The business side of photography
A few leftover thoughts for the end of the month:
What they didn’t teach you in photo school is the value of blue food colouring.
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The GDPR. You’ve probably heard of it.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is now one year old. It affects every business or organization, anywhere in the world, that markets to people in the European Union (EU). It applies to anyone who uses personal information of EU citizens for business or public sector purposes.
The aim of the GDPR is to protect all EU citizens from privacy and data breaches in today’s data-driven world.
– GDPR
The GDPR not only applies to organisations located within the EU but also applies to organisations located outside of the EU if they offer goods or services to, or monitor the behaviour of, EU data subjects. It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of data subjects residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location.
– GDPR FAQ
Refurbish: to repair and clean equipment so that its condition is like new.
Photographers like buying new equipment and that equipment is often quite expensive. What you may not know is that many manufacturers sell refurbished or demo products at a discount.
Nikon Canada used to have a semi-secret mailing list selling demo and refurbished camera gear. While Nikon does continue to sell some refurbished and demo products at its head office in Mississauga, it seems that some refurbished camera gear is also sold through Henry’s. Many camera stores also sell demo products.
Nikon USA has a site for refurbished products but the prices aren’t very good. Canon USA and Canon Canada also sell refurbished products but the discounts aren’t the greatest.
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Photographers use batteries and all batteries can leak. This means that sooner or later, many photographers will end up cursing at leaky batteries.
Contrary to popular belief, all batteries don’t leak acid. Lead-acid batteries leak acid because, well, that’s why they have “acid” in their name. But alkaline batteries leak . . . wait for it . . . an alkaline material called potassium hydroxide.
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Photographers need to catalogue their images. A catalogue is a visual list of your pictures that helps you organize, search and retrieve them.
There are a lot of photo editing software but very few for digital asset management (i.e. cataloging). There are many cloud-based cataloging solutions for larger businesses but the high cost of these pushes them out of reach of most photographers.
Media Pro, a popular cataloging application for many years, was discontinued in August 2018.
I started using Media Pro in 1998 when it was called iView Multimedia. Back then, the British software company gave it away as shareware. In the early 2000s, iView Multimedia changed its name to iView Media Pro and gave it a $60 price.
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You might someday have the need to photograph banknotes, coins or postage stamps. Do it wrong and you or your customer could get a visit from the RCMP or be on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Copying currency and stamps isn’t just about counterfeiting, it’s also a copyright issue.
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If you’re like me, you probably buy too much photo gear. Not so much cameras and lenses but things like bags, light modifiers and various accessories. Here are some of my purchases in 2018:
I’ve been meaning to get a half-decent cart for some time. A homemade dolly-style cart with a bright yellow mat ($55 in parts and plywood from Home Depot in 1985) has served me very well. An over-priced Tri-Kart 800 is something I regret buying about 18 years ago because it was of limited use to me. But many local TV crews use the Tri-Kart.
This year I bought a RocknRoller R12RT. It’s pretty good but it takes up extra space because it’s not small and it weighs 33 lb. Fully extended, the R12RT won’t fit in some elevators.
