear how Ken details every step toward making good money with boutique specialty portrait photography.

3-part Secret to Perfect Family Portraits

Whether you’re going for just a quick holiday card picture or an extraordinary 4x6 foot wall portrait, you can’t afford to spend huge amounts of time in postproduction. That’s where everybody loses their profit.

Hey Mac users! You’re not tied to Apple any more!

My new MAC Pro 8-core was in serious need of additional RAM to run the bigger applications and shove around the pixels from the Canon 5D Mark II. Apple didn’t tell us about this little RAM problem up front, but they were happy after the fact to price additional 8G memory at $400!!!!! You’ve got to be kidding! Big no sale from us.

Restoring Portraits from “Cookies”

These portraits, she recounted, were exchanged between bride and groom sometime near the turn of the 20th century. I’ve never seen this framing shown in any photo history book. But I do know that because tintypes were made with very thin plates, they were creatively cut to fit the covers of albums, or inset into lockets, broches or fans. The “cookie” part looks like plastic, but is actually a precursor to plastic called Bakelite, (pronounced Bay Ka Lite) a material just invented about the time these portraits were made.

How to remove the worry of outsourcing photo retouching

Creating a firm relationship with a retouch outsource removes the fear of placing your image files in unknown hands.

Cuba photo travel adventure update

You may have seen elegant editorial photos of Cuba, highlighting colorful past, music, art and poetry. Glamorous show clubs and equally glamorous tropical paradise. But Cuba has been out of bounds for Americans for decades. No legal travel permitted. Fines and potential imprisonment.

Keyword editing made easier

Effective keywording is one of the three most important ways to get your site or post found on the internet - along with title and description. But I’ve always found keywording a disorganized chore. Here’s a way to make the job simpler, quicker and more logical.

Remember how in composition 101 class you had to make an outline of topics, content, facts etc.? We used to do this on index cards, one card for each separate fact or topic. We wrote these in no particular order, just as they came to mind or emerged from research. Then we rearranged the stack of cards to create the logical skeleton of the essay. Done this way it was easy to see if there were any gaps in the content or if further rearrangement were needed.

I’ve found this analog approach works well for proposing, editing and sequencing keywords.

Once you’ve done your research, possibly on Google Adwords, to propose keywords, then you’ll also try to think inside the head of your audience to imagine what they might search on. I always make a big list of potential keywords, even if some seem a bit far out or not fully on target. For something as important as your website, you can never have too many keywords to start the edit process. Don’t forget keywords that speak to business products or services you may not do right now, but are targeted in your business plan.

Here’s my system to edit and organize your search keywords. My example is done on a blank file folder, easily preserved for future reference or for colleague comment.

• Write down each proposed keyword “candidate” on a separate sticky note. I use the smallest size sticky notes and cut them in thirds to save space.
• Arrange the stickies on your desk or a white board to get a good look at the total field.
• Re-arrange them, grouping categories like Photo services, Photoshop, Album design, etc. (or whatever is your business)
• Select the 2-5 most important keywords, then second tier from ones to be discarded.
• Re-arrange again in a logical, customer-friendly sequence.
• Generally choose no more than 25 keywords for your main core list (federal governments site limit). This is hard for us because we do so many things related to video, stills and productions.
• Rearrange as many times as needed, because individual pages or blog posts will need different, specific keywords than those for the site in general
• Keep a dated record of your final edit, and don’t throw away the de-selects, because they will eventually find a use - no need to rethink totally from the ground up

Cuba! People-to-people 2012 dream trip for photographers

An great opportunity for an amazing (and legal) culture and people-to-people travel experience awaits a limited group of lucky photogs Everybody knows the mystique of old Habana. Colorful past, music, art and poetry. Incredible 50‘s and 60‘s cars carefully maintained. Beautiful old houses. Glamorous show clubs and equally glamorous tropical paradise. But Cuba has been out of bounds for Americans for decades. No legal travel permitted. Fines and potential imprisonment.

Eliminating Fear of Retouch Outsourcing

Creating a firm relationship with a retouch outsource removes the fear of placing your image files in unknown hands. Strangers no longer! Art professions are traditionally perceived as hands-on, hand made, raw materials to finished art work. Digital photo and video just changed the tools and expanded the options - otherwise art is still art.

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