If you have a room dedicated to photo production, I know a lot of professionals paint the walls (and ceiling!) neutral grey. Control over lighting and color cast is very important and while it is not practical to paint your whole living room grey, if you have a dedicated room just for photography, consider it because you will work in an environment free of artificial color casts. Also for the most optimum setup you probably want to at least be able to block out any outside light, and rely only on artificially created interior lighting- because then it is going to be consistent and not change or depend on the time of day.
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Looking for a "Photographer's Workspace" thread.
- Thread starter ChrisBrightwell
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The thought I forgot to mention in my post, in the old days pro photographers would often store their negatives either in a banks vault (safety deposit box) or would put them in a fire safe at home. A bank can burn down, but the vault is protected from the heat and water (in theory).
I've read of a group of shooters who have organized a trans-oceanic round-robin of external HDs. These photographers live on 3 or 4 continents, and monthly they courier a copy of all their images on an external HD to one of the group on a different continent. In case of a wide-spread major big-bass disaster their images will still be safe somewhere.
I'm not advocating that degree of paranoia - but some people are thinking that way.
I will close this thought with a story though. An acquaintance of mine had all of her studio equipment stolen, out of what should have been a secure building. She was not insured, and could never afford to get back into the photography business. She ended up working retail somewhere. If all of your images disappeared one day - could you afford to get back into the business? The answer to that question should, I think, dictate how paranoid (or not) someone should be about archiving images. For some it would not be an issue, for others it may mean the difference between retiring at 50 or 70. For others it may mean they are totally out of business.
Now I'm making myself nervous.....
My kit is in the loft......
Bottom Mac Mini is my webserver, top one will be sold soon! New Mini is connected to 2 Freecom Datatanks, which i've upgraded myself to 2tb (2x 1tb each - one mirrored - one JBOD).
Being an odd shaped loft I've added storaged around the Chimney (pic), most of my kit is stored in camera bags. I've often thought about getting a Peli case, but the cost puts me off.
On my desk is a Minolta Medium format film scanner, with old PC down the side of the desk to run it (it's got a SCSI 2 connector - so won't fit the mini).
Bottom Mac Mini is my webserver, top one will be sold soon! New Mini is connected to 2 Freecom Datatanks, which i've upgraded myself to 2tb (2x 1tb each - one mirrored - one JBOD).
Being an odd shaped loft I've added storaged around the Chimney (pic), most of my kit is stored in camera bags. I've often thought about getting a Peli case, but the cost puts me off.
On my desk is a Minolta Medium format film scanner, with old PC down the side of the desk to run it (it's got a SCSI 2 connector - so won't fit the mini).
OUCH! I've had colleagues loose their gear and work before. They usually end up getting it back or starting small and moving up. I remember one lost an F5 on a train ride, and bought an N80 and kit lens just to get some work in.
I understand you though, I'd rather be paranoid to some extent, and yes, the more your business is your bread and butter business the more secure and stable your workflow and archiving should be.
I am personally doing more IT work and setting up other photog's systems then shooting stills, second in line comes multimedia journalsim. I've since sold all my still gear, it just never got used.
I have heard of some shooters doing the cross country backups with others, where two shooters in different parts of the world ship HDDs or DVDs to each other ever so often. And I do know of many a journalist that ships RAW files back to the states to two different locations, usually the paper/client and their home.
I am SO jealous. I was considering the Mac Mini for my setup, or a used Mac Pro. I'd truly love to have a tight space like that to work with. You get real creative with tight spaces, and learn to weed out the fluff that clogs your workspace and workflow.
I thought this thread died way too early, that's one of the reasons why I brought it back. I'm don't make any money from photography but once I get a new place I want something nice set up to continue.
I would post a picture but right now I just use my laptop on my head with headphones.
I would post a picture but right now I just use my laptop on my head with headphones.
+1,000!
the color of light changes throughout the day and the walls not being neutral could be a bit of a problem as well
The Mini is rather nice, maybe one day I'll drop an SSD in there, but for now I'm happy with it. You're right about the space. I've binned a fair amount of old rubbish. Things weren't helped by me deciding that I'd get a digital piano!
Very true, but remember you'll still need to watch the numbers and color values and check and double check your profiles even with neutral colored walls. Our eyes change the way we see color sometimes minute to minute.
That piano is huge is that tight a space. Spaces like that call for just ONE large piece of equipment.
I remember working in a tight room with 6 other people, we each had just enough space on our desks for 1 large piece of equipment. For me it was the G5 tower. Everything else had to be tiny.
I've since added a shelf to hold the camera gear (or some of it at least).
This office/workstation setup wins! WINNER!!
This is a reply to an old post but still of interest to the thread. For those interested in off-site backup checkout Backblaze. They charge $5 a month for unlimited storage. The only requirement is that it has to be a physical machine. They don't backup a NAS.
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I just set up an offsite backup using a program called Arq and Amazon S3. It's running well now, but I only have a 50 GB photo library. Upload was long even though I have a 10 Mbps upstream connection.
IMHO cloud storage won't work well for hundreds of GB because of the upload times.
I just set up an offsite backup using a program called Arq and Amazon S3. It's running well now, but I only have a 50 GB photo library. Upload was long even though I have a 10 Mbps upstream connection.
IMHO cloud storage won't work well for hundreds of GB because of the upload times.
What is the cost for 50GB on S3?
Initial upload speed will be an issue but daily deltas should be no problem. I look at Backblaze as an offsite vault to be used as a last resort. I can keep multiple copies here but that's not going to help me if the building burns down.
For restores Backblaze can send you the files on DVD or USB drive ($99 or $198). Not a bad option.
For the moment I paid $1.35 for the upload "requests", I initiated the first upload only a few days before Amazon's monthly rollovers. The projected monthly cost for 80 GB is about $7.50 (50 GB library & Aperture vault + versioning).
Basically count 1$ per 10 GB per month.
Only small bummer is that the billing goes through Amazon US so I get charged a few cents extra from my french bank for the US$ payment, but it's not so bad.
Downloading isn't the real problem IMHO, upload is.
PS I don't want to hijack a really good thread, I'm just too embarrassed to post a picture of my desk !
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These are old, I must update.....
Beautiful! So which ones are never getting any real use and will be mailed to me asap?