The business side of photography
Very off-topic but just for Valentine’s Day:
Although these will make little sense to non-photographers, here are some of the best photography pick-up lines:
Let me focus only on you.
Picture us together.
I’ve got you in my viewfinder.
Will you be my long-term project?
I Leica you.
Do you do it RAW?
True love can never be Photoshopped.
Let’s get together for a horizontal composition.
Some companies have reacted to the recession by circling the wagons, laying-off staff and raising prices. It’s about protecting themselves and putting the company’s self interests first.
If customers aren’t buying, then raising prices to compensate for low sales volume only closes the door even more. Raising the price of a product or service can often boost sales, but not during a recession.
Close doors or open new paths?
Let’s say you own a restaurant and people aren’t coming into your place as often as before. Folks are either going to a lower-priced fast food outlet or they’re eating at home more often. What can you do?
Continue reading →
The Wall Street Journal published the Best and Worst Jobs in the USA, based on a recently-released 2009 study. The list is based on five criteria: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress.
The methodology and the criteria used are limited and subjective. There really is no way to produce an accurate and objective list since best and worst are relative terms.
Take this list with a grain of salt and a big dose of humour. Just for fun, see where your job ranks.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”
– attributed to Aristotle
A few years ago, when dealing with a large national media corporation, I pointed out that the company’s conduct was the exact opposite of its mission statement. The corporate lawyer laughed and said, “That [mission statement] is just for the public, it’s not for us.”
A code of conduct may not be needed by a small business because the owner is usually close to the “front lines”. So there’s little room for bad behaviour. But sadly, a big business can have plenty of such room.
Small business owners may want to create their own code of conduct, not just to impress their customers but also to remind themselves of why they are in business. Maybe something like:
As a small business owner, my purpose is to serve the customer without whom my business has no reason to exist. My business may be small in size but my pursuit of excellence shall be boundless. I promise:
• To run my business with integrity and the highest ethical standards.
• To treat customers fairly, honestly and with respect.
• To be responsible for my actions and accountable to my customers.
• To acknowledge and then, to the best of my abilities, repair any mistakes that I might make.
• To protect the interests of each customer as if they were my own.
• To improve myself and my business for the benefit of my customers.
• To be a good citizen of my community.
It’s now the second decade of the 21st century, so stop using the phrase “digital camera.” It’s redundant. All cameras are digital, film is the exception. Feel free to use the term “film camera” when talking about a camera that uses film. Otherwise it’s just “camera.” No more “DSLR” either.
Cameras no longer have motor drives. Nothing is being driven or pulled through a digital camera.
Cameras no longer shoot “frames per second” because there are no more frames, just exposures.
Digital cameras do not videotape, tape or film anything because there’s no videotape or film in a digital camera. Digital cameras simply record video.
Continue reading →
Why doesn’t a newspaper do this:
For each online crossword, sudoku or whatever daily quiz the paper uses, that is correctly completed by a reader, (within a certain time period), the paper donates, say, $1 to a local charity. The chosen charity can change daily or weekly.
Have the daily quiz sponsored by an advertiser which will make the charitable donation. The advertiser’s logo and message would sit right next to the quiz. Fifteen minutes to do the quiz means 15 minutes of exposure to the ad.
How many readers will take the time to complete the daily quiz knowing that it will do some social good in their community? How much word-of-mouth will this create as readers get their friends to join in and help fundraise for a charity?
Continue reading →
From time to time, some photographer friends and some “normal” friends (i.e. non-photographers) will send me pictures and ask that I make them bigger. Apparently, I do a good job. Well here’s my secret:
I’ve been using PhotoZoom Pro since version 1.0, back when it had the catchy name of “S-Spline Pro”. The software works as advertised. Unfortunately, I don’t get paid to say that, I’m just a happy user.
PhotoZoom Pro 3 [as of 12/2012, it’s up to PhotoZoom Pro 5] isn’t particularly cheap but BenVista just released a new “lighter” version called PhotoZoom Classic 3. This uses the same technology as the Pro version but it has slightly fewer features and costs less than half the price.
But I have a zillion-megapixel camera. Why do I need to up-sample?
If you can fill the frame with your subject all the time then you may not need this software. But if you need to resample after a huge crop, this software can do the job. If you need to up-size low-resolution pictures sent in from your readers or customers, then this software will be useful.
I’ve cropped images from 36 MB (12-megapixel Nikon D2X) down to less than 1/6 of the frame and then resized them back up to 36 MB with PhotoZoom Pro. Editors were none-the-wiser!
Certainly, after any large up-sampling, the final image is never as perfect as the original. But it’s garbage in, garbage out. If you start with a small, poorly-exposed, out-of-focus image, then you’ll end up with a big, poorly-exposed, out-of-focus image. This software, like all other interpolation applications, makes the photograph bigger not better. Although, sometimes bigger is better.
