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I’ve been giving the following list of resources to clients and students over the years, to help aid in their learning goals. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a good start. I’ll update this post whenever I come across good resources.

Full disclosure: All of these books listed, except Digging Into WordPress, lead to Amazon.com. None of the Amazon.com links are affiliate links, so I don’t benefit from purchases made through them. I am an affiliate for the Digging Into WordPress book, and I earn a commission from purchases made through the link below.

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This quick tip is for filmmakers, videographers, and photographers who make use of model releases. Even if you have verbal permission to film or photograph someone, it’s a really good idea to have the subject(s) sign a release. Normally, this means keeping printed releases with you. I always keep a bunch in my camera bag, but I don’t always have the bag handy, and sometimes I simply run out.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can install the super handy app called mRelease. It will allow you to create, store, and email pdf copies of model, location, property, and crew releases. Your subject can sign the release on your iPhone/iPod Touch (a stylus comes in handy for that). If you’re using an iPhone, you can take a quick photo to embed in their release, which makes identifying people in your footage/photos a snap.

mRelease will set you back $2.99, and it’s nice addition to add to your film/video/photography toolkit to keep things organized.

One of the keys to building websites, is properly preparing images to help pages load as quickly as possible. Generally speaking, programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks are used, but they can be quite spendy, ranging in price from $300 – $1000.

If what you primarily need to do is crop, resize, and compress images for the web, all of those programs can be expensive overkill. You could use programs that come with your computer, like iPhoto on a Mac, or Microsoft Photo Editor on Windows, but there are other, and sometimes much better, options.

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I do my best to maintain regular business hours, but as a self-employed owner of 2 businesses, I have a tendency to work far too much. I spend the majority of most of my days sitting in front of 2 monitors, which is not good for my eyes, body, or brain.

I’ve worked from home for several years, but the same was true back in my on-site freelancing days. Back then, some of my co-workers would take frequent breaks to step outside for a cigarette. They’d get to walk away from their desks for 10 minutes and get some not-so-fresh air. We non-smokers were left sitting in our cubicles. In retrospect, I don’t know why we didn’t just get up and take similar breaks.

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