More Paul Gooch Images

This is the moment when a 100 year old woman, nearly blind and completely deaf, detects that her grandson is close to her - because he takes her hand and touches it to his beard. She knows that it is him because, among her descendants, only he has a beard.
(click on the image to enlarge it)

Advanced old age has stolen two of her faculties - her sight and hearing, but she still has two faculties left - her sense of touch and the ability to associate the things that she touches with certain objects.
What is she thinking? Does she have a picture of him in her mind? If so, how old, how out-of-date is it? Is it 20 years out-of-date, 30 years out-of-date? Does she `see’ him as a young man rather than as the middle-aged man that he is?

If so, then her ability to associate touch with certain objects has failed her too. At least, as far as human being are concerned. Human beings grow old - they change shape. But she can’t see this different shape, she can only imagine what they look like now.
I was starting to get pretty depressed about getting old at the end of the last line. Let’s face it, most of us get depressed if we start thinking about - or writing about - getting old.
But that changed when I used the word `imagine’.
If she still has a sense of imagination, if she still has at least this faculty, does it really matter whether her perceptions are out-of-date? Does it really matter that she `sees’ a young man rather than a middle-aged man?
He’s still her grandson, he’s still part of her, she still has a sense of kinship with him.
It could just be that when we are old and infirm, and if we are nearly blind and completely deaf, our sense of imagination - if we still have it - will be a `must-have’ faculty, our last lifeline with the world around us.
And we won’t care if it’s out-of-date.

This advertising photo of a receptionist in a hair and beauty salon might create a pretty good impression on someone who is looking at the advertisement.

(click on the photo to enlarge it)
The reason for this is, her face is lit by natural sunlight, which gives her face a naturally warm look. A naturally warm look is synonymous with friendliness, it’s welcoming. Combine these two words and you have the phrase `friendly welcome’ - the picture might convey the message to potential clients that at this hair and beauty salon they’ll receive a friendly welcome.

If you own a hair and beauty salon business, and if you’re having some advertising photographs taken which will include a shot of your receptionist, you might want to consider arranging her in a similar way to this.
If you’re an advertising photographer and if you’re taking pictures for a hair and beauty salon you might want to suggest the idea to your client.
There are a few things to consider: it was convenient to take this photograph; the reception desk at the salon was facing the door, it was only a few feet away from it, the door was south-facing and it was a fine sunny day.
What if your reception desk doesn’t face the door, isn’t only a few feet away from it, isn’t south- facing, and if it isn’t a fine sunny day?
Let’s deal with the first two problems first. If your reception desk isn’t near the door it might be possible to dispense with it. The only reason we need the desk is because the ‘phone and engagement book are on it.
Could we arrange the receptionist so that she is standing near the door rather than sitting near it? If we took a head and shoulders picture of her, smiling and with her face  turned slightly towards the camera, it would look as if she were giving you her undivided attention.
This means that it would look as if she were giving your clients her undivided attention, of course.
Obviously we can’t take a photo of her taking a call on the phone, because she’s too far from the desk.

Or can we? Let’s think about this. The ‘phone in your salon is probably a landline - it’s connected to a fixed line. But what if we were to take a picture of her taking a call on a cordless ‘phone?
This would justify the absence of a desk - you don’t need a desk to take a call on a cordless ‘phone.
This `mobile pose’ also solves the problem of natural sunlight - she just has to stand in an area of the salon where there is some natural sunlight. If there’s no sunlight at all - wait for a sunny day!

`How to’ articles are pretty popular and photographers and videographers can make money out of them if they can write articles and are willing to explore what will probably be unfamiliar photography territory for them.

How to articles literally explain how to do something, they are practical, and it looks as if they can be about just about anything as long as it’s practical. The way to make money out of them is to publish them on your website or on other websites or video sharing sites and place advertisements  around the articles.

If you publish the articles on your own site you’ll receive all of the revenue  from the ads. but if you publish them on another site you’ll have to share the revenue with that site. Look around these other sites, read their terms of service and compare how much revenue that you’ll be paid. Also compare any other conditions, such as copyright issues. 
Although the articles have to be practical this doesn’t mean they have to be about diy jobs, they can be about something technical that you’ve figured out. For example, if you’ve build computers and have figured out a quick and easy way of doing something this also counts as a practical article.
The thing to remember is, people often try to do things for themselves rather than pay someone else to do it, and they often hit problems. If you can solve their problem, they’ll love you for it. More relevantly, they might be interested in your ads and decide to click on them, which is where you make money of course.
It might be a good idea to video your how-to article as well as take photos of it. A lot of people prefer the moving image to a still image, and some revenue-sharing sites are devoted entirely to videos.
If you do video your how-to article, consider using the video shooting mode on a compact digital camera rather than using a video camera. It’s less hassle to upload these to your computer because no  special leads are required, you just use your regular camera-to-computer lead.
In my experience the image quality on some of these digital compact cameras is at least as good as the image quality on the average video camera, and may even be better.
Another thing is, when you write your article it might be better to use simple, straightforward English that everyone can understand, rather than use long words.
In a future post I’ll create a how to article with a view to making money out of it, and will guide you through the process step by step.