Camera Labs

I have read through all of the posts on here but I still have quite a few

Lots of questions indeed. I won't tackle them all in one go, but here are some answers for you:

1) Don't bother with an AM or PM rate. Keep things simple. As with my other post in another of your threads, charge what you think your skills are worth.

2) Printing - find yourself a professional printer. One I'd recommend (though expensive: http://www.metroimaging.co.uk/index.asp) Photobox & Snapfish are consumer-orientated print companies; they aren't fit for exhibition. Exhibition standard is the minimum standard I offer for my clients.

3) I use Photium. They have my recommendation. Smugmug is another alternative.

I'll leave out 4) for the meantime.

You're right to have self-doubt. You seem to have good monochrome images and an eye for tone. Transfer that to colour, work on your understanding of lighting, directing your subjects, and you should be nicely on your way.

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Nikonian

http://www.edtangphotography.com
http://journeysintophotography.blogspot.com/

thanks for that photoj

nice and clean website.

one thing which you should change urgently is the very first image that shows up. No offense, but it's just not good and you've got MUCH better options for the first impression!

I'd personally remove the copyright stuff on the very bottom and the little pink "2009 Kerry and Duffy Photography" alltogether. In fact, I'd even do the same thing with the music - of course, this is a matter of taste but I allmost fell asleep when that tune kicked in it's also increasing the time, the site needs to load the first time, and since the whole homepage is flash based it takes long enough (or actually even too long for my taste) allready. That's the biggest problem with complete flash pages, they're just soooo slow. I chose to integrate flash only for the galleries on my website for that reason.

apart from those points, I really like it. The color choice is different and looks great and the images are rather nice, too. I'd raise my prices a little, if I were you though...

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Canon EOS 5D Mark II | Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM | Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM | Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM
...and a lot of lighting stuff. -> complete list of equipment

Website
Blog

thank you very much for your feedback. Its much appreciated. With

yup, copyrights of music is indeed a problem, so if you can't solve that problem and get better music (I don't know how to do that either unfortunately), I think you should just remove it.

pricing: that's always hard, but just think about the time you need and the amount you'd get from a normal job in that time. then think about all the gear investement you've made or are making. you'll quickly realize that you'll need about 2 hours of shooting, 1 hour of setting the stuff up, speaking with clients etc. etc. and about 2 hours of post production (at least I, myself, need about the same PP time as I shoot, or even more in fact). So there you go: about 5h of work PLUS all the expensive gear you have to pay. that's 10 pounds per hour at your current price and your gear is still on the bill...

I know it's hard because you actually LIKE shooting and think "oh well I'd do it anyway, even for free". But if you're seriously trying to make some money out of photography or even think of doing it for a living, go ahead and raise your prices dramatically! you can easily charge double the amount you do at the moment... and try to sell some extra stuff - show them a sample coffeetable book or whatever you can offer. Prints, Books etc. can yield quite a bit of money too.

I'm starting to get some little jobs myself at the moment, and I'm charging about 25-30 pounds per hour (no idea what the current exchange rates are, so that's an approximate guess).

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Canon EOS 5D Mark II | Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM | Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM | Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM
...and a lot of lighting stuff. -> complete list of equipment

Website
Blog

I was going to start my own post but thought I'd just hop on the end of this one....

Kerry, I like the website... i agree with nostrum on some of the little things but also agree that it is a nice, clean, professional site.

I am at a point where I would like to develop my business a little and think that a website is the next step to being taken seriously.

I'd love to set up a website that is simple, clean and professional like yours. And I would like to implement some flash as well.

So my question is: ... how do I go about doing that?

I'm really oblivious as to where to start, so was hoping someone could spell it out for me or at least point me in the right direction... from hosting, to web design/templates, to how much it might cost me. And of course I'd like to spend AS LITTLE MONEY AS POSSIBLE. ... who wouldn't.

Here's another example of a great looking site that I'd love to mimic...

www.carinadewitt.com

Thanks in advance!

I personally just took the SimpleViewer Flash thing from lightroom and integrated it into a normal HTML (or was it PHP?) Website, which was done by a friend of mine. I just had to give him the designs etc. and he put it all together

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Canon EOS 5D Mark II | Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM | Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM | Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM
...and a lot of lighting stuff. -> complete list of equipment

Website
Blog

To use music on your website have a look at the PRS (performing rights society) website http://www.prsformusic.com/playingbroad ... music.aspx

It looks like prices start from about £53 (ex VAT) GBP per year
http://www.prsformusic.com/playingbroad ... nform.aspx

If you want to have a website without having to learn about building one have a look at a service like SmugMug $150 USD per year and they handle things like the watermarks, online purchasing and download protection. http://www.smugmug.com/photos/photo-sharing-features/