[Kestrana]

Not that expensive gear = skill, but you gotta finance that somehow.

[Kestrana]

I’m planning on $30 an hour with free digital edits to start. For event photography, that is extremely affordable. I’m aware that I’m not actually a trained professional but my entry costs will be low. As my business hopefully picks up and my experience grows, my time will become more valuable.

Other factors will add cost
– long travel distance
– blocks of time above 4 hours
– holidays and late nights
– wanting copies of all photos not just the edits
– rush jobs

Prints will be cost + some reasonable markup. I haven’t worked that all out yet, depends where I get them from. Hell, if ennuipoet or someone else here can deliver quality larger prints at cheaper cost, I might outsource to them and make some money for both of us (if he’s into that sort of thing).

One other thing that will set our photography venture apart is the vintage photography we can do with film and antique cameras. This is something I need to build a better archive for and hoping a reasonable starting fee will open some doors to get subject matter.

To compare, our wedding photography was approximately $600 an hour, we are supposed to get our digital prints on cd after 6 months (which is this month, still waiting) and a $100 print credit, which wasn’t enough to cover 60 3x5s for the thank yous we sent out. But the photographer was an editor for USA Today and was using the Canon Mark 5II whatever thing and had nothing but L glass.

[Kestrana]

I like that one NBD. For what you do with MiP.net, triptychs probably would work really well to advertise a band.

[Kestrana]

I was able to work with my web friend today, he is setting up ftp access for me on his server and is going to see if he can swing a free wordpress template for me. But thanks for all the options, I may still need them.

[Kestrana]

orionid has a DevianArt page and that’s definitely not the direction I want to go. My personal impression of DA may not be accurate but my only exposure to it is as a place people put bad fanfic pencil drawings and the really cool stuff is hard to find amidst the glut of mediocre stuff. And my stuff may be mediocre but I don’t want it to get lost in that. Make no mistake, there’s some great things on DA but I see it as an extension of your photography business, not the residence.

Your idea to incorporate a blog into it is great ennui. I wonder if I can integrate my G+ public stream, since I’m now very active there (you should be too. do eet do eet). I want it to be clean, streamlined, show the work.

I do have a friend who is a web developer who promised me earlier this year to build a site as part of his start-up company going public but their plans changed and he’s also a minor league hockey player so I lose him in hockey season. The problem with waiting for that is I kind of need this now. It’s hard to be a photographer these days without a web presence and I wouldn’t hire one who didn’t have one.

[Kestrana]

If we did want to do a “Top Farktography Picture of the Year” contest (which is kind of what the Anniversary theme is just not at calendar end) I could see soliciting the Top 12 and doing a calendar.

But if we did that, I think the money made should either directly cover costs, go to funding Farktography in some way (maybe paying Zeke, schnee and CISS a stipend to defray hosting costs) or donate to an organization. Or throw a Farktography party. Overall, Farktography is about getting our work out there rather than making money and it’s probably best to leave that to the individual while keeping this a place of growth and ideas.

Another option if it’s possible would be to invite people to make like a DevianArt account and somehow link all our accounts together in a group. I wouldn’t advertise the group in the boobies but it could have advertisement here and if someone asks about a print, encourage the poster to post there if they haven’t already and direct the asker there. I don’t know much about DevianArt or other sites. When aspidites is back he probably knows more about the online market than most of us too.

[Kestrana]

I’d actually had a thought about this once or twice especially with working on the Farktography book. I’d thought about asking Drew if there was a way to incorporate the Top 10 into the Fark store or something after each contest, for a limited time, but that ran into legal snafus where people would have to provide the rights to print the photos etc etc.

Then I thought about creating a separate photo site where each Farktographer could upload whatever files they wanted to make publicly available for purchase, a sort of Farktography redbubble or DevianArt. But then I got hung up on whether or not there should be criteria for who gets to upload what photo because I felt that there should be some sort of quality control to the collection but we also have some very printable entries that don’t make the top ten (like the top 20 usually) but it varies wildly by contest.

Lastly I didn’t suggest it because I was overwhelmed with stuff at the time and I knew I would want to be involved in the process and potentially running any Farktography business venture we created. But that’s changed, I suddenly have tons of free time (more on that in a thread I’m going to post shortly).

tl;dr: Yes I’d participate in selling Farktographs but I’m not sure what suggestions/details I’d make. And I still want to buy that print I wanted ennuipoet I just need to have my own wall to hang it on first.

[Kestrana]

kashari I’m not much a fan of math myself. But I tell myself it’s like vegetables, every once in awhile it’s good for you 😉

[Kestrana]

Of course that shot was the one I chose last minute without expecting anything of it.

[Kestrana]

I hate posting my stuff early and I hate bothering people by asking in advance but U-Man would you mind telling me if any of these would be illegal, because I’m totally confuzzled what’s actually the determination now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrana/6366285647/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrana/6366286117/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrana/6374488845/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrana/6374489557/in/photostream

[Kestrana]

What I did was this:

1. Open the three pictures you want to use and crop to the image you want
2. Create a new document at 640 x 1100 (or 640×700 if you want it to fit entirely in a small monitor on the contest page)
3. Decide how you want to arrange your triptych and resize the three pictures accordingly – for example, I did three horizontal bars at height of 340 pixels each bar. (1100 – 60 pixels for borders / 3) Or a horizontal section that is half the image I resized to 310 wide. (640 / 2 minus 10 pixels for border = 310)
4. Copy and paste your pictures into the new document and arrange
5. Use the paintbucket to fill the lowest layer’s blank space with desired background color

[Kestrana]

Meh..I just take pictures.

Heh, I really get into the “philosophy” of photography. It is an unhealthy associations from love of poetry. You think THIS is a pedantic argument here, get a group of poets in one room and then get THEM started on the various schools, movements, styles and variations of poetry. People think poets are all soft and squishy, mention Beat Poets in the wrong group and they WILL CUT YOU. 😛

If you spell E.E. Cummings in lowercase I *will* cut you.

[Kestrana]

Whoa…last I checked I was in third. Thanks guys!

[Kestrana]

At this point I’m just going with what I shot and if it’s ruled it doesn’t fit the theme then fark it.

[Kestrana]

I don’t doubt that he has a point but it’s his beginning standpoint about how digital technology has made photography available to the “unwashed masses” just puts his whole argument into the wrong corner.

It’s not just that anyone can take a high quality picture anymore, but also that anyone can become a consumer of fine art photography today as well. Before, the best art photography was only available to the public that was educated, wealthy enough to afford it and interested in it – now everyone wants fine art prints in their homes, restaurants, small businesses, etc. But when you widen the audience, you widen the criteria for what falls into it. People who know nothing about the Dusseldorf school only know and see “oh that looks professional and since it’s high contrast black and white it must be professional – and profound”.

Ultimately photography as a business responds to what the customers want. Lomography got hot for whatever godunknown reason, so now everyone does it and everyone sells for it. I see this argument as the exact same thing. It’s like someone complaining about the sound quality of records being so superior and we should go back to record players in our cars.

Side note Farktographer I loved that photo you posted in Purely Film, voted for it, still love it. I don’t know that I would hang it on a wall in my home but it brings me pleasure to look at it.

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