Printer Delight!

Lots of you have been requesting (begging, demanding…) a printing workshop, so here it is!
Finally, an opportunity to learn how to set up your monitor and printer to get reliable, predictable results.
For those of you who wish to, you can actually bring in your computer and printer, get them both properly calibrated and learn exactly how to set them up and what your various options are.
You’ll also have a chance to make prints on professional quality printers and a variety of papers.
Headshots has very generously offered to provide some printers for us to use, as well as media to try out.

Here’s a detailed info sheet on the workshop for you to review.
I’ve scheduled two dates for the workshop:
March 14 & 15
    
April 25 & 26

The cost for the weekend is $400 plus $35 materials fee.
The workshop will take place in my studio.
If you are interested in either weekend, or have any questions, please contact me below.
This is going to be a fun and informative workshop!

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Business of Photography Workshop, New Dates

Welcome to the new year!  With all your new year resolutions still dancing in your head, now is a great time to get going on your photography business.

So….. Here are two dates for the Business of Photography workshop:

February 7 & 8, 2009

April 11 & 12, 2009

The workshop covers all you need to know to set up and run your photo business including:

• Business planning and set-up:  Business Plans, Financial plans and cash flow management, start-up costs, registering for GST and RST, naming your business.
•   Estimates and Billing: Quoting jobs, fees, expenses and mark-ups, job docketing, invoicing and collections.
•   Accounting and Bookkeeping: A simplified approach to financial record keeping and cash management.
•   Marketing:  Identifying potential markets, marketing plans, portfolios, developing and selling your image, reps, mailers and promotion.
•   General Business Practices: Attitude, professionalism, client management, copyright, making and surviving mistakes.
•   Digital:  Impact of digital on the studio, equipment issues, billing issues, business opportunities.

Here’s a detailed  schedule for the course, and some testimonials from previous students.  As you can see, the course is very comprehensive and detailed, and has been well received.

Additionally, after the course each student can schedule an individual consultation with me to review their work and get information on potential markets and business opportunities.

The course is held in my studio in Liberty Village (near King & Dufferin, in downtown Toronto).

The cost for the workshop is $400 (plus GST)

If you’re interested in attending, or would like further information, you can contact me via the form below or via my website.

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Successful Workshop

This weekend’s Business Workshop was a great success!  A good variety of participants from diverse backgrounds made for lively discussions and lots of exchange.  By Sunday evening everyone was pretty tired, but excited about getting their business up and running at a new level.

Thanks to everyone who participated!  You all made it a fun weekend.

 

I’ll be running more workshops in the new year, so check back here for further info.  If you have any suggestions for future workshops, post a comment or email me.

Business of Photography Workshop again

I’m once again offering my Business of Photography weekend workshop, running Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday.
 The dates and times for this workshop are:

 Friday, November 21  6:30pm – 9:30pm
 Saturday, November 22  1:30pm – 8:30pm
 Sunday, November 23  9:30am – 6:00pm

 It will be held in my studio, on Atlantic Avenue, near King and Dufferin.
 
This course covers all major aspects of operating a photographic business, focusing on the needs of the photographer running a small to medium sized freelance business.  Specific areas covered include:
 

 
  Business planning and set-up:  Business Plans, Financial plans and cash flow management, start-up costs, registering for GST and RST
  Estimates and Billing: Quoting jobs, fees, expenses and mark-ups, job docketing, invoicing and collections.
  Accounting and Bookkeeping: A simplified approach to financial record keeping and cash management.
  Marketing:  Identifying potential markets, marketing plans, portfolios, developing and selling your image, reps, mailers and promotion.
  General Business Practices: Attitude, professionalism, client management, copyright, making and surviving mistakes.
  Digital:  Impact of digital on the studio, equipment issues, billing issues, business opportunities.
 
 

Here’s an outline and schedule for the course that gives more detailed information.
 Additionally, each student can book a personal portfolio review with me, to look at their work and get input on potential markets and future directions for their work.

This course has been very well received in the past, and I’ve posted some testimonials from previous students for your information.
 
 The cost for this course is $400.  
 If you are interested in attending, or would like further information, send me an email via my website.  Feel free pass this information on to any one you think might be interested in the course.
  

Getting to White (or color)

I just came across a very detailed and helpful guide to getting pure white backgrounds for shots of people or products.  There are some good tips to keep in mind, but most important is having sufficient distance between your subject and the backdrop.  Here’s the link!

Coincidentally, I was just using a similar technique to get a variety of colored backgrounds for some jewelry shots for a client.  I used a mid grey seamless and color gels on the background light to change the color of the background.  The model is lit with a medium softbox, about three feet from her. She’s positioned about ten feet from the background, so the light from the softbox doesn’t affect the background. Using a mid grey seamless gives me a lot of flexibility in terms of the background tone.  By combining gels with adjusting the power on the background light I can get everything from near black, to deep, saturated colors, to bright colors, even white if I want.  Here are some examples from the shoot:

In case you’re wondering about the soft focus effect in some of the shots, they’re done with a 90mm tilt/shift lens, which allows me to tilt the plane of focus… Lots of fun!

My Business of Photography Course

Due to popular demand, I’m offering my Business of Photography course as a weekend workshop, running Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday.
The dates and times for this workshop are:
 June 20 (6:30-9:30pm), June 21 and 22 (9:00am-6:00pm).
It will be held in my studio near King and Dufferin.

This course covers all major aspects of operating a photographic business.  The course focuses on the needs of the photographer running a small to medium sized freelance business.  Specific areas covered include:

 
 Business planning and set-up:  Business Plans, Financial plans and cash flow management, start-up costs, registering for GST and RST
 Estimates and Billing: Quoting jobs, fees, expenses and mark-ups, job docketing, invoicing and collections.
 Accounting and Bookkeeping: A simplified approach to financial record keeping and cash management.
 Marketing:  Identifying potential markets, marketing plans, portfolios, developing and selling your image, reps, mailers and promotion.
 General Business Practices: Attitude, professionalism, client management, copyright, making and surviving mistakes.
 Digital:  Impact of digital on the studio, equipment issues, billing issues, business opportunities.

 

I’ve posted an outline and schedule for the course that gives more detailed information.
Additionally, each student can book a personal portfolio review with me, to look at their work and get input on potential markets and future directions for their work.

The cost for this course is $400.  
If you are interested in attending, or would like further information, feel free to email me at rob@rdaphoto.com.  You can also pass this information on to any one you think might be interested in the course.

What Lights Should I Buy?

So, now on to the second most common question I get asked!

Ok, so here, once and for all is my definitive answer… at least until some new gizmo comes along.

First off, flash!  Let me say right up front… I LOVE MY ALIEN BEES!  They’re everything I need in a studio or location flash unit… convenient, powerful, portable, reliable, and most important, cute!  I bought them originally for some location shooting… and now I hardly ever power up my old Balcar systems.

At the bottom of this post I’ve compiled a chart with my specific recommendations, and here is my reasoning for the choices:

One click “aged photo”

I’m not usually one for “one-click” solutions, but this is just too cool.  Upload a jpeg to this site, press the button and shazam… instant antique photo!  Then if you want you can grab the resulting image from the site.  (yes, the site’s in Japanese, but it’s pretty simple to understand)  Here’s an example

 

    

Have fun!

Archival Processes

For those who were on the tour of the show at the Corkin Gallery yesterday, we were talking about some of the archival processes involved in some of the older prints.  I found a great site full of information and how-to’s on some of these early processes here.  Have fun exploring!  Perhaps if there’s enough interest we could put together a workshop on combining these processes with digital capture!

History of Photography

National Geographic has put up a nice timeline on the history of photography here.  It’s a bit NatGeo centric, but interesting to glance through.