When setting up in business, there are a number of potentially unforeseen costs that can crop up. These will obviously vary depending on the nature of the business involved and the work that will be undertaken.

However, if you are setting up a photography business you will almost certainly need some sort of business insurance.

Photographer Insurance


Business insurance comes in many different forms; again, the most suitable type for you will depend on your individual business model. However, when running a photography business there are a number of elements that should be considered from the outset.

In the first instance, basic photographer’s insurance is a must. You will need to at least insure your equipment; if this is lost, stolen or damaged, not only will you lose the value of the equipment itself, but your business will no longer be able to function. As such, equipment insurance is something that you must be prepared to pay for.
There are a number of companies offering specialist photographer insurance; reputable commercial insurers will either provide standard packages that will be suitable, or they will be able to tailor insurance to suit you.

Water Colour Paper Prints

owl cake

Studio Shoot Thursday 15th

Year One - Professional and Contextual Studies

A Portfolio (professional file) weighted at 50%

In response to the visit to the photography studio I did ask year one Foundation Degree students to write a 'Portfolio' based on all the information gleaned and images that you may of taken whilst there along with images of their work copied from their website..I want anyone who hasn't written a professional portfolio to do so.(as covered in a previous blog entry). Look at how the course marking is 'weighted' in accordance with the different learning outcomes.

In the context of this I also want you to put together a 'Business Plan' (or if you like a portfolio about you and how you see yourself operating as a photographer, what clients are you aiming to work with,what services you would like to offer, and for how much.

Location is key to providing any service and this also needs to be considered, where and how you could operate a business from a certain location maybe opposed to another, pros and cons, etc.. I will expect you for formulate a concise business plan with extended information regarding brand and identity and your potential 'position' within the current industry


Remember Assessment One is about a portfolio of information relating to legislation and industry guidelines, with a commentary (approx 1,000 words) describing its impact on the sector (50%) Learning Outcome 1.
Within this you should consider the following;


Health and Safety
Criminal Records Clearance
Working with children & vulnerable people
Copyright
Data Protection
Permissions
Equal Ops
Public Liability
Intellectual Property Rights

It would also be important for you to consider potential turnover per month and year based upon some sensible projects from the services that you will provide. For example are you going to be doing;

Weddings, Portraits, Advertising, Editorial, PR, Commercial, Architectural, Fashion, etc..etc.. For each area I would expect to see data concerning all potential overheads, Taxation, VAT, Rent, Rates, Utilities bills, Staff, Kit and Equipment, Studio overheads, along with projected Salary and the potential diversification into different areas of photography.


These are all part of the requirement of writing a thorough and professional portfolio of information in the context of how you yourself can operate viably as a photographer within this competitive industry.

You should all be working on projects that involve clients of some description in respect to the 'Client Response' brief that you all should be continuing with. Finding and working with clients, negotiating with them and generating successful images should be happening. If this isn't the case and you are struggling to find clients in an area of photography, then you must reflect upon how much effort have you put into finding them.


Photography is a tough industry as I am sure you are all aware, but you must generate that momentum now in a very clear and concise manner because I know in a year or two all of you will be looking to work independently or within a small team or company.
Finding clients and working with them will be down to you on your own very soon so this practice is vital in order to get that vital experience now.


The images that you are taking should be practice shoots that will build your portfolio in an area of your specialism, ie if you want to be a fashion photographer you should be shooting test images all the time in order to be ready when that 'phone call' comes. Never stand still and wait for work to come and drop in your lap as it wont.


Assessment Two: A Case Study of the process of organising an event or activity, showing a range of communication methods utilised, to be presented in a format reflecting the nature of the event or activity (50%) Learning Outcomes 2 and 3).

This will be covered later in the year often in the format of an exhibition of your work.

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Since I can remember i've always wanted to be my own boss - self employed. I've not really though why I feel so strong about it but its probable due to my mum and dad being such hard workers and seeing my Grandad run his own business as i've grown up has inspired me.
I aim to start up my own studio taking photos of anyone that wanted there photos taking. Also I would want to be available to shoot weddings too. I would prefer to work this way because I could start of by living upstairs of the studio to save on costs while it go started up. I would love to move to London and work for someone like Rankin but im not very brave to move out there and take the leap! I dont adapt to change well and I would like to stay close to home, well thats how I feel this moment in time. My ambitions could drasically change in the next few years...

When starting a business of any type, whether photographic or otherwise, it is vitally important to be clear of the objectives, and aware of the potential problems. To this end, writing a business plan should always be a priority.
An efficient business plan covers a number of important issues. Firsty when I would start my own business I would have to consider and think about

Health and Saftey...

Tripping caused by camera stands, props, tri-pods. Ensure all the lights and fittings are secure on the stands and that there is sufficient space for everyone to move around without tripping/collision hazard.

Electricity - most cables should we wired upwards so that they do not cause risk of tripping.

Light is also something that should be condidered.

Flashlight is very strong and can hurt peoples eyes, everyone using the studio ahould avoid unnecessary exposure to flash photography.Covers need to be removed before switching on the flash lamps and fittings should be attached prior to the lamos heating up and starting a fire!!

Heat! Flashlights become very hot and could cause burns, handle when cooled down!

Darkness, The low light in the studio presents a hazard in itself. Various props, wires, camera stands are less evident in the dark. When using the studio users should not rely on their usual senses. Extra attention needs to be paid, taking an extra look around before making movements, taking notice of where things are.

When closing down never lay cables or anything else over hot lamps too. Turn the lights down to there lowest seeting and then discharging the power before switching off.

At the end of a session in the studio all the equipment should be safely removed to edges of the studio and never leave the studio unattended.

Brothers Boot Camp

One of the DJ's I photograph for at the 'sweatbox events' is also every into fitness and his brother is a trained personal trainer and a new gym recently opened in my home town of Swadlincote.


Mikey Dunne, the DJ, is also an event organizer and has teamed up with his brother to start up a fitness Bootcamp called 'brothers bootcamp'.

Mikey asked me to come along on sunday. The free trial bootcamp an alot d photograph the events of the day...


I wasn't getting paid for it but I he assured me there would be of work would follow after this...


It was such a fun day! every unexpected. 
I met Mikey at 9 am at Rosliston Forestry Center and I was shown the Lodges where they all ate and relaxed and gave feedback In.
I photographed the team during the whole day ...

All follow my reflective blog!!!!

http://hollyjow.blogspot.com/

Confusion with Clients

When my manager asked me to photograph Kirk the night he was arranged to come. My head starting filling with questions I needed answering such as where about was Kirk going to be in the club so I could prepare for how the lighting was going to be.... and what size he wanted the images printed and did he want the clubs logo going on the photos...

One of the problems that occurred is my manager forwarded me an email that was supposed to have the logo attached to but there was nothing attracted :s ...

so I emailed him back saying there was no gif film of the logo attracted and for him to resend it again.

I was panicking a little because it was a few days before the night and I had not checked the logo.

On the night when I arrived at the club I asked my manager and he was noticed the email had no attachment and resend one with the logo attached. 

However when I got home I downloaded the logo I couldn't use it on photoshop. It was locked and I struggled to unlock it... I google it but nothing helped. I was stuck and only had a few hours to edit the images with the logo. I then remembered a knew someone who is a qualified graphic designer so I messaged him and he said he didn't know why the logo wouldn't work, he seemed to think the logo attached on the email was saved and sent as the wrong file. 

I told him the club name that needed to logo on the photographs and he found one of the posters on a facebook site and totally re did the logo for me. IDENTICAL to original logo !

Other life saver!!!! 

This is an other problem that I hope will not happen again because I will demand the logo at least a week before the event and make sure its the correct file that compatible with photoshop. 

I feel like that day it was about WHO YOU KNOW, NOT WHAT YOU KNOW!

WHEN IT ALL WENT WRONG ! Photographing Kirk Norcross

I clicked 'delete all' at the end of the shoot

I thought 'kill me now'.

Mr google saved my life and calmed me down, i read that you can recover lost images using some software you can download! ..................

I found some free software I downloaded for free but after reading some reviews on recovering photos I was a bit unsure on whether I could trust it. I just found out I can get the images back I didn't want to use a dodgy software and loose them totally forever.....

It was saturday the morning after the shoot and I decided I would go up to the studio where I was supposed to be meeting my tutor steve and some other students to check out this hire studio that had recently been introduced to us.. When I got there I told Steve what had happened and he seem to think that it could be done but wasn't 100% sure.

One of the city and guilds students, Eric, told me that he was done something similar in the past and he knew a man who had some software that would recover everything that had been shot on the memory card. He rand this man up (Pete) and told him the situation I was in and how desperate I was to recover these images. He said I was welcome to come round with my memory card and he'd have a look for me.

So I left the studio and away I went to find Pete, my life saver, the computer wizard, Eric's mate to see what he could do :)
The process usually takes about half an hour to recover all the images, however it took an hour and a half due to the amount of photos found on the card. Because the memory card was the colleges, you can image how many times it had been used and how many photos had been took on it since it had been purchases!!! OVER 4000!!!

Because I had work in the afternoon Pete kindly finished the process for me and changed the images from raw into jpeg because I he knew I was printing them off at Jessops  after (they only print jpeg images) he sifted out all my photos took from the night and put them on a dvd for me.

He didn't want any money for doing this and after a small argument £30 was forced on him for his time and effort. MANS A LEDGEND!  ...

Here are the images I printed for the club, Each photo was 7x5 and had the logo on the bottom right hand corner... which took me a while because I'm not sure on how to do it as a whole on all my photos without doing it individually. I think you have to save an action on photoshop them upload all the photos at once... not too sure, but ill be looking into that this week for future reference.

I've never done a job like this before with so much pressure. Each girl paid £30 to 'meet and greet' Kirk Norcross. They had a photograph champaign and about 30 seconds talking to the star. Due to the amount of time the club had kirk for and the amount of girls wanted to meet him I had to literally take one photo and on the next girl.. This caused a few problems because I had no time to check the photo for such things like there eyes being closed or the composition....

I have learnt ALOT of things from this shoot.

1) to NEVER EVER press delete on the camera, even if you are only deleting one photograph, you are a click away from loosing them all - save the deleting until ALL photos are backed up.

---- More professional photographers with bigger budgets would have a laptop downloading images immediately after the photograph is taken.. and a team checking the photographs for imperfect images.

2) Don't panic, keep calm and there's always a way out (if you have the right attitude and contracts)

3) Always have a back up camera, spare batteries, tripod(never know if its going to come into use)
Always prepare for the worst. You camera probably wont stop working, BUT WHAT IF IT DOES?

4) I WISH I GAVE KIRK MY PHONE NUMBER!