Introduction to Digital Photography

Believe it or not, digital photography has been used since the early 1980’s when it was first introduced in the astronomy profession. Nowadays, it has become the industry standard with both amateur and professional photographers from around the world. Digital photography, which is the art of manipulating photographs in bit map form through the use of a computer, allows for the flexibility and creativity that is at the heart of the photography industry. Keep in mind however, that using digital images will not turn an amateur photographer into a pro or a poor photo into a good one. It is simply one more creative tool that makes up a photographers bag of tricks.

Digital photography allows for the precise refinement of many aspects of a photograph. This includes color, detail, tone, retouching and many other photograph dynamics. Digital photography does not allow photographers to be sloppy or inpatient with their pictures, as lighting cannot be adequately altered by this or any computer tool.

Digital photography

Has become the medium of choice among photographers for several reasons. Not only is digital photography more flexible and have considerably more editing capabilities, but it is more cost effective than film photography. With digital photography your costs virtually stop after you purchase your initial equipment. On the contrary, with film photography, you have the recurrent costs of film and chemical processing materials. The only drawbacks to digital photography are that you will need access to electrical outlets and the equipment is generally more sensitive to cold and moist environments. Photographers that are going to invest in digital photography equipment should first analyze the environments in which they will be taking most of their pictures to determine if an SLR camera is a better investment than a DSLR version.

Photographers who make a living in the advertising, news and entertainment businesses have particularly embraced the idea of digital photography. Digital photography not only allows for greater flexibility and creativity, but also for enhancements, storage, printing and transmission options that are not available with any other photography medium.

Fashion Photography

Fashion photography refers to the photography of clothing and other fashion items. It is most commonly utilized for advertising, magazines and other print related materials.
Today, fashion and beauty is a $150 billion dollar industry. A photographer who both specializes in and is good at fashion photography has an unlimited income potential in today’s market.

Model Photography

Model photography is different from fashion photography in that the center of attention is not the clothing or accessories but the model themselves. Model photographers create portfolio, comp cards and other marketing materials for commercial, fashion and glamour models. In order to be successful at model photography it is imperative that the photographer be able to locate settings and backgrounds that are pleasing to the eye and complimenting to the model.

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Introduction to Modeling

If you are an aspiring model, it is important that you thoroughly understand the industry prior to signing up with an agency. For example, if you are striving to become a fashion model, the criteria is not going to be the same as someone who is pursuing a career as a bikini fitness model or glamour model. Moreover, you should not only be familiar with the industry standards, but with investment expectations and location requirements as well.

Industry Divisions

What kind of model do you want to become? There are many kinds of models in the industry today, however if you want to make a living at it, there are really only two divisions to consider, fashion models and glamour models.

The Fashion Model

Fashion models, otherwise known as editorial fashion models, represent the strictest set of physical criteria in the business. Fashion models are known for being beautiful or interesting, none of which are necessarily pretty. Becoming a fashion model gives you the opportunity to appear on some of the nation’s top magazines and national ad campaigns. Anyone who is considered a “supermodel” represents this division of the modeling industry.

The Glamour Model

Glamour models are NOT the models you see on the cover of Glamour magazine, those are fashion models. Unlike fashion models, glamour models must be pretty and highly attractive. When you see hot models in swimsuits, nude exotic models and bikini fitness models, they are all representative of glamour models. There are not strict guidelines to becoming a glamour model. Any highly attractive woman with a hot body qualifies automatically.

In order to make a living as a glamour model, you will generally have to flaunt your body and pose nude for various male oriented magazines, events and artists. Glamour models are most commonly represented by photographers and self-promotion techniques.

Location, Location, Location

We have all heard the saying “location, location, location”, and if you are considering a career in the modeling industry this saying is perhaps more important than anything else. If you do not live, or refuse to move to a major metropolitan area such as New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago, the chances of your success, particularly as a fashion model are nil. There is some room for flexibility, especially for glamour models thanks to the use of the internet, but your best shot at fame and fortune in this line of work will always reside in the fashion and entertainment capitals of this country.

Investment Expectations

If you want to create a name for yourself, it is going to take time, effort and money, just like any other business. There are several things you will need not only to get started, but to promote yourself along the way. This includes but is not limited to pictures, comp cards and headshots, money to relocate if necessary, and money for advertising (usually paid to an agency on a per year fee basis). It is also important that models acquire makeup and hair styling skills and purchase the necessary materials to create the look that is needed for casting calls and auditions.

If you are an aspiring glamour model, bikini fitness model or a nude exotic model, our agency may have opportunities for you. Please contact us today for agency information.

Power, politics, and the chicken

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change! The chicken wanted change!
JOHN MC CAIN: My friends; that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialog with all the chickens on the other side of the road.
HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure right from Day One that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.
GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.
DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?
COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.
BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken. What is your definition of crossing?
AL GORE: I invented the chicken.
JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.
AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.
DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his
current problems before adding new problems.
OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.
NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.
PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.
MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmers Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.
DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.
JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth? That's why they call it the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay, too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.
GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.
BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.
ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads
together, in peace.
BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2008. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?
COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

You don't know Jack Schitt!'

Sometimes it's good to just have a good laugh!! enjoy
For some time many of us have wondered just who is Jack Schitt? We find ourselves at a loss when someone says, 'You don't know Jack Schitt!'

Well, thanks to my friends generous genealogy efforts, you can now respond in an intellectual way. Jack Schitt is the only son of Awe Schitt. Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, married O. Schitt, the owner oNeedeep N. Schitt, Inc. They had one son, Jack.

In turn, Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt. The deeply religious couple produced six children: Holie Schitt, Giva Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Bull Schitt, and the twins Deep Schitt and Dip Schitt..
Against her parents' objections, Deep Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school dropout.
After being married 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced Noe Schitt later married Ted Sherlock, and because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. She was then known as Noe Schitt Sherlock.

Meanwhile, Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt, and they produced a son with a rather nervous disposition named Chicken Schitt.

Two of the other six children, Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt, were inseparable throughout childhood and subsequently married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony. The wedding announcement in the newspaper announced the Schitt-Happens nuptials. The Schitt-Happens children were Dawg, Byrd, and Horse.

Bull S c hi tt, the prodigal son, left home to tour the world. He recently returned from Italy with his new Italian bride, Pisa Schitt. Now when someone says, 'You don't know Jack Schitt,' you can correct them.
Sincerely,
Crock O.
Schitt

Say No! to SEO – Standards, That Is

"SEO standards" are a set of SEO best practices and risk ratings; the idea of having SEO standards is ludicrous and out-dated. Professional SEO services that try to follow these supposed standards are handing their business over to the competition. If everyone follows these standards, there'd be no way for any clients to reach the top because all clients would be receiving the same set of coding, content, etc as everybody else. And so on, and so forth ad nauseam. Oh, and my favorite – black hatters and grey hatters are just those looking for an "extra edge"; white hatters are low risk takers, not willing to put their butts on the line for results. Recently, I read an article about SEO risk factors vs. SEO standards. The author's belief is that professional SEO services that comply with a set of standards will lose their competitive edge. "If everyone does the same thing, it's like being the SEO version of an amputee." What a wonderful argument supporting black hat tactics. For those that are new to SEO, let me point out that SEO is a highly competitive business, and it does help to have a "little extra" in your bag. However, this little extra doesn't have to include keyword spamming or any number of questionable practices. Let's look at risk taking, shall we? Professional SEO services that follow a set of standards may spend months on one project. We are as susceptible to mistakes and errors as the next person, and those mistakes can cost us. There are times when one mistake, by one person, can lose us a client. So, after several months of working with the client, coding, research, etc, that one mistake could cost us everything. In other words, being an SEO specialist – especially if you run your own company – is high risk in and of itself. There is never any guarantee that your client will hit number one, and believe me, most clients hire professional SEO services with just that goal in mind. Is keyword spamming, link-farming and the like necessary to reach that first page of search engine results? No. In my mind, the argument at the beginning of this article against professional SEO services using a set of standards is a way of explaining away laziness. It is definitely more time consuming to check the links for PR value, run the KEIs and competitor analysis, etc than to build a page full of keywords. It takes dedication and consistency for a "standardized" long-term campaign than to use white on white keywords or link-farming or other "questionable practices". However, while black hat tactics might show more quickly, they put the customer at risk. White hat tactics are slow to evolve, hence the dedication and consistency, but the customers don't have to worry about being penalized. The author ends his rant with "Deal with dirty SEOs like SEOs. If you don't like them, outrank them." To that I respond – I have. Black hatters can brag all they want about "high-risk" campaigns, but their clients deal with that risk and receive the consequences, not them. White hat professional SEO services understand that ultimately, it's the client who will rise or fall on our merits – it's a point of pride and our business to give them our best, as well as our privilege.

New To Internet Marketing? Basics of SEO II

As a writer of SEO articles, I’ve been asked several times what keywords are and what SEO means. The meaning is easy: Search Engine Optimization. The explanation is difficult; there are so many SEO tools for on-page optimization, the information would fill a thick book. However, I can give a brief explanation of how the articles are done and how they work.

When building a web presence, the main consideration is how to bring quality views, known as clicks, to your website. One of the ways to do this is by creating optimized articles using key words and phrases. Why would you want to do this? Because it’s also one of the top ways to get Google Ranking.

Briefly, here’s how it works: Keyword Research – Keywords are words or phrases that users search for. Though any word or phrase can be used for this purpose, you want to ensure that those you choose would be used in a search. You may want to use professional SEO service providers for this. They will provide you with a Keywords analysis and a competitors analysis. These vary in prices, but are well worth the time and money spent.

The Articles – When writing SEO articles, the main element is how the keywords are used and how often. Those knowledgeable in writing SEO articles recommend that you choose two or three keywords, or one key phrase, and use them in strategic places. The Finished Product – Once you have your SEO articles, it’s time to do your own internet search. What you’re looking for are places that allow article submission or directory submission.

Article and directory submission sites allow you to submit your article along with a Meta tag description – which, by the way, will also hold your keywords. Once your article is submitted, anyone who types in that search term will now see your article, which has links to your website.

A tip: Ensure that your keywords won’t stand out in the copy. Most Internet users understand they’re being manipulated; they don’t want to see the actual manipulation. This could be detrimental to what you’re trying to achieve – clicks to your website.

Finally, do your research, stay informed, and good luck on your future SEO articles!

Key Phrase Factors for On-Page Optimization

When it comes to natural and organic search results over leading search engines, on-page optimization techniques play an important role. To put it in simple terms, understanding key phrase factors becomes a technique. Granted they are nothing but search engine optimization or SEO techniques used on the webpage itself. This allows the search engine spiders to acknowledge the keywords of the particular site better. Without on-page optimization techniques, search engines will not recognize the keywords for which you want your website to be ranked.

The first and most important thing that you need to do is to use main keywords as part of your title tag. You should also utilize your main keywords as part of the description tag of your website. Every page of your website should have a unique keyword and description tag. Moreover, make sure that the description tag describes only that particular web page. You will need to remember all these aspects when writing SEO articles for your website.

While SEO copywriting, you must ensure that you add around five to six keywords that include the main keyword phrase, along with some synonyms of that particular keyword phrase. It is also a prudent idea to stay away from what are known as ‘little’ keywords. Examples of such keywords include words such as “for”, “and”, “or”, etc., which generally should not be included in primary key phrases. You can also think of using the keyword as part of the domain name of your website. Although it is not essential, it is known to be helpful for attracting web traffic.

As often as possible, the page title elements in your website should be approximately three to nine words and to the exact point. This is important since this is what will show up as a link- back to your page in most of the search engine results. Similarly, you should also insure that your Meta description tag consists of thirty words or less. The Meta description would show up in many search engine results, often as a summary of your website. All these key phrase factors play an important role in the on-page optimization process.

New To Internet Marketing? Start Here

Tons of people pay good money to start an Internet business every day, believing that the Internet is the way to wealth and the solution to their problems. The sad part is that the vast majority of them will inevitably fail. Get rich quick schemes have been around almost as long as humanity itself, and Internet Marketing just provides another way to market them.

The first thing to understand if you’re new to the world of Internet marketing is that an Internet business is just that, a business. It might cost less capital, it might be able to get done in the spare bits of time you have, but it still requires capital and it still requires a plan. Get a book on general business planning and follow the outlined steps religiously.

Second, you’re going to either have to learn a number of skills or you’re going to have to delegate. Delegating usually means handing money over unless you happen to have a crack relative in the wings willing to do it for free. Not many people generally have those, so in the absence you’ll have to figure out what you do best, what you’re willing to learn and what you need to leave to the experts. For instance, many people believe they can create a website, and that may be true. Can you create a website that has a unique style, that search engine spiders can read and that adheres to all current Internet policies and protocols? Can you write in such a way to please both search engine spiders and human beings? If not, people like web designers and SEO copywriting specialists may be on your delegation list. If you’ve got the time to learn SEO skills and web design, great! Save yourself a bundle and do it. However, if you don’t have the skills or the time, hiring quality people from the beginning will save you a world of hurt down the line.

Next, you’ll have to be a real person. If people get the idea that the only reason you exist is to sell them something and get their money, you’ll fail as sure as rain falls. Get involved in the online communities that fit your business and your philosophy. Write SEO articles about your work, or give your SEO copywriter your knowledge so he or she can write them. Provide an abundance of value, build a relationship with your customers, and you’ll differentiate yourself from all of the others out there who just throw up a page and think they’re done.

Last, before jumping in with your plan, consider if this is truly what you want to do. Really think about it. If you’re doing it just for the money, don’t. It will eat your life and make you miserable. If, on the other hand, you love producing your product or your service, if this business lets you do everything you ever wanted, go for it Internet Marketing is the way. It’ll take a lot of work, but that work will be enjoyable instead of a burden. If you’re having fun, your customers will want to be around you, you’ll build a loyal base, and success will follow.