The Visual Artisans Newsletter
Tip Sheet #1
1. Copyright Your Photos
Register your new (just shot or created) photographs with the US Copyright Office (Library of Congress) before you Publish your photographs. If you are not familiar with the term a Published photograph, visit the US Copyright Office web site to learn what is a published photograph. (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html). By registering your photographs, before offering them for sale in galleries or showing them on your photographers website, offers you the best legal protection as a copyright owner. Learn about the pitfalls of not registering your photos in my future class for photographers. Now that we live in the digital age, where we can shoot a photographic image and immediately transmit it across the state or the world via the Internet, it's vitally important that we (photographers) are able to secure the copyrights & ownership to our images and be able reap the future benefits from our created images.
2. Group Register your photos
You can save money by regularly registering your unpublished photographs in groups (as a collection of unpublished photographs) with the US Copyright Office under specific guidelines. Visit the Library of Congress web site link listed above for the specifics. Also visit the ASMP web site (http://www.ASMP.org) and view their copyright tutorial.
3. Use Gold CD's
Do not use cheap CD's to backup your archival digital image files. Purchase good quality Gold CD's that uses Pthalocyanide dyes. Pthalocyanide dyes last longer than cyanide dyes used in the manufacture of CD's.
4. Smart buying I
Are you a fine arts photographer? If you do all of your own matting and framing for gallery showings and individual sales, buy your matting and framing materials in bulk and save a bundle .
In the past, a group of fellow photographers and I have developed a want list of materials that we all use regularly. We would search the Web and a list of suppliers (sources listed in "The Visual Arts Resource Manual") for the best prices. We placed the orders and saved a Bundle! I will be discussing this method of smart buying in my future class " The Business Side of Photography".
5. Wet Darkroom Photographers
Do you use distilled or bottled water for mixing your darkroom chemicals ? Why buy distilled or mineral water when you can get it for free? If you own or know someone who uses a dehumidifier in their home or business. It could save you money! Collect the water from the dehumidifier (which has no minerals in it ) and filter the water through a good quality paper coffee filter (mounted in a funnel) into a clean storage container. I have been doing this for years.
6. Don't Ruin your Framing Job.
After purchasing glass for framing your photos and art, you should chamfer the sharp edges of the glass with a piece of wet / dry sand paper.
You can also use an emery board used for filing finger nails. Some glass suppliers will chamfered the edges of the glass for you, if you ask. When performing this process you should wear a pair of cotton work gloves. Chamfering the edges of the glass, makes handling it a lot easier and eliminates cuts and accidents. After all, how would you like to spend several hours matting an photo or art piece and you accidentally cut yourself (not knowing it) and you get blood on your mat and ruin your matting job !!
7. Speed up your copyright submissions
To help speed up the filing process of sending your copyright submissions to the Library of Congress, go to the copyright office's web site and down load the needed forms in PDF format. Use Adobe Acrobat™ to fill in the blanks in the document. First fill out all of the blanks that remain the same (name, address, etc.) and save it as a template. The free reader version of Adobe Acrobat™ will allow you to fill in your information in the blanks in the PDF documents and then you can print your completed form, but the software will not allow you to save your form. It's sometimes hard to fit all the required information on the lines of the copyright forms. This method is especially useful for persons who have poor penmanship or write large.
8. Smart buying II
Do you still shoot film and do wet darkroom
work ? Join up with a few other photographers & hobbyists and develop a list what everyone buys and buy in bulk for at good discount from one of the photo suppliers listed in "The Visual Arts Resource Manual". Buy your films (by the brick), papers, chemistries and photo supplies by in bulk. Place your film and paper supplies in the refrigerator or the freezer. Film and photo papers should be purchased during the spring and late fall to insure safe delivery due to seasonal temperatures. The temperatures in a delivery service truck (en route to your home or business) could reach 80 to 90 degrees F on a sunny day.
9. Plastic styrofoam egg cartons make great mixing pallets for mixing photo retouching dyes, alternative process solutions, water colors, etc.
10. Free Battery Power
I'm an SX-70 fan and shoot Polaroid Time Zero Film to create my Manipulated SX-70 Fine Art Prints. If you have any Polaroid SX-70 film packs or Polaroid 600 series film packs lying around, the empty film packs have a 6 volt battery that is still quite usable. The battery pack is flat. The user should wear a pair of cotton gloves (due to the battery packs sharp metal edges) and a pair of pliers or some tool to open the pack. Once the battery pack is removed, the battery's positive and negative contacts should be cover with masking tape to prevent other metal objects or materials coming in contact. The batteries can be used for all types of house hold projects (powering lantern flash lights, toys, science experiments, etc.).
Mr. Gamble is the author of "The Visual Arts Resource Manual". Information for purchasing copies of the book may be found at the authors web site : www.DuaneGamble.com
Contact the author at the email address below to be placed on his mailing list for his future classes and workshops : "The Business Side of Photography".
Email : info@duanegamble.com
©2006 Duane V. Gamble, All Rights Reserved
Published as the Photographers Tip Sheet #1 - July 2006
No part of this document may be copied, or reproduced by any means: mechanical, electronic, optical, or distributed or transmitted in any form, including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author, Duane V. Gamble. For further information or to order copies of this document, please contact the author at the mailing address listed above. Thanks