Okay, so while many of us whine about what's happening with consumer trends in imaging and wishing more people would use a "real camera", nothing changes the fact that we're all taking more and more images on our phones. Knowing that's the case, why not make them the best images they can be?
If you're not up to date on Camera Awesome, check out this short video posted just a few months ago. Now it's available for Androids! Here's the link to today's hottest announcement and it's from SmugMug - all about Camera Awesome - just click below!
0 Comments
...and now for something completely different! by Skip Cohen Hopefully I'm not the only one old enough to remember that quote from the Monty Python series... Two weeks ago we announced the first one day workshop in the 2014 series, THRIVE. You've got a lot to choose from when it comes to education. This is the perfect time to explain what we're doing our best to accomplish. What makes THRIVE different from all the other workshops out there? I'm tired of programs you look forward to, attend, then return to the challenges of life and business with pages of notes that never seem to get read again. So, instead of a one day program, March 2, THRIVE actually has four segments. On December 9, January 13 and February 10 we're going to do three online interactive webinars exclusively for the attendees registered for the March 2 event. These programs will NOT be the usual one way presentations. In fact, we're going to do our best to keep the presentation part to just 15 minutes for each session and spend the next 45 minutes answering your questions. You'll have a chance to submit questions in advance and we'll take a few live questions during the session. THRIVE Online will take place from 9:00 - 10:00 PM EST on each date and attendees will receive information on how to join before the end of November. Speakers for each online program will be me and Scott for at least one of them and then depending on the nature of the questions submitted, we'll bring in some of the best experts on business and marketing in the industry. This is about marketing and building your brand and we're going to concentrate on as much custom programming as we can work into each event. By March 2, when we meet live in Las Vegas, attendees will already have a solid foundation to build on. We want each attendee to leave with a starting blueprint for their marketing plan for the rest of 2014. We'll be discussing cross-promoting with other vendors, expanding your reach in your community, building a more effective website and blog, pricing, closing the sale and self-promotion. We want to role play and help you through some of your toughest challenges and help attendees build the confidence they need to be a success. The challenge in building a successful business has a lot to do with the strength of your network and we're going to be part of your team to help you THRIVE - not just survive! Register now and take advantage of the $79 early bird registration.
There are some exciting updates to this year's program you need to know about! Marketing Boot Camp: Sunday, August 11, 10:00 - 4:00 PM We had a number of requests from attendees for more marketing support. So, we've added a day of intense marketing. We're going to help with you with the challenges that haunt you the most. We'll talk about pricing, promotions, your website, social media, partnerships, blogging and branding. And if we've missed something in the list, just say the word and we'll do our best to cover it. Skip Cohen will be taking you through the bulk of the topics with help from Michele Celentano, Bob Coates and Adam Sherwin, just to name a few. Then, during the rest of Summer Session you'll have the support of our faculty to help answer more of your questions. Plus, Zach and Jody Gray's program that evening will add to our ability to help you strengthen your marketing and don't forget their half day program on Monday as well. We want to help you thrive, not just survive! Networking Mixer: Sunday, August 11, 8:30 - 10:00 PM Thanks to support from Panasonic's LUMIX team we're going to network the right way! You'll not only have a chance to meet other attendees and the faculty, but the LUMIX team will have a few of the new GH3's everybody is talking about for you to test drive for yourself. Mirrorless technology is changing the way we capture images and you're going to be blown away. Hybrid 101 with Suzette Allen Originally Suzette was doing a two day Intermediate Photoshop class, but the popularity of hybrid e-products is off the charts. Here's your chance to get introduced to a whole new product line to offer your clients. The potential for you to increase revenue is outstanding and explained in more detail in Suzette's program description listed on the Summer Session page. Plus, instead of one two day workshop, she's teaching two one day workshops with the same content, so you can now take her class along with another choice for your hands-on programming. "Save Me a Seat" We believe this is an industry first. With "Save Me a Seat" you can register for the program with a minimal amount and not have to pay the bulk of the balance until October 1st! That's sixty days after the program is over, giving you a chance to take what you've learned and actually put it to work producing revenue! It's all explained below! Alumni Discount The $100 Alumni discount has been extended right up to the program start date of August 11. Illustration Credit: © DinoZ - Fotolia.com by Skip Cohen Ever missed somebody's birthday or anniversary and then find out about it months later? It's embarrassing. Well, that's how I feel this morning wandering through the Internet and catching my buddy Rich Harrington's post on Power to Create back in April about Drobo hitting a new milestone on storage - they've backed up an "exabyte"...and like most of you - I had no idea what an exabyte even was! Since we're going to have a couple of Drobo 5D's to give away at Summer Session this year in Chicago, this is just the right time, if you don't already know about Drobo, to introduce you. Check out the videos, especially the intro to Drobo with Cali Lewis! From Power to Create: Drobo just hit an impressive milestone... they've backed up a WHOLE lot of data. An exabyte in fact! To understand how much an exabyte truly is, let’s put things in perspective. That’s 1 million 1TB hard drives. If backed up to standard DVDs, you’d need 245 million of them which if stacked to the same 5 ½ mile height as Mount Everest would require 32 stacks measuring 14 feet across. That's an incredible amount of data in just six years! The first Drobo was released in 2007. Congratulats Drobo! For those of you who know me personally, you know that it's rare I do anything half way. That's not meant to sound like a characteristic I'm bragging about, more a quality that I wish I could tone down a little. I don't seem to have a gauge on passion...when I get into something I love, it's all or nothing and at times downright obsessive. SCU has become that obsession and it's definitely a labor of love.
May just closed our fourth full month as a website and blog. It was another milestone month, but what amazes me is how the weeks simply fly by. This past week was one of those weeks and it was amazing. What I'm trying to express is how grateful I am to so many different people. It's my "network" of friends and associates who make my little corner of this industry such a kick, along with some amazing companies in SCU's growing list of partners. The week started out with the launch of "Save Me a Seat" followed by BYOB (Bring Your Own Buddy) a program for SCU Alumni. Then came some great posts, the growing downloads of Cindy Harter's guest post and podcast. It all came together with great pick up on a press release on Save Me a Seat, Blog Talk Radio picking up the SCU Podcast as one of their featured programs in photography and new faculty joining the SCU team. Charity Fest launched with a request for guest posts and right out of the blocks there were two emails in my box. New videos joined the archives in the Profoto Theater and Ilford Showcase. It was even a great week on a personal note, catching up to Doug Box and Randy Kerr for a day on their way to teach for a week at the Florida School. Deanne Fitzmaurice, Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the founders of Think Tank, joined the faculty along with Ed ONeill and Dustin Meyer. A new podcast aired yesterday with one of the country's leading boudoir photographers and SCU joined the ranks for great photographic sites and blogs on Guy Kawasaki's Alltop site. The bottom line is that no project any of us can do will ever succeed without great support from our networks. It's the old Hilary Clinton line that, "It takes a village!" For me that village includes so many amazing friends, associates and manufacturers. The common denominator is the obsessive quality I started talking about in everyone's passion for imagine and an industry we all love. So, make it a great Sunday...enjoy your family, cherish every moment and fire yourself up for a new week starting tomorrow. It's going to be the best one of the year so far, but I can promise, not as good as the week after! Illustration Credit:© bloomua - Fotolia.com A few years ago, during the GoingPro Project, Scott Bourne and I started using Blog Talk Radio for our podcasts. For over a year I've done a new podcast, whether for GoingPro, my old blog or the SCU site, every ten days. Each one featuring another industry icon. What's been amazing and simply fun to hear have been the stories of how different photographers got started, what advice they have for new photographers just starting out and comments they've made about various challenges in their careers. I'm far from being a strong interviewer or a great radio voice, but every interview has been from the heart and over and over again, the personality of each guest has made the show unique. Yesterday BlogTalkRadio sent me an email that SCU's Building Your Network has become a featured program in the Photography category. Well, it couldn't have happened without some amazing guests and all our listeners. While I can't list all of our listeners, I can send out a big thanks to all my past guests...
For once the expression, I couldn't have done it without you, couldn't be more accurate! Thank you for your support and your willingness to share so many stories about your careers!
There are 36 podcasts in the archives of SCU's Podcast Center - each one with a little different focus on some aspect of being a professional photographer. We're all part of an amazing industry and the information shared by so many of my guests is a prime example of people believing in education and giving back. by Skip Cohen
Those of you who know me personally understand how much I believe in continuous education to build your business. In talking with a lot of photographers over the last few months, I’ve heard so many stories about the challenges in the economy and the difficulty of deciding where best to invest both your time and money in educational programs. SCU’s Summer Session started with Skip’s Summer School four years ago and as sappy as it sounds, it’s been life-changing for so many attendees. This program is definitely considered one of the very best investments you can make in your education as a professional photographer and that's coming from feedback from many of the attendees over the last few years. This isn't just about helping you elevate your skill set, but building a community. Today on Facebook there's an amazing group called Skip's Summer School. It wasn't started by me, but one of the attendees two years ago, Brent Watkins. There are almost 300 photographers involved who literally work to help each other every day. Save Me a Seat We want to show you how much we believe in helping you “Thrive – not just survive!” We just set up a new billing option called “Save Me a Seat”…all it takes is a $100 deposit to reserve your seat and two payments - $150 charged to your credit card on August 1 and the balance of $350 due on October 1. We believe so strongly that we can help you grow your business, we’re giving you time to implement some of the things you'll learn at SCU’s Summer Session and start to THRIVE before the last payment is even due. Remember, no hands-on workshop will exceed twenty people, giving you maximum learning power and the experience of building your network and getting to know your instructors. Illustration Credit: © Carsten Reisinger - Fotolia.com by Skip Cohen
A month ago I did a post about my buddy Matthew Jordan Smith and his Future Presidents project. It was the day it all launched on Kickstarter and he was looking to raise $30,000 to fund the project. Well, he made it, but now with less than 30 hours left, we want to help him exceed the goal, but you need to understand why. Exceeding the goal on a project like this doesn't mean any profitability for the author. What it does mean is the project has a chance to expand its reach. Stronger funding means Matthew has the ability to reach more children, more families and create a stronger project. If you're not familiar with it, here's the press release that dropped a few weeks ago. So, this morning's post is a call to action and we're down to the wire. You can guess how many projects over the years I've been involved in, but none with the potential to inspire and involve so many children and families. Matthew's got until the end of the day Sunday - whatever you can do is going to be so appreciated and give you your own little piece of a project destined to be historical. Thanks for your support! Dad, Me and Big Blad by Skip Cohen In the news today is the press release below in which Hasselblad announced the discontinuation of the V System and one of my all time favorites, the 503CW. Over the twelve years I was president of Hasselblad USA, we created some incredible memories in marketing, business and just making sure we had fun. It was a work-hard-play-hard mentality. It was an amazing team of talented and passionate people, working with some of the finest photographers in the world. One of those memories comes from the image on the left, when Big Blad became a trademark at so many different shows. Running approximately 14 feet high it was definitely a conversation piece, but I wonder if the announcement to continue to support accessories for the V System applies to Big Blad - the electric inflator is sounding a little sluggish, but just like Hasselblad's reputation, it's still working! Here's a prime example of the importance of networks and the great relationships that come out of this industry, a topic I've written about many times. Virtually all of my closest friends, like the Degrees of Separation Kevin Bacon game, can all be traced back to some point in time while I was with Hasselblad. R.I.P. 503CW - You captured some of the world's most amazing images! The decision, which comes into immediate effect, brings to an end over a half century of evolution of the company's original camera line.
Dr. Larry Hansen, Hasselblad Chairman and CEO said: "Everything has its place in time. The veteran 503CW combined with an extensive V System range of interchangeable lenses and accessories, was for seventeen years the camera of choice for discerning professionals and aspirational amateur photographers. But there has been a substantial decline in demand for this camera over the past five years or so and the time has now come for us to reluctantly consign the V System to history. In so doing we would like to thank all fans and customers for both their loyalty and their enthusiasm for our legacy Hasselblad V System." He added: "Now of course the focus on medium format capture is on our H System - the world's most advanced camera system. The latest generation cameras represent medium format capture engineering at its most exemplary and are well-placed to secure and underpin the company's unrivaled reputation for providing highest image quality and craftsmanship. Additionally we are focusing on new products for advanced enthusiasts." Hasselblad has confirmed that the last 503CW has rolled off the production line but the company will continue to provide V System accessories while stocks last. V System support will also still be available through current channels. |
Our Partners"Why?"Check out "Why?" one of the most popular features on the SCU Blog. It's a very simple concept - one image, one artist and one short sound bite. Each artist shares what makes the image one of their most favorite. We're over 100 artists featured since the project started. Click on the link above and you can scroll through all of the episodes to date.
Categories
All
|