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11 years ago
Do I Need To Be A Professional Photographer?
If you already have a digital camera (or if you are tempted to purchasing one), and if you induce ever dreamed about making additional money, then read on because...
This is could be the most important letter that you will ever read!
And let me tell you why: I am about to expose to you, in no uncertain or vague terms, exactly how you too can be generating hundreds and even thousands of extra dollars simply by taking photographs and submitting them online in your own free time!
Hundreds and even thousands of individual are currently making a good chunk of change from the Internet by submitting photos, why not you?
"Do I Need To Be A Professional Photographer?"
Absolutely Not!
Even if you don't have any photography experience, you are able to still use print and use it to make money online.
The system I am prepared to share with you is proven and tested and has turned the passion for photography into a fun and rewarding career for many people, including those who have no photography experience!
Have any of your family members or friends ever commented on the beautiful photos you've taken? Do you seize every opportunity for great shots in everyday life? Do you prefer to use those photos to make extra money? Of course you do. Who wouldn't?
These photography opportunities are what makes this system legitimate and genuine, and are so simple that they do not require any expensive machinery or costly photography supplies, and you could get going extra chunk of change in a brace of days with only your digital camera and your willingness to learn!
Here's The Least You'll Need to Know:
You don't need any special photography equipment or special photo printers because every photograph you take will be uploaded to the Internet and submitted automatically. Neither nor to know anything about digital cameras or photography in order to make money through this system because what I'm about to share with you is deadly simple and powerful.
I am exiting to explain exactly what I do, and I am moving to show you exactly what you need so that you are able to craft a real income source by living your passion for photography!
This is could be the most important letter that you will ever read!
And let me tell you why: I am about to expose to you, in no uncertain or vague terms, exactly how you too can be generating hundreds and even thousands of extra dollars simply by taking photographs and submitting them online in your own free time!
Hundreds and even thousands of individual are currently making a good chunk of change from the Internet by submitting photos, why not you?
"Do I Need To Be A Professional Photographer?"
Absolutely Not!
Even if you don't have any photography experience, you are able to still use print and use it to make money online.
The system I am prepared to share with you is proven and tested and has turned the passion for photography into a fun and rewarding career for many people, including those who have no photography experience!
Have any of your family members or friends ever commented on the beautiful photos you've taken? Do you seize every opportunity for great shots in everyday life? Do you prefer to use those photos to make extra money? Of course you do. Who wouldn't?
These photography opportunities are what makes this system legitimate and genuine, and are so simple that they do not require any expensive machinery or costly photography supplies, and you could get going extra chunk of change in a brace of days with only your digital camera and your willingness to learn!
Here's The Least You'll Need to Know:
You don't need any special photography equipment or special photo printers because every photograph you take will be uploaded to the Internet and submitted automatically. Neither nor to know anything about digital cameras or photography in order to make money through this system because what I'm about to share with you is deadly simple and powerful.
I am exiting to explain exactly what I do, and I am moving to show you exactly what you need so that you are able to craft a real income source by living your passion for photography!
Learn to Take Good Photographs
In my experience, teaching digital photography I hear people ask me how to take digital pictures and most importantly how to get crisp sharp digital pictures. I am also asked if learning digital photography is easy or hard and how long does it take. Well I can safely tell you that there are lots of really advanced things you can learn such as what things to do to the camera to take pictures like a professional, aperture and shutter speed for night and extra special photography lighting techniques.
So let's get started:
Photography Lighting Techniques
Your lighting is everything when you learn digital photography. Once you master lighting techniques, then you'll master almost everything in photography. In my experience as a photographer you have two choices; add light or work with the light you have. There is really nothing complicated about this. You can add light via the flash, or reflectors, or additional lamps for example. The other way is to work with the light you have via window light, sunlight and overhead light you have from inside work.
Using reflectors sounds expensive, but it's not. Reflectors are just collapsible sheets of plastic gold, white or clear plastic sheeting that simply reflects a colour back onto the subject you are photographing. You can even make them yourself. Just get a piece of white cardboard or cardboard with gold gloss over the top to create your own. The only thing about cardboard is that they're not collapsible, but if you are creating your own home studio, then it doesn't matter. Collapsible is really needed when you are on location, shooting outside and have to carry them around. The flash is a necessary item you will need in your travels when learning digital photography. There are some pretty nifty external flash techniques to learn but for now, just keep in mind you can use flash front on, sideways, upside down....any direction you want, provided you can maneuver it independently from the camera. If not, then you may want to use additional lighting such as lamps, a torch or flashlight, or even another camera with a flash. The whole purpose to using an external flash unit is to get more light onto the subject, how you do it doesn't matter, it's the end result you are wanting.
Aperture and Shutter Speed
Before I knew what I was doing, I was so scared to put my camera in manual mode on the settings dial. I never knew how to work with the shutter and aperture individually. It's not that hard to work with. I created a small aperture and shutter speed chart out of cardboard to help me work out what shutter would work with what aperture. It came in very handy and I was able to start getting some pretty nice photos. You can do this to by simply taking the information from your camera and writing down the minimum to the maximum aperture. You may find out some interesting stuff about your camera this way. When I first did this, I had no idea my camera went right up to F32. I thought it had a minimum aperture of F22. It really surprised me and as a result of learning this information I was able to get more flexibility and work my camera a bit harder when I wanted it to. By changing your aperture and shutter speed manually you can even starting doing abstract photography.
How to take great composition in photography
You probably already have a good eye and don't need to be taught the major aspects of composition. Rule of thirds is when an imaginary grid is placed over a photograph. It's divided into three rows and three columns. When working to create great composition in photography, generally, you can place points of interest at each point of where the horizontal and vertical lines meet, called an intersection point. Not the rule of course, it is more like a guideline. With some helpful digital photography techniques, you'll learn how to make the most popular family photos come to life such as how to take professional portraits of children. Once you master lighting, you'll also know some really cool stuff like how to take photos of fireworks and some clever flash photography techniques.
So let's get started:
Photography Lighting Techniques
Your lighting is everything when you learn digital photography. Once you master lighting techniques, then you'll master almost everything in photography. In my experience as a photographer you have two choices; add light or work with the light you have. There is really nothing complicated about this. You can add light via the flash, or reflectors, or additional lamps for example. The other way is to work with the light you have via window light, sunlight and overhead light you have from inside work.
Using reflectors sounds expensive, but it's not. Reflectors are just collapsible sheets of plastic gold, white or clear plastic sheeting that simply reflects a colour back onto the subject you are photographing. You can even make them yourself. Just get a piece of white cardboard or cardboard with gold gloss over the top to create your own. The only thing about cardboard is that they're not collapsible, but if you are creating your own home studio, then it doesn't matter. Collapsible is really needed when you are on location, shooting outside and have to carry them around. The flash is a necessary item you will need in your travels when learning digital photography. There are some pretty nifty external flash techniques to learn but for now, just keep in mind you can use flash front on, sideways, upside down....any direction you want, provided you can maneuver it independently from the camera. If not, then you may want to use additional lighting such as lamps, a torch or flashlight, or even another camera with a flash. The whole purpose to using an external flash unit is to get more light onto the subject, how you do it doesn't matter, it's the end result you are wanting.
Aperture and Shutter Speed
Before I knew what I was doing, I was so scared to put my camera in manual mode on the settings dial. I never knew how to work with the shutter and aperture individually. It's not that hard to work with. I created a small aperture and shutter speed chart out of cardboard to help me work out what shutter would work with what aperture. It came in very handy and I was able to start getting some pretty nice photos. You can do this to by simply taking the information from your camera and writing down the minimum to the maximum aperture. You may find out some interesting stuff about your camera this way. When I first did this, I had no idea my camera went right up to F32. I thought it had a minimum aperture of F22. It really surprised me and as a result of learning this information I was able to get more flexibility and work my camera a bit harder when I wanted it to. By changing your aperture and shutter speed manually you can even starting doing abstract photography.
How to take great composition in photography
You probably already have a good eye and don't need to be taught the major aspects of composition. Rule of thirds is when an imaginary grid is placed over a photograph. It's divided into three rows and three columns. When working to create great composition in photography, generally, you can place points of interest at each point of where the horizontal and vertical lines meet, called an intersection point. Not the rule of course, it is more like a guideline. With some helpful digital photography techniques, you'll learn how to make the most popular family photos come to life such as how to take professional portraits of children. Once you master lighting, you'll also know some really cool stuff like how to take photos of fireworks and some clever flash photography techniques.
Turn Your Negatives and Slides into Digital Images
In the last few years, digital technology took photography by storm. Most every lab today processes digital photographs from CDs, DVDs, flash cards, etc. Only a few years back most of us only had one choice of getting prints of our photographs: Negatives, and Slides. Things changed quite a bit today. Most non-professional photographers today shoot digitally, because of many advantages digital photography offers. However, most of us still have a legacy left from the days of film. I am referring to the many thousands of strips or developed negative and slide film. It is time to get them available digitally.
Whenever I talk to people about this subject, the first thing I hear is the question: Why? Well, there are several reasons. I am going to break down this part of the article by individual reasons.
Advancing Technology
Because technology is getting better we should take advantage of it, whenever we can. Photography is a good example of improving technology. Some of the higher-end digital cameras today are producing photographs better in detail, contrast, and sharpness than does film. The whole world is moving in the direction of digital because of several advantages, which it has established over film. Remember those times when you were looking for just one frame of that special photograph which you wanted to duplicate for your relatives and friends, and how difficult it was for you sort through all your not so well organized strips of developed film? We all do. This must have been the most frustrating thing to do. No more, if you are shooting digitally. Now, we can organize our digital images by date, name, description, category, and a myriad other criteria. We no longer have to spend hours looking over dozens of strips of film trying to figure out which one we actually need. If we could only do the same with our film.
Long-term Storage
Lucky for us, film is amazing in terms of storage. Images captured on film will last a lifetime, or longer. However, optical technology is giving way to digital, and who knows, twenty years down the road getting our film printed may be much more difficult, and perhaps more expensive than it is today. Technology changes with people, and with the demand which we as consumers generate. We are certainly adopting digital photography very quickly, and as such film is becoming more restricted to semi-professional and professional photographers. This trend will no doubt affect the many labs, both professional and consumer-driven, such as the thousands of convenience and 1-hour labs at supermakets, and specialized photography stores. A great example of this is relative difficulty of getting medium format film, or slides developed. Only about 20 or so years ago this format was as common as 35mm is today.
What to Do With All That Film
Ok, it is clear that we are entering the digital age, and it is time to make the move with our old film. What now? This article is meant for a typical consumer, and as such it assumes that a typical consumer will not have access to a quality, high-end film scanner at home. Not everybody has a scanner at home. Some have digital cameras, and no computer at all. Most typical consumer scanners today do not produce a quality enough scan of 35mm film to be worth it. Most consumers will find that it is most economical, and easiest to obtain services of a dedicated lab, which will gladly scan all your film for you, and will store it on a CD, DVD, or other media. Today, more and more such services are becoming available to address the obviously increasing need. I would recommend staying away from mail order service, which will be much more difficult to deal with, in the case you are not satisfied with the quality of results. Look for services which scan in bulk, and offer discounts on large amounts of film to be scanned. Inquire ahead of time about the final size of the digital image. Make sure that each scan is large enough to produce a quality 13x19 print. This is another reason for using a local versus mail order services. Take your time, and ask all the important questions. If the answers you are receiving are uncertain, and the tech is not willing to take his time with you, consider a different service. Most urban areas today have several options for you to consider. Always shop around. You may find that a cheaper service offers more options, like index prints of scanned film, than does a more expensive service. Consider sorting your film, and ask to have it scanned in the sorted order, which will allow for more logical organization on digital media. Once you have your film digitized, you will be able to transfer and share images with others, as well as get them printed simply by using one of the more popular online services, such as SnapFish, Kodak Gallery, Mpix, etc. Make a copy of the media which you receive from the scanning service, and store it away safely.
4 Tips for Making a Portfolio Photography Website
A portfolio is the best way to showcase your work, skills and testimonials to employers, prospective clients and others. Technology has become an integrated part of the creative industry where writers, artists, photographers, graphics designers and film technicians use specialized software to bring out the best in their creations. Building an online portfolio is equally important to showcase your work and achieve better response and greater interest. An online portfolio is ideal for professional photographers as well as hobbyists, who can save a lot of time and effort involved in making physical copies or CDs.
It is not so difficult to create a photography website on your own. The best way to get started is to get your own website and starting building your online portfolio around it. A photography website design involves a combination of your photography skills plus exposure to web designing. However, for those who are not familiar with technical aspects of web design, there are simple free website building tools to help you get an outline of your website ready in minutes. For photographers there are specialized photography website design templates for photo gallery, albums and portfolios.
Creating an online portfolio is easy, but creating a successful portfolio requires meticulous planning, designing and execution to achieve your goals. To build a good portfolio it is important to follow the following four key principles as discussed below:
1. Identify Portfolio Goals:
It is important to articulate your goals in any business, and this is true for your portfolio too. You can have a vision or mission statement followed by a set of goals. If you find different portfolios serve different purposes you can create different sets of objectives for each portfolio, which for instance can be Sales Generation Portfolio, Freelancing Portfolio, Networking Portfolio, Personal/Hobby Oriented Portfolio, etc.
2. Design for Target Audience:
It is important to design keeping your target visitors and audience in mind. For corporate clients and customers from traditional industry backgrounds provide professional, formal and clean layouts without any fancy or edgy designs. Focus more on what your prospects want and cater to their needs, for instance a photographer specializing in corporate events will have a different audience compared to those of a fashion photographer. So the right choice of design for your website and portfolio is critical here.
3. Navigation:
This is high priority for your visitors and prospects because if they have difficulty in viewing your portfolio or browsing through your web pages, then it is a definite put off. Even if you manage to get thousands of visitors, poor navigation or design will pose huge obstacles in achieving your goals.
4. Planning & reviewing your Portfolio:
Your portfolio should be professionally managed and reviewed like any other client project. Since this is a showcase of your work, spend more time on planning, updating and reviewing your online web pages and components of your portfolio on a regular basis.
Following these tips for your online portfolio design would help you win more projects, build a strong client base and achieve your professional goals.
It is not so difficult to create a photography website on your own. The best way to get started is to get your own website and starting building your online portfolio around it. A photography website design involves a combination of your photography skills plus exposure to web designing. However, for those who are not familiar with technical aspects of web design, there are simple free website building tools to help you get an outline of your website ready in minutes. For photographers there are specialized photography website design templates for photo gallery, albums and portfolios.
Creating an online portfolio is easy, but creating a successful portfolio requires meticulous planning, designing and execution to achieve your goals. To build a good portfolio it is important to follow the following four key principles as discussed below:
1. Identify Portfolio Goals:
It is important to articulate your goals in any business, and this is true for your portfolio too. You can have a vision or mission statement followed by a set of goals. If you find different portfolios serve different purposes you can create different sets of objectives for each portfolio, which for instance can be Sales Generation Portfolio, Freelancing Portfolio, Networking Portfolio, Personal/Hobby Oriented Portfolio, etc.
2. Design for Target Audience:
It is important to design keeping your target visitors and audience in mind. For corporate clients and customers from traditional industry backgrounds provide professional, formal and clean layouts without any fancy or edgy designs. Focus more on what your prospects want and cater to their needs, for instance a photographer specializing in corporate events will have a different audience compared to those of a fashion photographer. So the right choice of design for your website and portfolio is critical here.
3. Navigation:
This is high priority for your visitors and prospects because if they have difficulty in viewing your portfolio or browsing through your web pages, then it is a definite put off. Even if you manage to get thousands of visitors, poor navigation or design will pose huge obstacles in achieving your goals.
4. Planning & reviewing your Portfolio:
Your portfolio should be professionally managed and reviewed like any other client project. Since this is a showcase of your work, spend more time on planning, updating and reviewing your online web pages and components of your portfolio on a regular basis.
Following these tips for your online portfolio design would help you win more projects, build a strong client base and achieve your professional goals.
7 Best Online Institutions For Photography That Can Change Your Career
Online institutions for photography are great options for professional and amateur photographers who want to improve their photography skills. Compared to the conventional photography institutions, online schools have various benefits from lower fee structure to efficient time utilization. Our busy schedule today, does not allow everyone to regularly attend a regular classroom program but it is easy for anyone to regularly attend an online photography course. Since the materials can be downloaded and learnt at your own convenience, you can learn during your spare time and weekends.
7 best online institutions that you should consider are:
1. AS in Digital Photography, International Academy of Design and Technology- For photography beginners, this is probably the best online course because it covers a large range of topics from composition to lighting techniques at a beginner level.
2. Photojournalism Program, Boston University- Boston University is a renowned university in United States. When the university officials realized the potential of internet as a great resource for educating students, they came up with a number of fascinating online courses and their department of photography is one among them. The faculty includes professional photographers who have won several prestigious awards and worked with prestigious institutions.
3. BFA in Visual Communication, American Intercontinental University- BFA program from AIU is dealing with the artistic side of photography. However, this program also provides very good insight to various photography equipment, photography techniques and the scientific aspects of photography.
4. BFA in Photography, Pratt Institute- The photography program from Pratt Institute covers various aspects of photography including the history, color and studio lighting. The program has eight semesters.
5. BFA in Photography, Savannah College of Arts and Design- If you are photographer with a strong passion for art, this program works best for you. The introductory classes include drawing and painting sessions to provide you a better insight to colors. MFA in Photography, Savannah College of Arts and Design is one of the best courses for professional photographers and students who want to learn the commercial aspects of photography. The MFA program covers marketing and sales as well as digital photography.
6. BFA in Photography, Academy of Art- The San Francisco based institute is well known for their cutting edge art courses and this course is no exception. You will learn about working with clients, organizing portfolios, studio tools and lighting. They also offer an MFA program.
7. Visual Journalism, Brooks Institute- The Visual Journalism program from Brooks is the best option for those who are looking for a specialized photography degree. Be it fashion, advertising or industrial photography, the institute has tailor made courses that suits you the best. This course can be the best choice for amateur photographers who want to learn about a particular niche and for professionals who are planning to expand their career to one more niche.
7 best online institutions that you should consider are:
1. AS in Digital Photography, International Academy of Design and Technology- For photography beginners, this is probably the best online course because it covers a large range of topics from composition to lighting techniques at a beginner level.
2. Photojournalism Program, Boston University- Boston University is a renowned university in United States. When the university officials realized the potential of internet as a great resource for educating students, they came up with a number of fascinating online courses and their department of photography is one among them. The faculty includes professional photographers who have won several prestigious awards and worked with prestigious institutions.
3. BFA in Visual Communication, American Intercontinental University- BFA program from AIU is dealing with the artistic side of photography. However, this program also provides very good insight to various photography equipment, photography techniques and the scientific aspects of photography.
4. BFA in Photography, Pratt Institute- The photography program from Pratt Institute covers various aspects of photography including the history, color and studio lighting. The program has eight semesters.
5. BFA in Photography, Savannah College of Arts and Design- If you are photographer with a strong passion for art, this program works best for you. The introductory classes include drawing and painting sessions to provide you a better insight to colors. MFA in Photography, Savannah College of Arts and Design is one of the best courses for professional photographers and students who want to learn the commercial aspects of photography. The MFA program covers marketing and sales as well as digital photography.
6. BFA in Photography, Academy of Art- The San Francisco based institute is well known for their cutting edge art courses and this course is no exception. You will learn about working with clients, organizing portfolios, studio tools and lighting. They also offer an MFA program.
7. Visual Journalism, Brooks Institute- The Visual Journalism program from Brooks is the best option for those who are looking for a specialized photography degree. Be it fashion, advertising or industrial photography, the institute has tailor made courses that suits you the best. This course can be the best choice for amateur photographers who want to learn about a particular niche and for professionals who are planning to expand their career to one more niche.