Beau Peep Notice Board

Beau Peep Notice Board => Outpourings => Topic started by: Bilthehut on July 27, 2011, 12:11:55 AM

Title: A cunning plan
Post by: Bilthehut on July 27, 2011, 12:11:55 AM
... Not involving turnips.

In light of my impending transition to the real world, I have decided to take up photography again.  I'm soon to start a course involving how to set up a business in the photographic area.   This will not be a full time job until I get sufficient custom and experience, but at least it has fired me up to do something at last that I at least like.

Any suggestions welcome .. But I already know to take the lens cap off (that's why I use a SLR ... The dark is kind of a clue)!
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Diane CBPFC on July 27, 2011, 06:12:53 AM
Are you any good with pets? People could get their dogs and cats photos taken on nice pillows and wicker chairs.
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Bilthehut on July 27, 2011, 10:49:08 AM
We have 2 Siamese cats, 1 Burmese cat, 1 German Shepard Dog and 1 x 24 year old daughter.  I think I can handle some nice pillows and wicker chairs.
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Tarquin Thunderthighs lll on July 27, 2011, 12:14:58 PM
What nationality is the daughter?
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Bilthehut on July 27, 2011, 03:18:45 PM
Not sure.  Is there a 'kevinette' nationality?
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Diane CBPFC on July 27, 2011, 03:35:33 PM
Well there you go then - there is big money to made in glamour shots of pets - at Christmas you can get your daughter to wear a Father Christmas outfit and the pet can get their photo taken with Santa.
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Bilthehut on August 17, 2011, 12:29:51 AM
Now completed day 2 of the photography course.  Covered basic photoshop tasks for producing prints, studio lighting and model makeover shots using high key and low key lighting. Finished with Page 3/ glamour shoot.  On to photographing children in the studio tomorrow, with wedding photography for the last two days this week.
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Diane CBPFC on August 17, 2011, 03:50:53 AM
Good luck with the wedding photography. That sounds like a very good course - I would like to do that too.
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Bilthehut on August 17, 2011, 07:08:56 PM
If anyone is interested (I'm not plugging the course or the Company - there are many others around), look at the website page of the course I'm doing - http://www.firstpointphotography.co.uk/10_Day_Course.php (http://www.firstpointphotography.co.uk/10_Day_Course.php)

Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Bilthehut on August 17, 2011, 11:10:26 PM
Day 3 survived.  All the children were excellent models, with not a tantrum but plenty of character and smiles amongst them.  Played with Photoshop to produce a montage of images.  Also found out that RAW images and Jpegs add up to a lot of space - too much for my ageing laptop with it's meagre 60Gb hard drive (wot wiv microshaft taking up ever increasing storage space.  Time for a new laptop methinks.
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Joan on August 28, 2011, 04:32:37 AM
Get one, Bill!!! My new one has 750GB hard drive storage and is about 100 times faster. I haven't opened my old laptop for ages and when I have to use the old PC, it drives me nuts, it's so slow! Well worth the investment.
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Max on August 28, 2011, 10:14:09 AM
Bill, if your happy with your laptop just buy an external hard drive, Amazon is selling a 2 terabyte drive for £69.

Sad movie collector that I am I have 6 external drives which add up to 8 terabytes.

Just keep away from Seagate drives, tendancy to go tits up.

For Roger, a terabyte = 1000 gigabytes.

Just as an example, in 2000 I bought the LAN system for the Brunei frigates we were building, they insisted on a half terabyte storage, totally unheard of then.
The entire BAE SYSTEMS network ran on 250GB.
Title: Re: A cunning plan
Post by: Bilthehut on August 28, 2011, 08:49:41 PM
Max,
The laptop is over 3 years old, is slow and needs a rebuild to clear out the gunk.  The only good thing about it is it's a Tablet laptop.  I have replaced it with a much faster (and larger screen), and it works luverly (technical term here).

I concur about the Seagate HDs.  Also just bought a 2Tb WD My Book as it was on offer at Amazon.

Actually it's 1024 Gigabytes, but who's quibbling over a few 0's and 1's.

Our enterprise-wide system has a 'massive' 1 Mg of Ram in each workstation.  Imagine how fast that allows us to work, especially as all our data storage is halfway around the country.

I have also bought an upgrade to Windows 7 for my main PC.