Cameras-n- Stuff

One of the most creative techniques to make money from freelance photography is to turn your images into gifts that people will love to buy. The possibilities are staggering- from canvas prints to photography books to customizing photo tshirts and other clothes. But there are some unusual photo products too. In this article I discuss five photo products that you might not normally expect to be able to customize with your photos.

Bean Bags

You can have bean bags customized with a montage of your photographs. They are great for relaxing on, offer plenty of support, and they’re designed from your very own photos. Your visitors will love checking out all your photos while sitting on one of these! And your customers will love a beanbag designed around images of their favorite place or interest.

Candles

How would you like to design your own candles with your photograph on the sides? And don’t worry about losing half your photograph when the candle burns down… technology has given us special “everlasting” candles that can be re-used again and again and still look good.

Car Seat Covers

Photo seat back covers not only decorate your vehicle seats with good designs, they make them more comfortable at the same time! Here is a customized photo product that you can take with you wherever you go! You can customize baby seat covers with your photographs too. Perhaps you can sell some of these through your local automotive accessories store.

Mouse Wrist Pads

 I think everyone must have seen photo mouse pads but how about a photo mouse wrist pad? These extra comfortable ergonomic wrist pads support your wrist and can help to alleviate RSI. These are one of my favorite kinds of photo product because not only are they very attractive once your photo is added, but this is something that people really need!

Money Boxes

With personalized photo money boxes your friends can save money and their memories at the same time. Or you can sell money boxes decorated with your photography through your local bookstores or toy stores.

These are only several of the photo products you can personalize with your photos. There are many more and we have identified hundreds of photo products you can easily design and order through reputable suppliers here.

When I meet a stranger and tell them that I am a professional wedding photographer near Brighton Sussex, I can often see in their eyes that they imagine “that’s an easy job – anybody can just take a photograph!” – if they only knew …

For a start the job the wedding photographer is a very responsible one. In a way we are entrusted with the preservation of people’s most treasured memories. And sometimes it can be a huge responsibility, especially on days and in places where the light is very challenging.

Weddings in winter and in dark churches are the two main problem areas. The lighting in the winter time can be very gloomy even outside and as professional wedding photographers we sometimes struggle even with sophisticated lighting rigs, fast lenses and sensitive cameras.

Frequently the photographs are improved to high level using photo manipulation software in the post photo shoot phase. But that still doesn’t mean you can be lax in collecting as many photos as possible. Dark churches, unhelpful and unsympathetic priests and vicars are a problem all year round.

Unfortunately though it’s easy to blame the clerics, it is probably overly noisy and demanding photographers who caused most of the problems. I can well sympathise with the church vicar who having had an abrasive and uncompromising wedding photographer decides that in future he will not allow any photography during the ceremony itself. Sadly this makes it very difficult for photographers like myself who believe in minimising the impact on the ceremony and general atmosphere in the church.

Even more common than not being allowed to take photographs at all, is being restricted in our use of flash photograhy. It is sometimes all right if the church is reasonably lit and the ceremony takes place in a part of the church where natural daylight illuminates the scene. But unfortunately as I found at Lewes, Sussex, church last year, quite often especially if the church is having any renovations it can be unbelievably dark. This was made even worse by the fact that the ceremony was held in the centre of the church away from the large window above the altar. The fact that we couldn’t use flash in this situation made taking quality photographs almost impossible!

And worse still the customer was unsympathetic to our plight and try as we may we couldn’t make them see the difficulties. So my tip of the day is: if you are getting married in church particularly in the winter, check first that the vicar presiding will allow at least some form of flash photography during the ceremony. And if you particularly need photographs of the ceremony check your vicar will allow you to take them at all.

by Patrick Gold of i-Clic photographers, Brighton, Sussex.