New to this!

[nicoleas1214]

All advice to greatly appreciated

I am trying to get a career started from home, I have a very active baby boy so it feels like a slow process but trying anything to speed it up!
I have a great appreciation for photography and art, I would like to express my emotions and thoughts as others do through their work. It is amazing what you can capture in a picture.

I am also hoping that working with a forum will be a great way to meet people who have the same ideas and views as I do, I like constructive criticism and I am working on getting my laptop set up to get my pictures uploaded and edited. I just got my camera this week, super excited :lmao:

Thank you anyone and everyone who has a thing or two to say!

- Nicole.

 

[WesternGuy]

If you are thinking of starting a "business" in photography (=career at home?), you might want to look at some of the comments in this thread - rather than repeat myself, my response is the first response, but reading through the others is worth your time... http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...would-love-some-c-c-advice-very-beginner.html.

Only point I would add, at this time, is that a laptop is not going to be sufficient to upload and process images for a business, first of all you will probably end up with something like Lightroom or Photoshop CS5, or some combination, and a laptop does not generally have the "horsepower", etc., to do professional image processing with these applications. You will need a desktop with lots of "horsepower" (=processing capacity + RAM), at least one professional grade monitor and a few terabytes of hard disk space to go with it, not to mention memory cards, a card reader...the list goes on and on...

Probably one of the first things you will need to think about is - what type of photography do you want to do - people, pets, wildlife/nature, landscape,...another list that goes on...

I do not mean to temper your excitement and enthusiasm, but I thought I would be remiss if I did not point out some of the things you should to think about. My 0.02¢.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

 

[Paulaj100]

Hello! I'm a newbie too but unlike you my photography is currently just for fun (although I may have a long term plan regarding photography!) I've been trawling the forum for a while picking up tips etc and am very interested re: the computer info above. I'm currently working off a laptop (with photoshop elements 8) but will certainly look into computers etc as things get more serious.

What camera are you shooting with? I've had mine for 2 years now and just am totally in love with it still even though its not the "standard" being an olympus because I'm finding the lenses so fantastic (and I only have little hands which my olympus caters for nicely lol)

I have started a blog to practice (and practice and practice) and to motivate me to learn new things, maybe a thought for you?

Hope to chat again, Paula

 

[Virtuosos]

Feel free to upload a few photo's asap! Just try not to bombard us with 500 photo's....usually 3~5 are a good number for C&C on.

 

[C_mo]

Hello! How old is your little one? I have a 9 month old son who just started walking, so I know how it is having a busy baby it makes for some extra challenges when taking pictures of them lol. I can't wait to see your pictures!

 

[TooSwelly]

Just a bit of info. My 700$ laptop runs cs5 with no problems. Only issue I have is I need more usb ports. Usb hubs are annoying.

 

[KmH]

Your camera's user's manual is an important to read document. While not to exciting, it none the less tells you what features and functions your camera has available for you to use. Most find it necessary to read the manual several times to get a good feel for how the manual is organized. The user's manual should always be readily at hand for easy reference too.

Unfortunately, most laptops have the wrong type of display (Twisted Nematic, TN) for critically editing photographs. TN displays have narroew accurate viewing angles. So narrow, an entire photograph cannot be viewed accurately without moving your head around.

The best type of display for editing is an In-Plane Switching (IPS) type display, because IPS displays have broad accurate viewing angles.

Some of the better (more expensive) laptops do have an IPS display.

Doing digital photography well requires becoming familiar with both artistic and technical aspects.

Artistic aspects include use of light, and the plethora of visual image compositional guidelines like:

• simplicity
• line
• form
• shape
• color
• proportion
• ryhthm
• balance
• framing and many others. Guidelines for Better Photographic Composition: Introduction

Technical aspects abound and a good set of technical tutorials can be found here: Digital Photography Tutorials

Doing photography as a retail business requires a good grounding in the principals of doing business, marketing, and sales.

 

[The_Traveler]

Someone might also mention two other things: first) you actually have to be able to take good pictures and process them, no mean trick as I have been shooting for years and don't feel totally competent.
And second, the beginner, low-end photography market is totally flooded with newbies who just got a camera and have decided to make that their career.

 

[KmH]

Or at least try to make that their career.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-shop-talk/256940-ideas-getting-busier-i-need-help.html

 

[nicoleas1214]

He is 9 months too!!!

 

[nicoleas1214]

He is 9 months too!!!
Wow you guys thank you for the all the tips! My fiance is a total computer geek so he is helping me with everything in that department, I have a couple pieces of equipment to get before I can get any pictures from my Canon but it's the most inexpensive thing other than just getting a whole new laptop which I cannot afford right now. I understand that a lot of people say they want to become photographer but it's whatever the person wants to do with it and make of it for themselves. It shouldn't matter to anyone else. Starting a blog sounds like a great idea too, so far this is working well also. I will keep you all updated on my progress and try getting pictures uploaded weekly. Look for my future posts!!!

-Nicole

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

A "decent" website for $50? Certainly that is a typo.

 

[RubyGloom]

Nope not a typo, I've had websites built from 30-150 depending on complexity and number of pages, 5 being least 250 being most pages. The SEO is the more expensive part but most people really aren't going to dump that kind of money into a photography site. My photography site being built right now will be a little more like 120 because I had to pay twice, I started with flash and then realized at the end of the day I would prefer more traffic than a more artsy site so I'm going to have an HTML and a flash site totally seperate of each other. I think it looks better to get an email from a web address rather than yahoo, hotmail, or gmail.

Where/what are you using to so your site? I am looking still for somewhere to start doing mine. Have looked into pixpa and jimdo but a bit unsure.

To the OP you have had a lot of great advice. One thing I can say is it definitely is expensive to start ( I am finally in the business process Hoping to open my studio in late 2012 early 2013 ). Good luck and I look forward to seeing your photos!

 

[WesternGuy]

Just a bit of info. My 700$ laptop runs cs5 with no problems. Only issue I have is I need more usb ports. Usb hubs are annoying.

That may be the case, but a lot of professionals use both Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 and have databases exceeding 100 to 200K images - you will not do that on a laptop. CS5 may run well on your laptop, but I would ask how the colour is on your monitor and how many images are you dealing with in your database? Don't get me wrong, when I am in the field, I run Lightroom on a ASUS Netbook and while it is a bit slow, it gets the initial viewing and some very simple editing done okay, but I would not trust it to provide me with images that have properly rendered colour, even though it has been calibrated with ColorMunki Photo. It also suffers from lack of USB ports (only 3), but that is price you pay for miniaturization.

Cheers,

WesternGuy