[Fotometric]

July 30, 2012 at 5:29 pm

You *can’t* charge VAT unless you have registered for VAT and have a VAT number.
If you’re not registered, your price is just €price and you are taxed on the income you take (profit after business expenses).

Check out a start your own business course, I think FAS might do some evening ones. It would be well worth it as it would cover all this kind of thing.

[Fotometric]

July 30, 2012 at 5:12 pm

Hi
I can tell you the course fee this year is €1450 and that the closing date for this autumn was a few weeks back (though I guess it’s always worth asking, you never know what might happen).

[Fotometric]

July 4, 2012 at 7:19 pm

Ebay.

People buying things they couldn’t afford on finance got us where this country is today. Also shop finance is always a rip-off.

Good 35mm film SLRs can be picked up for a lot less than 30 euro. Or look for an old DSLR you can afford second-hand.

[Fotometric]

July 4, 2012 at 5:13 pm

The cropping for me feels slightly uncomfortable, like there is too much space at the top relative to the bottom and maybe it seems a little cut off at the bottom. It’s just a slight thing. That’s my 2 cents, not like I’m an expert.

I like it, you’ve made a photo of a cow interesting. :)

[Fotometric]

July 4, 2012 at 11:33 am

Sounds like you’re on the right track, developing b&w is easy and fun, enlarging / printing is a bit more involved, more equipment needed and a fair bit of trial and error. If you develop your own film to start with then you’ve of course got the choice of scanning or just getting the shots you like printed.

You can really get away with a minimum of stuff for developing, I use a Patterson tank, a 10ml syringe for measuring, a couple of empty 500ml drink bottles for mixed developer and fixer, water with a few drops of white vinegar as a stop bath (ascetic acid – it’s exactly the same thing), I use Photo-Flo to finish but washing-up liquid and water will do or you mightn’t even bother if your local water is soft. I get the film in the tank under a heavy coat, under a duvet! At night if your paranoid or using high ISO, cooler too. I ‘scan’ with a DSLR.
Oh, and a thermometer. Mix hot/cold water in the sink to about 20/21C, put dev/fix bottle in the sink till they warm up, check dev temperature and compensate dev time if neccessary (or adjust temperature) and away you go. Stop bath shouldn’t be ice-cold either.

Start with Rodinal/R09 developer – it’s dead cheap, there is tonnes of information on the web on using it since it’s practically ‘the original’ developer. Really nice too. Any fixer will do really, the Ilford one is probably most common so just use that (I have an Agfa one which is handy as you can use it for paper too, not sure about the Ilford one).

I love Fomapan film – bought it to start off because it was dead cheap but it’s actually really nice, contrasty at box speed which I like but pull it a bit and shoot/dev at lower ISO and it becomes much more tonal.