jeremy_graves

I'm finally getting some decent business and I'm ready to buy the expensive

camera, do some advertising and such. I've been lucky so far, but I know that I

soon need to acquire the proper liability insurance.

So, what company do you use for your insurance? How much should I expect to

spend each year? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I agree with Mr. Barrett, I had to do this with a wedding last year with similar lighting nightmares, except that the natural light that I had was filtered through cobalt blue stained glass windows. It was hell trying to keep everyone from looking like Smurfs.

I ended up doing ten or so by layers and did quicker fixes on the rest. Since the wedding, the church replaced the windows with light, warm colors. My guess is that one too many church goers had weddings in other churches to get away from the 'smurf filters'.

The laptop is great, but I usually keep my slideshows under 3 minutes. I like to include at least one example of before and after photo editing and some engagement shots. If you've got XP on the laptop, it's as easy as dumping all of the images in one folder on the desktop, opening it up and clicking 'view as a slideshow'. I also keep a copy of my web site on the computer in case the meeting place doesn't have an available web connection. Many potential clients like to refer to images on the site, and it's just easier to have it up in front of them.

I get my business cards from overnightprints.com, where you can get full color, uv coated, 300dpi cards, printed front and back for about $80 per 1000 cards. I've put a shot on the front of the card that is always featured prominantly in the slideshow, so it serves as a reminder of the work they've seen.

From what I can tell, Fotoplayer seems to be a skinned version of the free Jalbum software. It does a little more, but Jalbum is free and looks just as nice. I'm going to download Jalbum and give it a try soon, I'll drop you a line whenever I figure it out.

jalbum.net/index.jsp