protest

<p>RC helicopters may not be used for commercial applications. FAA may change policy in the near future and if they do there will be a lot of jobs created.<br>

The reason for choosing a helicopter over an airplane is that a helicopter is allowed to fly at lower altitudes than airplanes and they offer more control flying in a small area as well as offering a better view, particularly if the door can be removed for the flight. That being said, for such an application an airplane might be suitable. The window on a Cessna 172 can be opened during flight providing a fairly unobstructed view forward and aft. There is a wing strut right outside the window, so view directly to the side may be obstructed.</p>

<p>A Robinson R22 is about the cheapest helicopter you would be able to rent and I'll guess you'll spend about $250-350 per hour for the helicopter and pilot. A Cessna and pilot should run you about $150-200 per hour. Time is measured in tenths of an hour ("Hobbs time") beginning when the engine starts and ending when the engine stops. Plan your flight with your pilot in order to make best use of your time. Use the pilot's chart ("sectional") and Google maps. Draw arrows on your map showing which way the Sun will be shining so you can plan the best angle. </p>

<p>Air is rougher during the middle of the day, best time is early morning.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>In the end, it's your business and you can pursue whatever niche that works best for you.<br>

There are a number of products you can sell and part of your job is to know the best products to offer your customer. For instance you might research wedding albums and offer the best one that is perhaps unavailable to the general public. You might offer enlargements and work with a custom lab to produce very high quality images. If you think every lab is going to print your work identically to every other lab, think again. What is likely to happen is your customer may take it to the cheapest place they can find and when it turns out bad you'll be blamed. Then in a year or so when the cheap inks that were used fade, you'll get blamed again.<br>

I'm not opposed to folks selling the images on DVD, but my motivation has more to do with preservation of family history than any short term marketing strategies.</p>

 

<p>I take it they are selling them, not giving them away. Businesses go away and technology improves, so an argument can be made for allowing the source files to be added to a family's archive for the benefit of future generations. If it really bothers you then increase the price until the pain subsides. If you do sell them then provide them in a format that has a high probability of being readable long into the future.</p>

<p>Sounds like you at least have some curiosity. There is a History of Photography podcast on iTunes you might find interesting. IIRC the professor's name is Jeff Curto and the class is held at College of DuPage. </p>

<p>If you have one year then a series of workshops that cover what you need to know might be the most efficient approach. For example, a combination of offerings from www.mainemedia.edu/workshops/photo and www.ppa.com/community/schools.php</p>

<p>I would look at the technology currently in use in India and see if it makes sense to implement technology that provides better productivity. If labs are printing traditionally by hand, very labor intensive and low throughput, then digital output might be a better solution providing faster turnaround, fewer rejects, better control, etc. For analog input this would mean a scanning system to convert to digital and then digital output. Scanning systems range from low end to very productive high end systems. CAPEX could be pretty high. A low cost implementation might only entail hand processing facilities for film, low end scanning equipment, and a printer capable of handling the largest prints you intend to make. It may be that there is an unexploited niche in your market where you could focus efforts, for example if no one is producing very large prints, then specializing in that market might make more sense than competing for small change amongst a large number of vendors who have much lower overhead.<br>

For traditional analog processing and printing you will have facility requirements for dependable hot and cold water and electricity, equipment for developing of film with tight process control, expertise in control of photographic processes (for each specific process), dedication to maintaining extremely high QC standards, analog printing equipment, film processing equipment, analog paper processing equipment, packaging and mounting facilities, etc. Mounting and similar services can be very high margin activities.<br>

There is a hybrid workflow in which digital input is printed to analog media, so that's another possible option.</p>

<p>Do you have a budget?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Sounds like prime street shooting.</p>

<p>Sanford, in general for protests I have a series of Google searches that I run. Key words are protest, rally, demonstration. Then add the city and a date string in quotes if you are trying to find something happening on a specific day. Different sites use different date formats so you might have to experiment there. Also there are hot word searches for specific protest types, like abortion or "second amendment" or "tea party". For the occupy Wall Street type protests, also check Twitter, maybe with your city and hash tag #ows or #occupy{your city}. Happy shooting.</p>

<p><img src="http://facesofprotest.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/DC_20100912_600_0306.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="600" /><br>

Tea Party protester, 912 March on DC, Washington DC 2010</p>

<p><img src="http://facesofprotest.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/forsyth007-600.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="650" /><br>

Men & women in camo, Brotherhood March II, Forsyth County Georgia, 1987</p>

<p><img src="http://facesofprotest.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/forsyth001-600.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="600" /><br>

Counter-protester, Brotherhood March II, Forsyth County Georgia, 1987</p>

 

<p>I'm not in favor of using generic forms. Some thoughts ... Make it easy for you to keep track of things. An order has attributes. Some attributes are scalar values and some are lists. The event date is a scalar. A line item consisting of the quantity, size, finish, product code, item price, item extension (price * qty) is one item in a list. At the top of the form have your contact information so the customer can contact you for reorders in the future, the date of the order, event and/or event code, customer contact information, subject(s) of the photos, and any other data that might prove useful in the future for marketing or fulfilling this and future orders. Next the line items with every attribute you need to correctly price and fulfill the order. Product codes for things with a set of specific attributes (16x20,matte,canvas, stretcher, ...) help limit the number of attributes you need to list, but a description field should make it clear what's being ordered. At the bottom, the total and payment amounts and terms, and any other terms you require as part of handling the order. Make sure you can find an image in the future using only data provided from a previous order. Someone will surely call you a year or two after an event wanting to reorder an image. Hope this helps.</p>

<p>If you don't have the darkroom skills there are pro labs that can scan and print traditional color prints (Lambda). Those skills are not difficult to learn. If you are going after a niche market you might be better off making the final product by hand, e.g. platinum or silver contact prints from large format negatives - with prices to match of course. The craftsmanship can/should be part of the marketing strategy.</p>

<p>You may be looking at this the wrong way. Film can be a marketing niche, e.g. sell the permanence of film and silver, platinum, carbon, etc. based prints vs. digital to those who care about very long term stability of images.</p>

<p>This might be of interest: http://www.cmu.edu/events/gigapixel-science/</p>

<p>There is a lady in Seattle that conducts some workshops in that field. She might help you get off to a good start... found it: cowbellyworkshops.com</p>

<p>In this case I think your monitor calibration would have to be pretty far off to get the output you're seeing. I'll bet you have a profile that is being applied twice, e.g. once by your photo editing software and once by the printer driver.</p>

<p>Try to register the camera online and see what happens.</p>

<p>Where will you be filming? This is relevant to the type of microphone you select. <br>

Assuming you need something directional, pick up a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rode-VideoMic-Directional-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B0007U9SOC/ref=sr_1_cc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1282395841&sr=1-1-catcorr">Rode Videomic</a>. It's lightweight and comes with the shockmount and windscreen and the audio is pretty good on the 7D. Off-axis rejection is good based on a recent experience with someone coming up and talking to me during filming - he can't be heard at all.</p>

<p>Did you use the Rescale Image option and set Bicubic Smoother option when you resized? If not, try that.</p>

<p>Figure out a way for your images to make them money (you too of course) and I think you'll solve your problem. Create a niche.</p>

<p>Your best sales opportunities occur when you meet with potential clients in person, so this might be a topic for a seminar, free or low cost, that would allow you some face-to-face with potential clients. Reserve a meeting room at a hotel, have some postcards printed and mail to your target audience. Develop an entertaining presentation that you can deliver in an hour or so. Allow for a Q&A period afterwards. It wouldn't hurt to have a drawing at the end of the presentation in which you give something away (ipod etc.) and give everyone who attends a coupon for a discount on your services. When people register add a checkbox to the form that gives you permission to send them your newsletter. You can use that as a platform to inform customers what you're up to and new developments they should be aware of.</p>

<p>Describe your workflow, i.e. what did you start with, and what steps did you take in processing the image?</p>

<p>Jeff, light intensity follows the inverse square law so for example your light intensity at 8 feet is about twice the intensity at 11 feet (using "f-stop feet" makes it easy to remember). OK, so your soft box has light hitting the subject from various parts of the soft box. If you remember the pythagorean theorem you know the distance from each part of the soft box is related to the distance from the center and the distance of the center to the subject - the distance of each part is the hypotenuse of a right triangle. As the soft box is moved away from the subject the ratio of the distance of each part to the distance to the center trends toward 1, meaning the light starts to look the same intensity wise. Also the angle from which the light comes is reduced, which also reduces the "modeling" or sculpting of the subject you get when a broad light source is very close to the subject. In short, broad sources turn into point sources as the are moved farther from the subject. Point sources are hard light, like the Sun.</p>

<p>That one's not all that complicated. You have a key coming from model's left that is perhaps a small or medium soft box set kind of far back (the shadows are kind of hard). There is spot lighting the background, could be a focus spot like a fresnel or snooted parabolic etc. Then the red might be a fresnel with a red gel with the beam spread to hit both the model and the form behind her.</p>