sherle

<p>I'm interested in what commercial photographers see are the trends in the coming years. I am taking a photography class for business and I am tasked with finding out what the trends are for commercial photographers.<br>

What have you had to change in the last 5 years to stay in business, how has the commercial market changed, how do you market to your potential customers, how has the stock photo market affected your business, do you use social media sites to advertise and if you do, how much of your income comes from that source, how important is your website to your business and how often do you update it to keep current, and how do you go about communicating your value as a photographer to your clients?<br>

Please feel free to make any other comments that are pertinent to running a commercial business and where you think the industry is going.<br>

Thank you for all your time and information</p>

 

<p>Here it is without the links being broken... :(<br>

My bunnies Jack, Jasmine, Rosie and George give us many hours of pleasure. They have such little personalities!<br>

<br /> Jack is the oldest at 7 and he has slowed down a bit. He's the one with a mohawk between his ears, but is the most amiable of all of them. He was recently sick, nearly died, so the vet bills have been a bit much lately. Thankfully he's recovering and is expected to live out his full 10 years or so.<br /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9854521-lg.jpg" alt="" /><br>

Jasmine is our inquisitive and bossy 6 year old. She has to rule the house or there will be fights. Problem is she can't always back it up and gets herself injured, thus the loss of part of her ear.<br /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9854522-lg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="400" /><br>

<br /> Rosie is also 6 and since she won't back down to Jasmine she lives in my daughters room. There have been too many fights and too many vet bills to want to keep them together. She is a cuddly bunny who is very much spoiled. She is just recovering from a broken hock so she isn't as active as she usually is.<br /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9854523-lg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="400" /><br>

<br /> The last one is George and he isn't quite 6 months old and he is the most laid back bunny I have ever met. He loves to run about the yard kicking up his heels and playing. However he loves just as much being held and giving you kisses and getting lots of love back.<br /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9854524-lg.jpg" alt="" width="411" height="600" /><br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9854542-lg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>

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<p>My bunnies Jack, Jasmine, Rosie and George give us many hours of pleasure. They have such little personalities!<br /> Jack is the oldest at 7 and he has slowed down a bit. He's the one with a mohawk between his ears, but is the most amiable of all of them. He was recently sick, nearly died, so the vet bills have been a bit much lately. Thankfully he's recovering and is expected to live out his full 10 years or so.<br /> <br /> <img src="../photo/9854521" alt="" /> Jasmine is our inquisitive and bossy 6 year old. She has to rule the house or there will be fights. Problem is she can't always back it up and gets herself injured, thus the loss of part of her ear.<br /> <img src="../photo/9854522" alt="" /> <br /> Rosie is also 6 and since she won't back down to Jasmine she lives in my daughters room. There have been too many fights and too many vet bills to want to keep them together. She is a cuddly bunny who is very much spoiled. She is just recovering from a broken hock so she isn't as active as she usually is.<br /> <img src="../photo/9854523" alt="" /> <br /> The last one is George and he isn't quite 6 months old and he is the most laid back bunny I have ever met. He loves to run about the yard kicking up his heels and playing. However he loves just as much being held and giving you kisses and getting lots of love back.<br /> <img src="../photo/9854524" alt="" /> <br /> <img src="../photo/9854542" alt="" /></p>

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<p>I have the utmost respect for wedding photographers and I work with one, but it's just not for me. I really love experimenting with the camera and most weddings are fairly scripted, even when you are being awesomely creative.</p>

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Lensbaby images of any category<div></div>

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I had this problem happen to me on the way home from a shoot, I hadn't had time to make backups, I had just loaded them to the laptop and when I got home and setup to do my backups most of my files were corrupted in this manner. Turned out my hard drive was at fault, not that it was too full, it had lost some of its ability to save data. I saved all the files off to another HD, but the damage had been done and I lost quite a few of the files that were on the laptop. If someone knows some software that I could try, I still have that HD and would love to be able to try and recover that data. Sorry for the loss, it is a bitter pill to swallow. .....Sherle

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My cheapest camera (and favorite) is the Holga which the first one I "bought" was in trade for processing a couple of rolls of film for a friend in my lab. The next cheapest was my Rolliflex that I bought for $15 at a flea market, it was in great shape and works wonderfully.

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I personally have never done that, but I had the pleasure of working with a very talented photographer as an intern who during his daughters senior year in high school took an image a day of her with an 8x10 camera. It was a beautiful photo essay when he was done. He was able to capture her in all her moods throughout the year as she wasn't afraid to show him how she was feeling... especially when she wasn't happy at that moment to be in front of the camera.

 

When I took an autobiographical photography class we had to take self portraits for 45 days, that was tough, but it was fun to see everyone's interpretations of themselves at the end of the class.

Thank you for the link, it will be most helpful and I apologize for not posting in the correct forum.

 

As to using the light tent it was all I had at the time. I was on location and did not have the luxury of all my equipment and the light tent was the closest thing I had to a decent white background. If I had been in studio I would have lit the backdrop, but I still would have been dealing with the reflections on the bottles. I'm sorry I should have explained myself better.

 

I will be studying the links you gave me and the books that others recommended. Sherle

Thank you Edward this is most helpful, it will give me something to practice with until the book comes. Sherle

I'm sounding like a broken record, but get a copy of "Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic

Lighting" which covers situations like these.

 

Thank you Robert for the book recommendation, I just ordered it thanks to you.

 

William thank you for the humor!

 

Ellis I will try moving my lights above the set, thanks for the tip.

http://www.photo.net/photography-lighting-equipment- techniques-forum/007tNJ

 

404 - Page Not Found

 

Apparently the link isn't there, at least my browser isn't seeing it.

Photography bottles (or anything else) in a light tent and talking about advertising is an oxmoron -

 

I understand this, however the client wants the bottles against white, so that's my job.

 

I appreciate the links and the advice. Sherle

I need to photograph four wine bottles in a grouping to be used in advertising. I tried using a big light cube

with the WL800 strobes with soft boxes on them on either side of the light cube and a continuous light behind the

box. What I ran into though was the bottles reflecting off the bottle next to it. What setup can I use to

eliminate the reflections of the bottles on the ones beside them, or do I photograph them separately? The

background needs to be white so they are easy to cut out for placement in printed material.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated. Sherle<div></div>

Community classes only seem to reach remedial photogs.)

 

I think that before you decide that community colleges only seem to reach only remedial photographers you should go to your community colleges and talk to the professors there. They might open your eyes to vast worlds you had no idea existed.

 

As to comparing yourself to others I have had to understand that I can't do certain types of photography, it just doesn't sync in my head. So I had to find my niche and work from where I am truly inspired.

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