Favorite Blogs and Websites
- Managing Your Digital Life Dealing with and using all the electronic stuff we accumulate
- Photofocus Formerly TWIP… photographic news and reviews
The Strobist
THE place to go to to learn about lighting… Also a lot of info on making your own photo gear.
Tag Archives: Lessons Learned
“He who hesitates is lost.” – Joseph Addison, misquote from his play ‘Cato’
Someone told me today that they really liked my pictures of people, and that I seemed to enjoy taking them. I realized that she was right, but to tell the truth taking pictures of people is something that makes me uncomfortable, sometimes…
About the picture:
I took this while wandering around NYC back in ’07. This was taken in Bryant Park. I really liked how intent everyone was, and the colorful garb the older man is wearing. Even though it was a public place, I was nervous about taking their picture, and as a result I missed a really good shot a few seconds prior. The gentleman on the right had just made what he considered a masterful move, and had leaned back in his chair with a very pleased expression on his face. That would have been an even better picture, I think. Which explains the title of today’s entry.
There was another shot that day that I didn’t take, though for a better reason, I think. But that is a story for another time.
Vistaprint – legitimate supplier or scam central?
If you have an email address, odds are if you check in your spam folder you’ll see at least a few junk emails from Vistaprint. They’re usually offering a whole bunch of business cards for a real low price, or even free.
I admit, I had seen so many offerings from them that I was fairly certain that they would either take me money and run, or send me a really crappy product with smeared ink, etc. Boy, was I wrong!
I started off with some “free” business cards. I use quotes because you still pay postage and handling. Also, if you want to upload a picture of your own instead of using their stock clip art (and as a photographer, do I really have a choice?), they charge a couple of bucks. All told, for a 250 full color cards and slow (21 day) shipping, I was charged about 13 bucks, including shipping. Faster shipping would have cost a few bucks extra. The same deal at Office Depot costs $30, with free shipping, and no fees for uploads. Printing them yourself is faster, but far more expensive, and the inks have a tendency to smear or run.
The cards arrived a bit faster than 21 days. I was very pleasantly surprised. The cards are well made, with bright colors and crisp lettering. Everyone I’ve shown them to has been impressed.
The design for my business card.
So far I’ve gotten business cards, magnets, rubber stamps, address labels and postcards from Vistaprint, and have been satisfied with every item. I think all the negativity associated with them is from the fact that people are more likely to complain than praise online, which skews perception.
To get the most from Vistaprint:
The worst thing I can say about them is that once you have finished your order, you have to go through a virtual obstacle course of special offers, affiliate offers, other deals, and “hey, are you sure you’re not interested in our affiliate offers?”. It’s a minor annoyance, but it only takes a few clicks to get through.
Judge for yourself at their website.
Action is the foundational key to all success – Pablo Picasso
I realized yesterday that my biggest roadblock in my “five year plan” was not lack of equipment, or time, or customers, or even talent (maybe). The thing that stands most in my way is… me.
There was a rocket launch last week, a night launch no less, and I didn’t go. I had reasons excuses: I was tired, I had to work the next day, I suck at night photography. But these are all irrelevant at best, and bullshit at worst.
If I want to make photography my full time job, that means treating it like one. My “real” job doesn’t accept the excuse that “I’m tired” as a reason to not show up, and I shouldn’t can’t let myself get away with it either when it comes to taking pictures, editing, writing here, or putting new items online.
Of course, some activities are more useful than others, so I’ll work on finding a balance.
Hard way to find out…
I sold a mouse pad last night… All seems good, I check the buyers address in Pay Pal to make sure it matched the ETSY address. Then I see that the postage paid was only $2.50, which seemed low.
I mail the package off, and sure enough, the post office charged me two bucks. When you add the price of the packaging, that means I lost 50 cents in profit. Since I don’t make much money on the mouse pads anyway, that kinda hurts.
I check my postage set up in ETSY, and the price is correct there. The only thing I can think of is that when I update the postage settings, the changes aren’t applied dynamically to items already listed. Not how I would have set things up.
Needless to say, I’ve now verified that the correct prices are on my products. I’ll have to go through this again when the rate hike goes into effect in May
