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I was thinking about going to local pediatricians and seeing if they would allow me to hang prints with our studio information right on them in their offices. I would certainly do it for free in exchange for the referrals.

major in business! teach yourself of learn how to run a small business... then, if you decide to stick with photography, you can, and if you decide you like advertising, perhaps you can start your own firm doing that. Regardless of what you do, a business degree, as boring as it might sound, will likely benefit you more than most others unless you are really passionate about something else.

 

Learn marketing, advertising, accounting, time management, a bit about computers and basic networking etc, and then you'll have the tools to be a successful whateveritisthatyoudecide.

 

my two cents!

in this particular portrait, there is a little lack of contrast and the eyes need a little post processing help to brighten them... I think it could benefit from more shadow too, or a less even light.

 

in general, though, the secret that few actually talk about is that the nicer (or more interesting) the subject looks, the nicer the portrait comes out. Plain people rarely make for striking portraits, as much as ugly, old, disheveled or beautiful people do.

in NY, an LLC carries with it a $500 yearly fee. the limited liability it provides was worth that much when I was dealing with medical equipment. In the case of photography, I was much better off with a sole proprietorship, cause its super cheap and I dont need limited liability. the paperwork is also super substantially easier to manage and generate. A sole proprietorship is like one form and $30. The $500 LLC fee yearly is better spent on insurance or equipment.

 

if you are really going to do what you mention, a few things matter: first, if you take a loss for more than a few years in a row, I think you lose the ability to write it off eventually and you may increase your likelihood of audit. So if you really don't ever plan on turning a profit, don't do it, or only do it for a couple of years and then 'go out of business.' Otherwise I think it officially becomes a 'hobby.'

 

Second, as usual Ellis is right: you really need to talk to an accountant from your state to verify or contradict any information you get from someone like me!

I agree that its not super easy to get exactly what you want, and the bounced reflections do mess the whole thing up.

 

On the other hand, in a reasonably sized space, a light that is close to the model will lose strength as it passes the subject more (relative to one that is far away) and higher power will force you to set your camera to settings that help eliminate ambient light more (f16 - f22 with shutter set to max sync), so those tricks help.

 

On the other hand, wrapping the whole set in black does make it easier, and tweaking in photoshop or whatever helps even more!

 

Hope that all helps, and thanks for the clarification, William.

email me a jpeg and I'll tell you! I havent heard of a mac solution.

the lighting in these varies somewhat, but the basic effect is achieved by setting one light off to the side, usually close to the model and at high power, and making sure not too much of it hits the background.

 

Increasing the distance from the model to the background will help, and having a less diffused light seems to look better to me too, but all of those things are variable.

John,

 

you can download a free exif tool from a company called opanda... I think its called iexif.

 

once you download that, shoot an in camera jpeg (not raw) and then open it in the opanda software. Somewhere buried in the exif is the total number of exposures.

 

http://www.opanda.com/en/iexif/index.html

make sure you are looking at the images on a calibrated monitor, not in camera. Some camera LCDs don't display purples well at all. I think the D2X suffers from this wacky problem.

You'll hear a million pros and cons, but you should certainly consider alien bees. Some people think they are too 'beginnerish' and some people think they are the best thing ever, but in reality they will accomplish for you almost everything that you need for the time being, and perhaps for the rest of your career.

 

If you go with AB400s, light stands and umbrellas, you might be able to go with a 3 light setup for about your budget. Look at their 13' light stands and photoflex convertable umbrellas.

 

You can add to that setup as you grow and it will serve you well. They are also a super company to deal with in the customer service dept, which is a bonus.

"You have GOT to be kidding. If there's a whole lot of exploitation being shown, its BETTER than if there is only a little bit? Yeah right. Lets have a huge national exhibition where all the images of kid's private parts are the focal point of on display. Everything's fine now."

 

This is exactly NOT what I mean. If there are a whole lot of images of naked girls, it could be a problem. If, as a whole, the body of work consists of pictures like this, of people in their environment, adults a children, clothed and unclothed, it makes this photograph part of a collection that as a whole is not pornographic.

 

I think the main difference here is between people who see this image as sexual and people that dont.

 

"Sorry people but lets get real. We are talking about a picture where the focal point is a young child private parts who is looking up at another child's private parts. While the children may not have been thinking anything sexual, the whole picture is about that. You know it. The photographer knows it. Everyone knows it."

 

I disagree, and until that sentiment can be reconciled between everyone, there won't be any uniform consensus. I see the image as something entirely different. Perhaps thats why is is "art" and not "porn" to me.

 

I also see the image in context a little more because I have seen a lot of Nan Goldin's work, and I know how it fits a little better than people who have only seen this shot, or limited stuff of hers.

I talked to my wife about this quite a bit and she really put me in my place to a large degree... two things matter that I never really even considered:

 

First, when was this taken? If you judge a photography by the standards of today, instead of the standards of when it originated, you are really making a mistake. If this was pre-internet, pre hypersensitivity to pedophilia and child porn, the entire discussion is almost rendered irrellevant.

 

She used an example of a phychiatrist who essentially emotionally corrupted a baby by giving him no attention. (Watson? Baby Alfred? I don't remember.) His work is barbaric by todays standards, but you have to still value his work because it had relevance then.

 

Second, the context matters. If this was in an exhibition or collection where it fit with the subject matter, where there were many pictures of these girls, or girls like them (to be simplistic) its much less likely to be construed as problematic.

 

When its posted on the internet, years later, by itself, the discussion is skewed right from the beginning...

 

fwiw...

As a warning, obviously this picture can be viewed by some as child porn, so I am not sure if I recommend clicking this link, but the picture can be seen here:

 

http://www.4debatetalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5

 

that being said, I am so unsure of what to think... as a new dad, I can see myself taking this picture of my kids and thinking its cute. I could not see myself selling it or exhibiting it. It fits Nan Goldin's style, and it captures a moment that is funny and cute, to me.

 

I think people that REALLY STRONGLY CARE about whether this is pornography or not might need a serious look in the mirror to see if they are attracted to it or if they have a history that makes them think that way, but for the vast majority of people it probably isnt a big deal.

 

On the other hand, for society at large, with pedophiles and lunatics roaming the earth, maybe this is something that should be kept private and not put on the walls of museums.

 

Do I think Goldin or Elton John should be punished for it? absolutely not. Does that even come close to answering the questions here? I seriously doubt it.

 

Its a good topic to discuss, though...

I think the 85 is superior... Two things: 1.4 is better than 2.0 DC'd. DC is interesting, but not that substantial.

 

Second, at least with my copies, the 85 focuses a lot better. I can't get reliable focusing without racking back and forth on the 105 while using the outer sensors on the D2H and D2X. The 85 is a lot more consistent and easy to work with when focusing at minimum depths of field. YMMV.

I found my dell 2007fpw on sale a while back for somewhere around $350. I think the new ones are a little different, but its pretty good once its calibrated and the brightness is turned WAY down from the out of the box settings.

Interesting... I think that AF, today, should be easy to implement without much of a sacrifice in the lens. Its not like the manual focus lens doesnt have a moving element, its just how it moves that is different. It can't be that hard. I find the licensing thing hard to stomach too, because they license tamron, sigma, et al. It doesnt make much sense.

 

Perhaps a katz eye should be in the works for me... I use the 85 1.4 wide open enough that it might actually benefit me some. On the other hand, I won't be buying any zeiss lenses unless I get super comfortable with MF, and even with a katz eye I have a feeling thats not going to happen anytime soon!

 

thanks for the responses.

maybe its "broken"!

 

sorry... couldn't resist.

I'm young enough to ask this question: Why in heavens name arent these zeiss lenses AF?

 

I'm just not good at manual focusing, and I really thing the DSLR viewfinders arent much help in that area (even though I am using D2X and H at the moment)

 

I can't imagine that their sales are even a small little bump compared to how many they would sell if they would autofocus.

 

For those that own MF lenses, do you use them as much as AF lenses, and would you continue paying top dollar for MF lenses today?

just out of curiosity, do you find that i-ttl works well for shooting interiors? I dont do much of it, but I am much more fond of manual settings for the individual flashes.

it might be stupid, but my first thought is to use SU-4 mode and manually adjust all of them...

 

my second thought is to (can it be done?) run a sync cord to a second camera (maybe via a pocket wizard or the ten pin connector) and use a second sb800 as a master on a camera that shoots but doesnt actually need to record the image. timing might be a little off, but perhaps you can use a long enough shutter to even trigger them both at the same time by hand.

 

There must be someone out there who knows how to trigger a nikon camera by shorting pins on the 10 pin connector... if you could make a switch that fires the two cameras at once you'd be golden...

 

A project for another day!

for what you are doing, the D300 should be perfect. You'll have exactly what you have now with better AF... I am not sure you need much more, or a bigger sensor.

 

If you were finding that you wanted to upgrade because of the high ISO noise, not the AF, I would think more about the D3. If you are relatively happy now, why mess with the whole lens length thing?

 

And that way there will be one less person in line in front of me for the D3!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

don't be afraid to charge what its worth. Make sure you give them a price with 450 8x10s in it, including profit for yourself.

 

Sometimes printing the 8x10s will be so much of a problem for the organizers that they will be happy to have you do it.

 

I am not sure if you have a costco up there, but if you need decent quality prints dirt cheap, they usually do a good job. It might allow for $5.00 per print for you, and I think $2.00 per print cost which will make somewhere in the vicinity of the right amount of profit for a shoot of that nature.

 

two things to keep in mind: The prices I ballpark are US$, and I have no clue how that effects things in canada because I am an isolationist pigheaded american with no knowledge of the outside world, and two most labs will give a pretty significant quantity discount, so you might find that a $3.50 8x10 lab comes out cheaper when you are buying them 10 at a time.

buy a 10 bit monitor! then you'll surely have at least 8 bits. Doesn't marketing suck when they just flat out lie?

 

read reviews, but make sure you read reviews geared at photographers. Gamers and photographers want totally different things in a monitor, and a great review by someone other than a professional photographer can sometimes mean absolutely nothing.

honestly, the D40x might not be the best starter camera, even though I am totally pro nikon...

 

I too think the 50 1.8 is a great lens to start with, especially because of the price, but it allows you to work with available light and ISO 1600 to enjoy shooting indoors with out much of a problem.. It will teach you how to autofocus properly too, as there is little room for error when you are in less than perfect light.

 

The consumer zooms will frustrate you indoors unless you buy a flash that you can bounce too, like an sb800.

 

I would seriously consider a D80, 18-70 for outdoors, 50 1.8 for indoors and an sb600 at the very least to start. I think you'll get a lot more out of it.

 

I know nothing about canon's stuff, but I would certainly consider the low end canons too if they make a ~$100 50mm lens that would focus on their bodies. The nikon D50, if they still made it, makes more sense to me than the D40.

 

hope that helps.

very interesting, Ellis. I appreciate the info. I never figured that more expensive lights would help my photographs significantly, so I stick with Alien Bees, but the numbers you show seem to indicate that I am making the right choice in not worrying about a different ring flash.