TIPS60 - Product Commentary - X-Rite i1 calibration tools

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:I can't stress enough the importance of having a color calibrated monitor, color calibrated printers, and just generally being color calibrated. We use, to do all of our color calibrations, the i1 system it's made by Gretag MacBeth. There are a number of other solutions out there, but the importance of making certain that your monitor is calibrated is so that when you're judging lightness and darkness, when you're judging whether or not an image has too much red, too much green, or otherwise is just not right, not visually correct. You want to make certain that you have everything in a color managed, calibrated to a known standard system. So that when you're speaking to a client and the client says to you, " Oh gosh, the photo looks too dark too light" or what have you, you can ask them, "Is your system calibrated?" Generally, it's not in many instances. And you can encourage that, you can say something like, "Oh, are you looking at it next to a light window?" or what have you. Ask them what environment they're reviewing the images in. But having a calibrated system means that you're calibrating to a known standard.

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TIPS60 - Staff2Freelance - having a professional URL

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on professional URLs as you transition possibly from staff to freelance. I'm John Harrington. Having a professional URL is one of the many signs and signals that you send to your clients that you are a professional. You don't want to use something that says something like @cox.net or @rcn or @comcast or @gmail or at @aol or @hotmail. Any of those URLs are not professional URLs whether it's in your email address or in the actual website that you have. You want to make certain that you have something like @johnharrington.com or @harringtonproductions.com or some variation that's shows that you are professional, that you're a business and people should be treating you as such. If you use non-professional URLs, free URLS, like gmail or so on and so forth clients, especially clients that have never heard about you before are going to be questioning whether not you're actually a full-time professional doing this and will be taking you seriously.

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TIPS60 - Double the money? Are your low rates actually hurting your business?

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on your rates and whether or not they're too low. I'm John Harrington. Now it may seem counter-intuitive, but the concept of doubling your rates to earn more business actually is a realistic one. It does actually apply, there is actually some credence to that idea. In some instances there are clients who know that the bill or the costs for a particular services is $1,000, $2,000. And when a photographer, even though they think they're doing the right thing, by saying, ""I'll do the job for $300"" they know, ""Gosh, this photographer may well not understand everything that's going into this project."" So they'll actually hire a photographer that's more expensive. So if you're looking at your rates and maybe you want to move up to that next echelon of client, you want to have a higher profile client, doubling your rates could actually generate you more business. In many instances that's why we ask whether or not there's a budget the clients trying to work within. So as silly as and counter-intuitive as it sounds, you might actually consider doubling your rates in order to generate more business.

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TIPS60 - The importance of having long-term care insurance

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on long-term care insurance. I'm John Harrington. Long term care insurance is a very valuable resource to have should something happen to you, you be debilitated or otherwise can't work and you need to go into skilled nursing facility or other location where you need to be attended to and there's daily or monthly costs to care for you medically. Long term care insurance should actually be a tax deductible business expense. I'm not an accountant so you might want to check with your accountant on that, but it's something that you should definitely be considering. It does give you peace of mind knowing that you're not going to have to sell off all your familial assets and essentially go into bankruptcy before medicare, medicaid will take care of you. Long term care insurance is kind of a form of life insurance that protects you or rather, your family while you're still alive from having to declare bankruptcy in order for you to be taken care of because of something debilitating that means you can't work anymore. So look into long term care insurance it's not that expensive and it's well worth it.

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TIPS60 - Switching to an S-Corp and what's involved with hiring a lawyer

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on switching to an S-Corp from being a Sole Proprietor or starting out. I'm John Harrington. When you're a photographer oftentimes you start out as a Sole Proprietor, you're filing your returns on the Schedule C and someone gave you the idea that you probably should switch to an S-Corp. It's a good idea. Something we talk about in another segment. I'm talking to about that how you actually go about switching to an S-Corp. Switching to an S-Corp is really easy, frankly it's pick up the phone and call a lawyer there are lawyers who for you $500 $1000, my lawyer actually was $750, will charge you to switch to file all the necessary paperwork to file an S-Corp. Filing an S-Corp isn't a big deal. It's very easy, articles of incorporation are simple to write. They are fairly boiler plate for most lawyers who are familiar with doing that and they'll do it for you fairly quickly. So get a lawyer, a competent one who knows how to file S-Corp in your local jurisdiction, and you'll be all set. It's really very simple.

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TIPS60 - Should You Quit Your "Day Job" To Become a Full-Time Photographer?

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on whether you, if you love our hobbyist photography, should become a professional. I'm John Harrington. The short version is, if you love what you're doing as a hobbyist, stick with it as a hobby. It's something that you do to relax, to entertain yourself, to blow off steam, to just kind of get away from the office. If you love what you do as a hobby stick with it as a hobby. If you're going to become a professional you're going to actually have to treat the business of photography like a business. You're going to have to treat it like you do your day job, your nine to five job. I strongly encourage you to consider that, when you switch from being a hobbyist to being a professional, that you really are starting a business from the ground up, from scratch and hopefully you will find that you can focus on staying as a hobbyist and not becoming a professional, unless that's what you want to do seven days a week. So before you consider making a jump from hobbyist to professional, recognize that it is a business and that's something that you need to stay completely professional on and not treat just like your hobby.

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TIPS60 - The Importance of Having Life Insurance

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts about the value of life insurance. I'm John Harrington. The value of life insurance can't be understated you definitely should have life insurance. In most cases it's tax deductible as a part of your business expenses. No, I'm not an accountant or lawyer so this should not be considered tax advice or legal advice, but look into getting life insurance because it will give you peace of mind. As someone who has life insurance I happen to use New York Life and think the world of them, they're a past and present client of mine, but I made my decision about going with them independent of that relationship. Life insurance lets you know that and let's your family know that if something were to happen to you, God forbid, that they would be taken care of in your absence. So strongly encourage you to look into life insurance. It should well be a tax deductible business expense as a part of what you're doing as a freelance photographer, whether an S-Corp or a Sole Proprietor. So look into life insurance, definitely worth having.

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TIPS60 - Nobody likes a Braggert

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on talking about your success or lack thereof. I'm John Harrington. In the field of photography frankly, in any field, you don't ever want to be bragging about how much money you made on any given assignment or any given month or any given job. There's a kenny rogers saying from one of his songs, ""You never count your money when you're sitting at the table, there will be time enough for counting when the deal is done."" I definitely subscribe to that notion whether I had a great month or not so great month or a particular job that I was really excited about. I generally do not discuss the success or lack thereof I've had in any given month. I would encourage you to do so. Talking about your successes, especially talking about how much money you made or didn't make really is not a good idea when it comes to talking to your colleagues, talking to your clients, because if you talk to a client and you tell them, ""Oh, I did this $10,000 job the other day"" and they're only paying you $1,000 that might not go over too well or they might think you don't need them next time and they'll call someone else. So don't talk about money especially with clients and don't brag.

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TIPS60 - The value of The Picture Licensing Universal System

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on the value of PLUS. I'm John Harrington. PLUS or the Picture Licensing Universal System is a industry standard that allows you to license your work in a way which everyone knows about and understands what you're saying. So, if you're referring to and ad slick or you're referring to a bus back or bus shelter where your pictures being licensed. Everyone understands that what that means and there's no ambiguity because the Picture Licensing Universal System, PLUS, which is free. Check out the URL below. Really explains it, everyone's gotten together ad agencies, media, art buyers, stock photo agencies, everyone's gotten together and agreed on exactly what the licensing language is so that there's no misunderstandings. In addition PLUS is creating this registry which will help photographers and image buyers connect if someone's got an image, they're trying to find who owns the rights to that photograph, they can reach out to them and find them through the PLUS registry.

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TIPS60 - Product Commentary - Spyder LensCal Camera/Lens Calibrator

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:One of the things that a lot of cameras have a problem with, no matter what professional grade camera you are working with, is that every lens and every camera combination are not perfectly calibrated, perfectly matched to them, to each other. Now you can take and send your cameras off to Nikon Professional Services, Canon Professional Services what have you and have them do all the calibrations for you. There is a fee and obviously you are without your cameras for a while. There's a really great solution that we encourage, it's actually called the Spyder LensCal tool. What's great about the Spyder LensCal tool is that it lets you focus on an exact known position and have the camera say that it's in focus at that point and then if it's actually not, off by a millimeter, off by a few inches it can actually be adjusted in camera. The camera remembers each of the lens positions for each of the focus points for the lens positions and it's a really great tool to make certain that everything you shoot that's in focus really is in focus.

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