Getting Paid

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If you don’t print your own money then you have to make money the old fashion way by having a job. But a job works only if you get paid. (National Film Board of Canada / Library and Archives Canada circa 1955-1956.)

There have been only three times when I had difficulty getting paid. All were in the mid-1980s when I was just starting out:

1)   My first corporate customer was a very small pharmaceutical company. The company wanted the photos shot on transparency film because the images were for a slide presentation. I asked if they also wanted prints. No, they did not want prints, only slides. The job was done and the slides were delivered. The customer refused to pay because I did not deliver prints.
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Saving For The Future

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This is another view-from-my-office photo from a Canadian Open men’s tennis tournament in Toronto, 2012.

How long should you save image files after they’ve been delivered to the customer?

A photographer should inform customers about their photo archiving policy. How long will you keep the photos? Can a customer depend on you, for years to come, to redeliver the photos? If you promise to archive photos but you lose them, can a customer sue you?
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Immediate Expensing and Income Tax

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A Toronto police detective examines fingerprints using laser light. The photo was taken on opening day of the new Forensic Identification Services crime lab in Toronto, 25 October 1999.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Right now, most Canadian photographers will be doing their annual income tax. Some business expenses are not deducted in full but instead they are depreciated over time. Capital Cost Allowance (CCA) is used to depreciate the value of photo equipment, computers, and other business purchases that have continuing value.
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Cheap Is Not A Bargain

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If you wear eyeglasses, this is how your business portrait should look. No reflections on the lenses, no greenish tint on the lenses from the anti-glare coating, no lens refraction on the sides of the face, minimal shadows caused by the frames, both eyes fully visible, the whites of the eyes are white, good colour in both irises, and nice catchlights in both eyes.

Many professional photographers know how to achieve results like this and it isn’t difficult. If your business headshot with eyeglasses doesn’t look like this then your photographer failed.

A company this week asked to have its business headshots retouched. The photos were shot by a cheap photographer.
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A Close Shave

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Removing a small amount of facial hair is usually easy to do. But realistically removing a beard, moustache or a lot of stubble can be impossible.

One of the more difficult, if not impossible, retouching tasks is removing facial hair. Removing a beard or moustache can be impossible to do because the facial hair has to be replaced by realistic-looking skin that matches the person’s face. Also, the photo retoucher has no idea what the person’s jaw and mouth look like under the facial hair. The retoucher can only guess and the results will not be accurate.
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Retouching Business Headshots and Other Portraits

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Of course I’m going to retouch my own headshot and make myself look as good as possible.

Almost all business headshots and other professional portraits need to be retouched. This is often done to fix mistakes the photographer made or to repair something that was overlooked such as a crooked tie. Appearing neatly groomed will make you seem more competent.
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Dancing On The Ceiling

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The Live 8 concert in Barrie, Ontario, 02 July 2005. Live 8 was ten simultaneous concerts held in ten countries on 02 July 2005, plus one more concert on 06 July. The concerts, held on the 20th anniversary of the original Live Aid concert, were meant to send a message to national leaders at the 2005 G8 Summit in Scotland.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

All products, except luxury items, have a maximum price set by market conditions. A loaf of bread costs up to about $8. A bakery can’t increase the price to $20 or $30 no matter how good that bread is. The price of bread has a ceiling. To make more money, a bakery can expand into products that have a higher price ceiling such as cakes and pastry (which might be considered luxury items).
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