Tuesday, December 16, 2008

the Question

     OK, today, I'm going to answer questions.  I don't do photography as a full-time job, but rather as a profession adjuvant to another profession.  One thing I'm frequently asked is, would I like to do photography full-time and nothing else?  The true answer is: yes and no.  I love my "real" job.  I also love photography.  The problem, however, lays in several layers.  First of all, if I start doing photography as a full time job and my sole source of income, I'd probably have to do whatever jobs come my way and/or move to a bigger centre.  I really like the autonomy I get with not needing to accept every job I'm offered.  In fact, I often joke that my sales pitch is, "I don't need the money, so hire me because I'm doing what I love to do".  Additionally, I might have to put my prices up because the equipment and technology is always changing and the big camera makers, like Nikon (my fav) don't give away their stuff.  I currently show up at a shoot with several thousand dollars worth of equipment, and I'm holding it in just one hand!  My beloved wife is not too keen on my even spending more time on the computer (although, this might become an excuse to get a new machine, but I digress).  More pics mean more processing, more bandwidth, more more more.  More fun too, though!  On the up side, right now I seem to be travelling quite a bit to do what I do, and that's pretty cool!  I don't mind travelling, but I guess I'm not much of a businessman because I hate having to charge extra for all the expenses this incurs.  I'd like to go for free, but this just isn't possible.  

     If anyone IS looking for a free photographer, Chase Jarvis is looking for an interesting idea that he can shoot.  He'll go anywhere in the world.  Look him up at www.chasejarvis.com .  He does some awesome stuff.

     Feel free to post some more questions here in the comments section, and I'll try to answer what I can.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Sushi !!

OK, I admit it:  I actually like sushi.  And if you're in Moncton, go to Pink Sushi.  Their service is great, and it's some of the best sushi I've eaten (warning: my experience is limited).  Anyway, I'm  happy so I'm giving them a plug.

Ed

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Christmas Formal


Funny, how I always seem to be "volun-told" that I'm going to be taking pics at home before all the little kiddies go out for their Christmas Formal at school.  Oh well, more chance to play with my new studio lights.  Heh heh.

Ed

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Halloween



Halloween has come and gone, and all the ghouls and goblins are back in their dens until next year.  Nice that I still find it fun to carve a pumpkin with my daughter, who doesn't seem to have outgrown it yet either. :) 

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Upcoming price increase ! :(

Hi everybody.

I'm afraid I have bad news.  The publisher I use for my Premium Albums just notified me that as of January 1, 2009, the price is going to increase.  I'm still going to stay with them, though, because they have an AWESOME product and their service is great too.  I don't know how much the increase will be, but they state it's going to pay for their recent purchase of new and better equipment.  We'll see, I guess.  Anyway, if you're interested in a Premium album, better order it soon to stay at the current price.

Ed

Thursday, October 9, 2008

RAID !!!


Hi Everyone,

     Well, everyone being probably the 2 people that show me the kindness of reading this blog...anyway

    I just installed a RAID system to my computer set-up.  It's great.  I'm using the LaCie 2Big which is a great machine.  There was a little speed-bump in setting it up, because when you set it to one of its versions of RAID 1, you have to let it sit and rebuild itself which can take up to 12 hours.  I was panicking because I was getting warning lights and I didn't think it should take any longer than the formatting process, since the unit contained no data.  All was good, though, and a quick email to tech support fixed me right up!

     Until recently, I didn't know what a RAID was, so let me provide a bit of background. RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independant Disks.  There are several versions of RAID, and mine is set to RAID 1 which means multiple copies of the data.  My LaCie drive contains 2 500Gb harddrives inside which are set up to maintain 2 mirror images of whatever data I send to the drive.  When (not "if" but "when") one of the hard disks fails, I just need to replace that disk and let the system rebuild itself with no loss of my data.  Cool, eh!  I realize this sounds a bit paranoid with regards to data backup and security, but when I'm charging people $####+ for photography of their special event and then putting tons of work into their processing, site building and other services, I really need to be sure that the time will not come where I have to contact the client and tell them I had a drive failure and their images are toasted.  Being sued would only be the beginning of the havoc something like that would create!  No-sir, not for me!  Sure, I could pull a failed drive from my machine and send it away for recovery, but that's MEGA expensive and there are no guarantees!  For a little over $400 tax included, I bought a large amount (500Gb) of peace of mind.

Plus, it looks cool!  Here's a pic I got from LaCie's website to show you.  I don't have a specific letter of permission to use the image, but I doubt LaCie will whine about the free advertisement. :)