How to setup your Studio/Office Space

This should have come out much earlier this week, but due to my car situation I just didn't have the time.

My studio/office space is probably the most important room in my house. It was also the longest to get setup. Finding all the parts, desk, filing cabinet, shelves, organization items, marker board, etc, was fairly easy compared to the planning, setup, installation, and organization of the space. I needed a space I could shoot in when necessary and that would keep me productive for my office tasks.

Must haves of a home office/studio space:

1. Have a completely separate space where you can close the door and there are no distractions - other than the Internet! This will also help you out come tax time. Just make sure you use it ONLY for business purposes and you should be good to go. (Check with your tax advisor first of course.)
2. Keep a professional appearance, especially if you are going to have clients visit. I try to keep my desk relatively clean - it is a work environment after all - and I hung my various photo awards on my wall. My bookshelf has some personality but I try to keep it as professional as possible. (Yes, design-wise the bookshelf needs to become black, it's on the mile-long list.)

Creation of this space:

1. Decide the purpose of the room - office or studio or both? Mine is doubling as both
2. Get the dimensions and start planning out the space both on paper and physically. We measured and taped off to plan the staging. This was important with our room because it is a fairly small space 10.5'x10.5'.
3. Plan out your organization. Have an idea of what supplies, equipment and workspace you want and how organized it needs to be. Emily convinced me to go for a highly-organized space with lots of vertical storage, which works well in small areas.
4. Go to your favorite furniture store and start the purchasing. Most of mine is from Ikea - desk, black shelf, table leg, dry-erase board, and under shelf light.  Ikea is a good store for fairly cheap organization items. I had the filing cabinet and the bookshelf. The desk is positioned on an Ikea adjustable table leg and the filing cabinet which takes up less space. My desk chair is from Office Depot - I got it on sale for $80.
5. Put all the big items together first, keeping in mind where you might put some of the personal touches like plaques, photos, etc. Ikea has a ton of parts which can take forever. The chair also took a fair amount of time to put together.
6. Hang up your plaques, frames, diplomas, etc.
7. Move all your stuff in and start organizing it in pieces right away. Put your files in the cabinet the way you want if you never had to move them again. That way you get it right the first time, at least to a certain extent.
8. Make your space neat and presentable.

Other notes about my office:

• I use Comcast/Xfinity internet with no cable service, so it's the direct connection and I had them wire it to the 2nd floor office. 
• It has a closet where I can store and lock the equipment, along with some property security.
• NO MACS ALLOWED, just kidding, but I do run an all-PC office. They all sit in the office: 2 laptops and a server. 
• The server is a classic - 1 Ghz, 1 gb of Ram, but it runs Ubuntu, but gives me a central location and access to my externals and printer.
• My old laptop - IBM Thinkpad - doubles as a jukebox for Pandora and to back-up to my Sony for both processing and business tasks. It is also my connection hub with all my Google apps up and running for immediate view. 
• Sony Laptop - the workhouse, runs Windows 7 professional and it gets the job done
• Making these items stay in the office, means I have to go up there and do work instead of sitting in front of the TV or do other meaningless things
• It has a door that I can close to the world, which is great at helping me focus.
• It still needs a backdrop on the open wall to the left (on the list)

If money was no object I would have a plush studio in the historic neighborhood with the classic charm of Baltimore. Original brick and an open layout, with a livable upstairs or additional unit, with parking. 

If you are an artist in Baltimore looking for this type of space, know a space like this, or have one, let me know. I have a few ideas.

Insurance

Insurance not only protects your possessions, but it is an essential part of your business. All of us have auto insurance and home/renters insurance, but if you are running a business you need to have commercial insurance to be fully covered.

When I'm on location I'm always aware of my surroundings: are my electrical cords where somebody can trip, is my light stand stable, is my model doing something dangerous, etc. Since most of my work is fitness based, I have models run, lift weights, etc, and they could be injured performing actions under my direction. I also shoot in crowded gyms or in public places where someone could trip over a cord and be injured. I'm protected from all of these situations. My photo and other business equipment is also covered if it is lost, stolen, or broken. This cost should be added into your Cost of Doing Business, which you should use to help price your services.

Insurance also protects you from any unforseen events, for example this morning when my car was involved in a hit and run accident in the middle of the night.  The diriver ran the intersection where my car was parked, half-a-block from my house/studio.  The driver pushed my car about 8 feet where I hit a Mustang GT, who smashed his front into the hitch of a 4Runner. Everyone in the neighborhood has been extremely helpful and noone was hurt, which is even more reassuring.

My car, located in Canton, after being hit by a driver in the middle of the night. If you have any info feel free to email or call me.

Insurance protects you from the unknown, and while this is a major inconvenience, it could be much worse. If you aren't covered, look around your studio and see what you might lose if a client trips over a wire or someone breaks in. Hill & Usher, my insurance company, was easy to setup and works with photographers often.

Protect yourself from the unknown and minimize any "surprises" that come up.

Essential Technology to run my Business

Ever since I can remember, I have used Microsoft Office to keep a little bit of organization in my life, school, business, and work responsibilities. I even got an opportunity to interview with Microsoft, and I still remember two questions from the interview:

1. What is your favorite Microsoft product? - Outlook
2. Can you please recite the algorithm for Quick Sort? - Which is something you look up, not memorize!

We'll discuss only the first one, and leave the second one for you to read about on Wikipedia. I had used Outlook since 2005 has held all email, calendar, and major tasks in my life. Most people who know me well, know that if it's not on the Outlook calendar, it doesn't exist in my life.

The only problem with my Outlook setup is that I had to have my laptop with me at ALL times to be able to open use those features. Most of the time this isn't an issue, but driving with a laptop open to a shoot or checking email on a friend's phone was not an ideal option.

Usher in Google's services. I've used GMail and Google Docs for my work at The Tiger, group project collaboration, and critical file access over the last few years, but hadn't adopted it full-time. It just didn't seem as clean, sophisticated, and user-friendly as Office. After researching Google Apps Standard, I decided to take a chance and try it. I can't say how happy I am I made the switch. 

The reason I switched was because it allowed me to keep an online store of my business life that I can access 24/7 from anywhere in the world. 

Think about this for a second and consider the possibilities this has for your business.

Google Apps Standard includes the following and is FREE:

• 50 Users and the ability to use your own domain name - like www.ebrianschneider.com in my case
• Gmail
• 25 GB of storage
• Outlook and BlackBerry syncing
• My take on Gmail: It's easy to use and allows a level of organization with Labels (their word for folders) I could never achieve with Outlook. Plus it has tasks and contacts integrated in as well. Tasks is probably my favorite feature as it gives me a notepad with my random thoughts, new ideas, research, stuff to do, etc, and I can open it anywhere instead of carrying around a paper pad; which is so last decade.
• Google Calendar
• Syncs well with Outlook through separate program
• Integrates nicely with Gmail
• Not as polished as Outlook graphically, but get's the job done.
• Can send you SMS and email reminders for appointments
• MS Exchange like features - availability of others in the domain, share calendars, etc
• My take on Calendar: While not as easy to make an appointment at first, because you can't use the keyboard like Outlook can, it is easily overcome by using it the first day. Can also easily search for popular calendars of sports teams-good for finding potential clients, holidays, etc. The SMS reminder is amazing as well. While it doesn't have as many options to customizing viewing and default calendar options, it really does a great job
• Google Docs
• MS Office compatibility
• Online store house for documents - any type of files from .doc to .exe
• Real-time collaborating on documents
• Not the prettiest formating
• My take on Docs: You still have to have basic MS Office for Word, and Powerpoint because the interface and formating is not always the prettiest when it comes out of Google Docs.  But it beats Office Live with the ease to collaborate on a document and organize them in an easy fashion. Spreadsheet can even look up NCAA tournament data through function calls! On a more serious note, it's great to be able to pull up my contract to send when on the road, or to just back-up important files. 
• Google Sites
• Intranet or Internet site for your company
• Easy collaboration for teams and projects
• My take on Sites: Since I have my own site, www.ebrianschneider.com and this blog, I haven't yet found a use for the Sites features. Maybe once the operation grows from 2 people it will become useful as an Intranet dashboard type site.
• Missing Features:
• No RSS reader in Gmail - the only thing that held me back from switching for awhile. But, I use my email address, brian@ebrianschneider.com, as a Google account so I can use other services:
• Reader - RSS reader and viewer, my information resource from my favorite blogs.
• Voice - I'll talk more about this later
• Blogger - How I provide you with this wonderful information.
• Analytics - Tracking the usage of my portfolio, blog, and social media
• Local Business Center - Google's equivalent of Yellow Pages.
• Maps - Personal organization of places for myself, especially helpful here in a new city
• Other Random Notes:
• The apps seem to lag a bit behind the full-blown Google services. For example there's no Buzz.
• You can customize it to have your logo and branding to a certain extent.

Google Voice:

• A local number you pick out for free and rings ALL of your phones
• Free SMS
• Block calls
• Record calls
• Conference calls
• Screen all callers
• Voicemail
• Transcribed and sent as SMS and/or email
• Custom greetings
• Ability to share voicemails
• Consolidation from all numbers into one place
• My take on Voice: It's really a great service, but has a few kinks. My greetings aren't setup yet, but the ability to have a local Baltimore number ring my cell phone and Emily's phone at the same time is just amazing. Allows me to be "local" without having to pay for a phone line. The downfall is you have to pay $10 to change the number, so make it a good one. It would be even better if Voice integrated directly in with Gmail like Buzz does currently. 

Google Reader:

• Your basic RSS reader. Similar interface to Gmail.
• My take on Reader: Nothing really special other than it makes recommendations based on other users. I subscribe to a lot of blogs and I am always marking interesting, inspirational, or reference posts for later reading or to find easily. It does an alright job at replacing the RSS reader in Outlook, would be better if it integrated with Gmail.

Overall Impression of Google Services:
While it was surprisingly tricky to setup the apps at first, the level of customization is great, they work well, are easy to use, ability to find add-ons in the Marketplace, and even create your own if you are ambitious. Their apps already rival the ability of MS Office/Exchange, but no hassle, less costs, and easier to secure.

My Situation
Emily is my business manager and when not dealing with school work she helps me with PR, business organization, graphic design and finances. She's still in Clemson so we needed a way to share documents and calendar space to be able to keep up with each other. Google Apps has basically become our virtual office with messaging, calendars, white boards, and filing cabinets, accessible from any device with Internet access.
Google Apps and other services are the technological backbone. It's a Google world now and we are just living in it.

Business Week

I've finally recovered from a busy weekend including a visit from Emily and a full schedule of fitness shooting. I would like to focus this week's posts on a variety of business topics with an extensive blog post about my experiences with the following:

• Technology: Business Services
• Commercial Insurance
• Workspace: Studio/Office
• Marketing
• Websites: Portfolios, Blogs, and SEO options
• Social Media: Facebook, Twitter

Most of these topics will apply to all business, but some will only apply to photographers and other creative professionals.

Adapting to Changing Times

I just discovered this blog because of Twitter. So I've now started going back and watching old interviews and they are just inspirational to say the least. Just wanted to share some thoughts from Dane Sanders' great interview with Vincent Laforet. You should watch the video multiple times to really let it sink in.

Vincent's perspective on the industry is amazing.

My take-away from the video:

1. Everything is changing and you can't "specialize" and you can't just become a _____ photographer. You have to adapt and become a visual communicator with a wide variety of skills.
2. The ability to broadcast yourself in this new media age is amazing.
• At the 13 min mark where he discusses the making of Reverie. He spent $5000 on the making of the movie. The ability to broadcast it by himself to a wide audience, brought more promotion than he could have ever imagined, and shows how much the game has changed.

"Think young, think different, and embrace new technologies." It's all about story and how you tell it.

Hopefully the content here will keep you coming back for more.

Dane Sanders - www.askdane.com
Vincent Laforet - blog.vincentlaforet.com

Opening Day

Opening Day
There's always something special about the tradition behind Opening Day. I played baseball for 15 years, from little league to high school, and each year was a different experience. From a parade through town for Little League opening day in Orchard Park, NY to a bright, sunny afternoon at Spartanburg Day School in Spartanburg, SC, there was always something special and unique to each one. Baseball was one of the driving factors that led me to photography.

Clemson Baseball
I knew it would be my last year of shooting Clemson baseball, where I got to see some absolutely great players - Tyler Colvin, Jason Berken, Taylor Harbin, Daniel Moskos, Brad Chalk, and a home Super Regional game. It is a Clemson tradition to see head coach Jack Leggett run into the team huddle and be mobbed by his players before every game. Last year's Opening Day huddle/mosh-pit was the most memorable one for me.

The Orioles
On Friday afternoon, I had the opportunity to cover the Baltimore Orioles Opening Day at Camden Yards.  It was also a special day for another reason, as Oriole favorite, Miguel Tejada, returned home to Baltimore. It was his first home game as an Oriole, and he didn't disappoint going 3-5, 4 RBIs, 1 run. The city was excited and set an opening day record for attendance with over 48,000 fans in Birdland!  The city loves this team, and hopefully they will turn it around this year. They have the talent to do so.

The fans got a little rowdy, and even umpire Joe West made an appearance to try and shorten the game time.

There was great light for photos with the 3:05 p.m. start, and you could feel the excitement in the air. I hope to have the opportunity to cover more Oriole's games this summer and hopefully this is only the beginning of many Opening Day's to come.

Slideshow of some select images below:

BLOG: Toronto Blue Jays at Baltimore Orioles 4/9/10 - Images by Brian Schneider

Baltimore Photographer Brian Schneider's full gallery.

First Shoot in Baltimore

Introduction
The creating, setup, and marketing as been taking all of my time. The house and studio are now setup, along with all my business related items. I've also been able to branch out and start networking with local photographers and models.

A couple of weekends ago I finally had the time to shoot a self-made assignment. The assignment was simple: A fitness routine in Patterson Park, showing the model's fitness and the park's features.

I started shooting sports commercial advertising when I was a student at Clemson. I helped implement their new Determined Spirit brand in brochures, posters, web sites, and other promotional material. This campaign taught me to strive for more and to try new techniques.

To stay in business and be successful, I need to execute these shoots as well and efficiently as possible. These types of shoots allow me to scout locations, work with models, develop a concept, and craft the perfect shot.

Scouting
Since the park is less than a half-block from the studio and I run there everyday, I know it pretty well. The day before the shoot, I took a walk around the park at the scheduled start time, 3:30pm. It helped give me a sense of what the light will most likely be like during the shoot. On the day of the shoot, I had enough time to go scout around again, which was helpful because the weather went from sunny and beautiful the day before to cloudy and cold.

Concept
In addition to showing the model's fitness and Patterson Park's beautiful scenery, I wanted it the shoot to have minimal lighting with a happy feel. The clouds on shoot day hurt that idea, but I an audible and decided to practice minimal lighting with a tougher look.

Execution
I personally think I did a great job with the shoot. I didn't try to over-light the model and when some sun did shine through, Kareema was great and able to change her whole look to work with it. Since Kareema didn't have any specific sport experience, I tailored a shoot around her general fitness ability.

It was also the first time I got a chance to work with a Hair and Make-up Artist.  Her name is Liz Martin and she did a great job. I have been wanting to try a "sweat shot", where sweat is running down the model's face/body after a hard work-out.  The product of that concept is above. The Hair and Make-up was done extremely well, and Liz even went above and beyond and by holding the light stand and attending to Kareema while shooting.

Take Away from Shoot
Steps to a successful shoot:

• Develop a concept
• Find a good general location with multiple specific areas to create interesting backdrops
• Develop a plan and shot list - I personally need to start drawing out lighting diagrams for specific shots
• Be able to call an audible: adapt to changes in the environment
• Take the shot

If all the other steps are executed well, then the last step is fairly easy and comes down to your ability to work well with the talent.

BLOG: Kareema Shoot - Images by Baltimore Photographer Brian Schneider

Talent: Baltimore Model Kareema G

MUA: Wilmington, DE MUA Liz Martin

Oliver Purnell leaves Clemson

Clemson: Oliver Purnell - Images by Baltimore Photographer Brian Schneider

Clemson Tigers basketball coach Oliver Purnell left to take the job opening at DePaul University. Purnell was a great coach and did a lot for Clemson. It is sad to see a good coach leave. No more, "You down with OPP" chants; OPP = Oliver Purnell's Posse.
I was fortunate during my time at Clemson to be able to follow and cover a transition time of Clemson athletics. Men's basketball was one of these transitions. From the perennial loser in the ACC to the top half of the conference was not only fun to cover, but fun to watch. I really enjoyed being able to cover and see the changes from year-to-year. One of my main goals is to become a team photographer. I built a relationship with Clemson Sports Information, that provided me access I can only dream-of. It allowed me to make images I never could have made at another school or venue, and provide an insightful glimpse behind-the-scenes for readers of The Tiger for 4.5 years. It also helped me nab this great tear-sheet from ESPN the Magazine a couple years back.

He really raised Clemson's basketball standards and I wish him all the best at DePaul. Hopefully we'll bring in a great coach. Enjoy the slideshow of his career at Clemson.