Linda K

she is beautiful, lovely to see how she has grown

and what makes her think a puppy from her poor dog will be exactly like her anyway, Feel for the poor dog, one having this woman as her owner, and having to go through what she did in having these puppies. Wonder if she is going to desex her now

he is so adorable, and love his cheeky look

agree that for just starting out and getting to know the SLR and what you want to do, would stick with the kits lens then if you decide you want to get more serious, hen get better quality glass as you can afford it. Getting the grounding in controlling exposure, nailing focus, and composition is the best thing to start on, then worry about upgrading, (and if you decide you don't want to go any more serious, you haven't dropped a lot of bucks). Both Nikon and Canon have their top range glass which is made to suit their own bodies, and can help produce incredible shots, but is also $$$$$$. I have had a couple of 3rd party lens, but personally have not had great experiences with them, so only use Canon ones now. Congrats on the new purchase, but be warned, it is very addictive and expensive!!!

depends where you live - I know where I do, with our council, only those in the city areas do, where I am (on 38 acres) under that same council, due to the property size, we don't need a permit for either dogs or cats to go over the limit of 2 dogs or 2 cats.

a thing to consider is also whether your body is full frame or crop sensor, I think the 50D is a crop sensor, so for landscape, I would be going a nice wide angle (on my full frame I use the 16-35 L, but you might want the 10-22 EFS mount, which will give the same range on your crop sensor), and would go a telephoto 70-200. For portrait, I love my 135L, 85L, 50 1.4 & 24-70, which one I use depends whether I am doing stuff inside or outside - at shows it is mostl the 135 or for closeups the 50, as that way I am not distorting face shapes, and for people, love my 24-70 and 85 Depending on your budget though, you might want to start off small & work up - the 50 is a great way to start on portraits, and just foot zoom instead, but I prefer the 1.4 to the 1.8, the 1.8 is a plastic mount and a lot harder to get a good copy of it, as it has a higher tolerance for bad glass that gets let through compared to the 1.4 or the 1.2 (I have owned both, and noticed a dramatic difference between them) As for shipping, I have bought from BH a lot, and recommend them. th only thing you need to watch is customs duties, which you need to pay once the total hits over $1000 AUD (this includes the shipping - so at the moment if it is around $850 US including the shipping, you should be fine, once over that, you will pay the GST (10%), and customs duties, and customs will collect that from you before they will release the parcel. I would go for as good as you can afford - good glass is never a bad expense, whereas if you skimp and buy cheap, you will generally find you upgrade anyway, and have lost out on the initial expense, and it is harder to get back resell value on 3rd party lens (eg Tamron, Sigma etc) than on manufacturer ones (eg Canon or Nikon)

love the shots, Newfies are an awesome breed. One of my friends had some Newfies, and she used to tell how she was driving down the Hume Hwy, with the Newfie in the passenger seat, and a car pulled up beside her newfie looked out at the driver, then turned his head away (as if bored), and the look on the other drivers face was priceless. Your dogs look incredible too

where was the RSPCA this time, after jumping all over the cop with the roo, wonder how long those poor horses had to suffer.

was also going to suggest Brilliant Prints, they are awesome

and this did not even happen on Australia Day, sounds like the good old Herald Sun picked this as the best day (and most sensational way), to show this picture and story. Shame on HS, and good on the officer doing what he had to do - far better than waiting for the RSPCA (if they could even be bothered to turn up) We have that many that end up by the side of the road around us, it is a sad but true fact of the collision of land uses, multiplied by drought

congrats on the new addition, tough choice but can't wait to see which one you pick

exactly, and to me she is just as bad as if they had left both of the kids unsupervised with a power toll or by the side of a swimming pool. By the information in the article, the dog was just playing, and now has been killed, all because of the parents stupidity, and now they want to stop older dogs being rescued? They have only themselves to blame, they created this problem, and how many times do people need to here never to leave young kids alone with a dog (any dog for that matter), for it to sink in. Shame their own son had to suffer, and the poor staffy had to be PTS for them to learn this lesson

they are so sweet, & I think I have another breed for my wishlist

Would respectfully disagree with some of the above posts are you portfolio building or practicing - there is a difference, and that makes the difference on whether you should be charging or not. Practicing means that you are refining skills, learning how to use the camera in different light, practicing on different setups etc, and you are not yet consistent with getting a full gallery each time you go out, no matter what the conditions are - you are confident whether it is overcast, full sun etc, and can replicate results all the time, not just get the odd good shot. To me, this is not at all a stage you should charge at, and in fact should be a time for disc deal - you are shooting for free for these people, who are giving up their time to you, they know there is no guarantee of perfect results, but they will get images on diskette as compensation for their time. I would still not give every single image you take, I would only hand over those that represent what you want your work to look like, as you have no idea who will look at these images. 20-30 is a good number to give. Portfolio building on the other hand comes when you have already mastered this stage, and are just looking to add more different faces (or breeds), to your portfolio, and can deliver consistently each and every time you do a shoot, whether you are using natural light, studio light etc. This stage may need to occur all the time during your career - eg you are looking to add more puppies / kittens / newborns / breeds etc, and so you may choose to either give ONE free shot and others at a discounted rate, or opportunity to purchase any shots at a discounted rate (eg 50% off), etc. DO NOT GIVE AWAY THE FARM - you are a professional and not a budget chainstore. You should not be charging until you also have things setup such as insurance cover for your business (including personal liability). Any names you are likely to use you should also do a google search on / domain name search on, and lock that in once you do by registering your website domain name (even if you don't yet want to set up the site) - it would be awful to spend all that time promoting your business only to find out that you cannot use it as someone else is already using it, and then have to get established under a different name. last of all, good luck, I enjoy photographing both children and pets for my living, I can't believe how lucky I am to get to do something I love as my job. Linda

they are beautiful, think I have another breed to add to the list. Snowflake is adorable, whoever gets her will be very lucky.

bhphotovideo.com - a great online camera store in the US that is NOT a bait and switch scammer (unlike many others - if you are ever buying online, check resellerratings.com first), very reputable, reasonable prices, and good on shipping costs too - and with Us / AUD nerly 1 / 1 good value for lots of photographic stuff. I do use filters for just about all my lens (except the fisheye), but agree with Kristin - if you are going to spend the money on decent lens, you don't put a cheap filter in front. I also use the hoods, 1 for protection, and 2 for sun glare, esp if I am shooting with the 17-35, it is great to avoid sun flare or excess light coming in and tricking the camera

bit confused here - do you already use a pro lab, or are you looking to also set an account up at one to use? Not sure whether you will be able to set one up yourself if you are not in the business, as I know a lot of them check your business name, website etc to make sure you are in the business, before they will allow you to open an account and use their services. Prices vary between the labs, so do your homework, and remember that you will also need to factor in postage etc, so generally I will try to combine orders where I can so that the postage evens out across all of them.

exactly, would second what KJA says in that I have heard from others on my photography forum who have had people swipe shots from their galleries even, and then printed them out (watermark and all, and pixelated to boot), on their home printers, so you can always expect if people want to do this, that unlike photographers, they really won't care if they look awful, as they have emotional investment in the shot. the best thing you can do is make sure you are compensated up front so if they never come back to you to order prints, but choose to do so themselves, that you have been covered for time and talent. Not sure how many shots you took, but even if you only did it as a favour, and have no interest at this time at pursuing that type of photography, I would still make sure that what you hand over best showcases your talent - if there is not one shot you would be proud to bear your name and grace a wall in 5 years,. do not hand it over. Unfortunately, unless you had already agreed to money for images, you can't really introduce it now, but would make it clear up front for any future jobs. I have also found that the most demanding people are always those that you do freebie jobs for, who want the world for nothing, and have no respect for your time at all, people who have engaged you and know what they are after and don't tend to be quite as over the top or pushy. Think you are best shot of this one, give her your best and move on!!!!

love kjas edit of the first shot, but you did a great job cloning, another thing I like to use is layers and applying a soft light layer, and masking back any ares you don't want, which applies a nice bit of oomph. The only minor cc is I don't like the tail chop in the first, (but that is very minor), love the great backlight you have captured here. In the second shot, love the edit, the only thing I would do is you will notice that on the left there is now a white spot and lighter area on the rug where because it is a bit more raised, it has caught a bit more light, and in the edit this is even more lightened. As the eye is attracted automatically to lighter areas in a photo, and you don't want the eye getting dragged off to the side, I would just burn that spot in, so it is darkened back the same as the rest of the rug, leaving the focus on your dogs beautiful eyes. I wouldn't worry about the white stripe, a value reading shows it is only 223 at the brightest, so certainly is not blown at all, the only spot that I can see that reads 255 (which means will just print as plain white, is the eye catchlight on the rhs, so maybe you might need to do something there

For me, it would depend on what the deal was - is this just a favour for a friend that you are giving shots to, or did this person pay for digital files? If they paid for files, then you should be delivering them in a way they can print them, and sadly you cannot enforce where they get them printed, that is up to them. I make a couple of suggestions of some prosumer labs that they can use, but if they don't use them, well I have already been paid for the sale. If you are giving them shots, then I would be giving them the prints, and keeping that stick as a backup for them. Personally, if I have sold digital files to a client, I will always also get a 5x7 pro print done of each file anyway, which I gift them as part of the product with the files, so they can see what a professional print looks like (and therefore not come back when they get them printed at Teds or somewhere, and they print them all wonky colorwise to my nicely calibrated shots that are calibrated to my lab. I also save the files as jpegs onto a CDrom for them, as well as giving them a watermarked websized file. For my lab, I only ever upload over the web, as jpegs, so no idea where you would be able to go and get a USB stick 16bit file done. Also, not sure why you are saving them as a PSD for her, surely that means if she has access to software she can more easily edit what you have done than if you gave her a jpeg?

does look a bit off on the skin tones, maybe a bit too much red / pink?

D'oh!!! that will teach me to read before I add, OK will also add phauntactions here.

totallyradactions is also good here edited to add - make that another vote for the totally rad ones, and the paid for ones are worth it too, and agree with MCP

sorry, selective coloring is very cheesy, and would not touch it with a ten foot pole (I do know that some people still like it, but it is not for me, mostly it just leaves freaky looking people / animals, or emphasis on the wrong thing - if a whole shot is B & W except for a flower, that is where you will look, even if the real subject of the shot was the person holding the fllower). As to trying all sorts of different things with photos, I will have an idea what look I want the photos to have before I start editing, and go with that - for instance with any breeder shots, I would not saturate the colors, as that is not then a true representation of the breed and their real colour, and if the breeder is going to use that image for their own website, then they want to show their animal as it is, not how I have made it look. I will use actions, but will know which ones I have either created myself or purchased, that will do the look I want, and same for B & W conversions - once I have the colour corrected the way I want, I have a few different B & W depending on the overall tonal values that I will use (ie I will not use the same B & W action on everything, as it will not always need the same values to get the best look, or I might want a moodier B & W or an airier one depending on the subject, but again, I know which one I want to use before I do it. The general flow though is cull the shots to those I want, work those in batches that I want similar looks on, and use actions, but masking and brushing to get the look I want , but still minimal time - if I spent hours on each image perfecting it, unless each one of those shots sold, it is time wasted. Most important thing for me also is to not sit down and edit for too much time in one hit, as I know that otherwise your eyes start to lose their ability to detect colour casts etc, and you will not have an evenly edited gallery, so I will edit say 1/2 hour, take a screen break (maybe check on a few forums, or take a coffee break), then come back and edit some more, so my eyes stay fresh. I will also edit in natural light in my office, so I am not thrown off by any casts from the flouro light tube that I have on when I am not editing. On the occasion that I am tempted to experiment, that is what history and snapshot statuses are all about, so that you can try, and backstep, without losing too much time, or even just save versions along the way.

Just a newbie here, but with any session work, the first thing I do is get my 2nd cut of ones that are good enough to work on, then if that is more than 30 for a session, I go through and review and see if there are any duplicates or near duplicates to cull. I then go through and batch edit - any in similar light / setups etc that will all need the same WB processing, adjustments etc,. so I can do them altogether. I am trying to get it down to 5 min an image, at the moment it is more like 7 - 10, , then save in the worked on file. Anything that does not look good at 100% view is discarded. Personals stuff, well that is a different matter, I shoot on jpeg anyway, so they might just be a very quick crop, boost either via curves or dup layer, soft light and mask, and sharpen, and generally not to much more than that - these are for the most part more snap shot, rather than needing to be perfect at 30 x 40 on a wall. I am way behind on those though, whereas client work I will try to have a few ready for a blog sneak peek in a day or 2 of the shoot, and the remiander of the gallery ready within a week after that. HTH I also now am a SAHM, and do the photography PT as well, so I guess it helps I can do this during the day Linda