I just got this press release from Allen Murabayashi the CEO of Photoshelter this morning.   Seems like there is hope for those that have their images “trapped” on the DRR servers.  Photoshelter has been in discussions with Diablo Management and they have been able to get them to extend the server “up” time for just a bit longer – YOU HAVE UNTIL 11:59 PM PST tomorrow (October 31st) to move your images off…

Hats off to Allen and Photoshelter for making this move – I’m sure that he and everyone and that industry sees that DRR shutting its doors w/o notice is not good for anyone in that (or our) industry…  very smart PR move…

So move quickly… I wish you the best in throughput luck (may the data transfer gods be in your favor!  I hope you all can get most of your stuff off of those servers in time!)  It sure sounds like this is your very last chance to get anything off those servers..period (unless you know a judge…but I’m not going to get into that…) Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no secret that I’ve been a fan of Photoshelter over Digital Railroad since the beginning – and the reason for me was clear:  I knew and trusted the people and the technology at Photoshelter.

Both are online photo storage sites where professional (and amateurs) store backup copies of their work online  – and in some cases originals. The idea is that having all of your work on your hard drives/RAID in one location is not the best backup strategy, storing them online on professional grade servers is a great idea – not to mention that both Photoshelter and Digital Rail Road (DRR) offer a variety of other services to sell your photos to others as well.

I know a lot of people who work for Digital Rail Road and have struck up good friendships with them – but at the risk of making enemies – I will say this:

Shutting down the DRR online storage site – and giving all of your customers less than 24 hours notice to retrieve their data – is ABSOLUTELY INEXCUSABLE.     Many companies (such as the VII Agency) have come to rely on DRR to run their businesses – and it’s outright irresponsible to expect them to be able to get all of their content off of your site with any notice shorter than one month – or at the very least a few days. Read the rest of this entry »

QUICK UPDATE:  The Workshop is full at this time.  Please send an e-mail to workshops@vincentlaforet.com with “NOTIFY ME” in the subject header – if you’d like to be notified when the DVD/Video/Online release of the workshop video becomes available. 

I’ve been planning a photography workshop for a few months now – and have recently decided to include a section for photographers wishing to make the transition into video as well.   The full-day workshop will be held at the Apple Boston Market Center, in Boston MA on Sunday November 2nd, 2008.  

We will cover Apple’s Aperture software in depth – and I will share with you the workflow that I have adopted for both my commercial photography business – as well as the more deadline-driven editorial photography that I do out in the field.  

Basically, I will show you how I run my business and the tools that I use every day.  

I will show you how I manage my entire photography library within Aperture, as well as other tools from Apple and 3rd party software:  ranging from Apple Remote Desktop, to special features in Leopard (such as Automator) to a number of utilities, plugins (Viveza), and delivery methods (Transmit) that I use on a daily basis not only to produce and prepare my images, but also how I run the business side of things (OmniFocus, Kerio Mail Server.)  In short – I will share most of what I have learned over the past 3 years of running my own business (on the technology side) – after leaving my role as a staff photographer after close to a decade.  This will comprise 2/3 of the day-long workshop.

The last third of the workshop will focus on the transition to video/film.  I will bring the Canon 5D MKII  that I used in the making of “Reverie” along with hardware from RedrockMicro and will discuss my transition into video and some of the initial challenges that I faced.   This will NOT be a Final Cut Studio Tutorial however – we will look at some unique workflows especially adapted to the 5D MKII and output strategies via Compressor that will be relevant to all photographers/filmmakers interested in video/web/DVD delivery of the content they produce.   Read the rest of this entry »