Eric McFadden keeps a very big list of useful links to internet resources related to photography. Actually there are two pages. The first page contains everything except "Guides to Photography". Check it out - there is a lot to dig out.

New York Institute of Photography (NYIP) publishes various articles on its website. The articles cover all kinds of topics from equipment and photographer's website development to photography techniques. There is only one catch. If you miss the moment when the article is published and time passes, it's near to impossible to find the article. At least I could not find any kind of index or a sitemap. Though William Eric McFadden on his page of Ohio University website posts a list of articles from NYIP (along with other links) - just scroll down to "New York Institute of Photography" section.

For last few weeks I often watch TV series shown on UPN and VH1 channels. The show is called "America's Next Top Model". The host of the show is Tyra Banks. It's not only entertaining and pleasure to watch (check out out those girls). But there is a lot interesting and useful information for us photographers.
OK. The show is about selection of girl, who will have a $100,000 contract with CoverGirl company and most probably will launch her modeling career. The selection is a contest based one. Through series of tests from dances and acting to photoshoots the girls fight for the first place. The photoshoots are the most frequent test they take. And there are various sets and goals for those photoshoots.
May be not all photographers will find that should such usefuls as I did, though I learned a lot about what is required from a model, certain standards and requirements, used props and lighting setups. And again it's just a pleasure to watch. For example, look at the photographs in the girls' portfolios - Nicole (one of the best) and others.

As a response to one of the questions about a technique to reveal (restore?) color in a black and white photograph, I just finished an article called "Color in Black and White". The article goes slightly beyond the limits of revealing color in a bw image. I describe a new direction for you to explore - coloring a bw image using Softlight blending mode.

I got an email from Chris, one of the visitors of my website. Chris asked about pricing, how to calculate the hourly rate for your services. When I responded my letter was big enough to be considered a small article, so I decided to post it here, so others would benefit from it as well. So here it goes.

The pricing question is a tough one. I myself have not figured out completely. But anyway I will try to help you out as much as I can at this point. Pricing is not only your compensation, but it has a few other sides - marketing and growth. Compensation is simple - it is price of the materials, rent, utilities (and such) and time you've spent on providing the service (and/or salaries you pay). So after that you are square - no gain, no debts. As well you can add deprecation of your equipment and preivious education time/costinto this category.
Then the next simple to explain is the growth - you have to move forward and grow, education as well could be here (depends how you look at it). The growth is profit, which you use in order to expand your business, buy new and better equipment, learn new stuff, train new assistant, and such.

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