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About foto-biz.com

About Syv Ritch

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 15. November 2010 - 9:29

Syv Ritch Hi,

My name is Syv Ritch. Syv is pronounced like 'sieve' but instead of a long 'ie' it's a short one.

I'm located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It's on Canada's West Coast. It's a beautiful place nested between the Pacific ocean and the mountains, the Cascades to the East and the North Shore mountains.

I started in photography in the late 1960s. My first camera was a Kodak 126 Instamatic. I took black and white photos of cars and of my friends that I sold to their mothers, that was my first foray in the business of being a photographer: “Who's your customer?”.

My first “real” camera was a Fujica ST701 in the early 1970s. Then in the early 80s, I took a 17 years hiatus before going back to photography. I started this website in the spring of 2008. A large part of my photography “wisdom”, aka pounding the pavement, is in this website.

I'm currently working on pet photography and local travel/destinations.

Syv Ritch
604-432-6554
Vancouver, BC, V5Z 4R3
Canada
syv@foto-biz.com

Happy New Year 2012

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 3. January 2012 - 6:00

Happy New Year 2012. I hope that you had a merry Xmas and a happy New Year. It's the first post of the year, so I send myself flowers and say how great I am:

I spend a lot of time creating and updating foto-biz.

  • There are 1120 posts in almost 1360 days, that's a little bit less than 4 years → 300 posts per year. It usually takes me between ¾ to 1½ hour to write a post. The quality of the writing is improving, eventually…
  • In January 2011, Google's Page Rank was 2. In December 2011, Google's Page Rank is 4.

Merry Xmas 2011 — Happy New Year 2012

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 22. December 2011 - 6:44



Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I will see you back on Tuesday 3-Jan-2012.

Dennis Ritchie Passed Away

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 18. October 2011 - 5:46

Last week, Dennis Richie 1941-2011 died. He was a man that had a very profound impact on our world. In the 1970s, with Ken Thompson, he created an operating system called UNIX at the Bell Labs. To develop UNIX, he created a computer programming language called C.

In today's computer and photography world, everybody is using his “stuff.” Every major modern computer operating system is written in C, the language that Dennis Ritchie created. Almost all operating systems are either derived or based on UNIX.

In Memory

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 29. August 2011 - 11:07

Coyote Grossman, aka totos, the dodoïte… died last week on 25-Aug-2011 at 2:30pm, just short of 15 years old. This is one of my favorite photos of him taken almost 2 years ago.

Hard working dog waiting for his biscuit

Foto-Biz.com: 3 Years Later

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 31. March 2011 - 17:53

I started http://foto-biz.com 3 years ago in April 2008. I only “advertised” (made public) the website after writing 25 posts.

  • Mar-2011: 15,000 people
  • Redesigned the website three times
  • 923 posts in 3 years → 307 posts per year

I started http://foto-biz.com to do something different, but the “monster” grew. I spend on average 8 to 10 hours per week, writing, maintaining, updating the website.

Foto-Biz Upgrade

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 12. March 2011 - 22:35

I upgraded the look of the Foto-Biz.

  1. It should be easier to read
  2. This is the first step in a few other changes like more photos (finally), workshops, ebooks…

Foto-Biz Tops for 2010

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 2. January 2011 - 20:32

Top Foto-Biz Pages

  1. Foto-Biz RSS feed This is surprising. I have more people subscribing to Foto-Biz.com than coming to the Foto-Biz.com website.
  2. Foto-Biz Home Page That's the home page, it's expected.

Happy New Year 2011

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 31. December 2010 - 8:03

Happy New Year. Make 2011 a great year:

Happy New Year 2011 Google style

Happy New Year 2011 Google style

Happy New Year 2011 Bing style

Happy New Year 2011 Bing style

Merry Xmas With...

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 24. December 2010 - 18:33

Merry Xmas 2010 from:

Merry Xmas with Microsoft/Bing

Merry Xmas with Microsoft/Bing


Merry Xmas with Google

Merry Xmas with Google

Photoshelter: Best of 2010

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 22. December 2010 - 23:09

Photoshelter has published their Photoshelter: Best of 2010 - Our Favorite Photo Blog Posts of the Year.

  1. Very interesting. It gives a very wide view of blogs that are photo related.
  2. The topics are: photo marketing, photo business, photo technique, gear reviews, photographers profiles, photo essays and projects, inspiration, opinion pieces and keeping it legal.

Upgraded Website

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 19. September 2010 - 21:21

As you may have noticed foto-biz looks different. It's a different platform.

  • I think that have converted everything. The keyword here is "I THINK". I will be going regularly through the logs to see if there is some stuff missing, and will add it as needed.
  • I have switched from a "wiki" platform, the fast creation of web pages, to a "cms" platform, drupal.

Technical Problems -- Backups

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 5. August 2010 - 23:00

What happened? The website didn't go down. I lost no article. Yesterday, Tuesday 14-Jul-2009, I was doing some maintenance when I realized that the "Tags", the column on the left and the link at the bottom of each blog entry with Biz101, Marketing, Pricing... where not being updated. As a matter of fact, the last update happened on the 7-Apr-2009, 3 month ago.

No problem, just reindex, about 5 minutes and everything should be OK. So 5 minutes later, I checked the tags and nothing, most of the tags are empty. So delete the index and just redo the index, right? Nooo! Still nothing.

Happy New Year

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 1. January 2010 - 0:00

I want to wish everybody a happy New Year.

Happy New Year 2010

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 1. January 2010 - 0:00

Happy New Year. Let 2010 be a good year for you from me and from my buddy Google:

Happy New Year 2010 from Google and Syv Ritch

Happy New Year 2010 from Google and Syv Ritch

Xmas Eve 2009 -- Swamped

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 24. December 2009 - 0:00

Here's another one from What The Duck. Today's Boxing Day and this cartoon is for Xmas Eve. Why? Because I was swamped and didn't have the time.

Xmas Eve as per What The Duck

Xmas Eve as per What The Duck

Crashed Server

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 5. September 2009 - 23:00

Friday, my server crashed. I knew for a week, that one of the hard drive was dying. The server send me a personal email announcing that there were problems with the first hard drive, the one that the server boots from. So I prepared, went to buy replacements, and was waiting for the weekend.

Friday morning, the server makes "funny" noises. It won't wait for the weekend. In anyway, it should be only an hour.

  1. Do a separate quick backup. 1% done, 10% done, 99% done, Done!
  2. Replace the drive
  3. Start with the boot CD
  4. Insert the USB backup

And I should be done.

1 Year Anniversar

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. April 2009 - 23:00

Foto-Biz.com has been up and running for a whole year. There have been 401 blog entries. In the first month, I had 11 people coming to Foto-Biz.com. Last month, 8012 people came to visit Foto-Biz.com.

The Foto-Biz blog started in May 2008.

2008 Foto-Biz Blog Summary Part 1

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 21. January 2009 - 0:00

If you operate a photography business, and you do not have some kind of regular blog, regular does not mean daily but at least weekly, the more often the better, you are seriously holding back your business.

Even when I do not get new clients from the blog, my existing clients read my blog and make comments about this or that article. I have had more extra job from existing clients because of the blog.

Do you know who's coming to your blog? How do they come?

Happy New Year 2009 From ....

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 1. January 2009 - 0:00

Google - 2009

Google - 2009

Microsoft - 2009

Microsoft - 2009

Merry Xmas From ...

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 25. December 2008 - 0:00

Here are some the Xmas welcome screens from the "Big 3".

Google

Google

Microsoft

Microsoft

Yahoo

Yahoo

Merry Xmas

In Memory

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 18. December 2008 - 0:00

Wiley Grossman MWC died, this morning 18-Dec-2008, of a long and painful cancer. He adopted us 14 years ago. He was a curmudgeon with a quick temper but Wiley was always fair. He accepted the world as it was and never complained. Once Wiley trusted somebody, it was a full, 100% trust. He never questioned or argued. Some people eat to live, he lived to eat.

He always wanted to be a great explorer, he talked about it at least a couple of times every week. He did some exploration, but only during nice weather. Once he ventured in the "Great White North" in winter, I had to rescue him.

The Mavericks

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 29. October 2008 - 0:00

Foto-Biz was mentioned by 1001 Noisy Cameras in the article: The Marvericks on 29-Oct-2008

There are hundreds (if not thousands) blogs about the photography business and the business of photography, but very few have the unique style and approach of Foto-Biz.com. A spartan but cutting style that gets straight to the point, as if each word costs dearly and has to be used judiciously.

New Media Photographer

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 9. May 2007 - 23:00

Foto-Biz was mentioned by New Media Photographer in the article: New media photographer podcast #25 on 1-Dec-2008

New Media photographer Award given this week to Syv Ritch of www.Foto-Biz.com for his excellent blog on the business of photography. He offers great insight and experience.

— New media photographer podcast #25

About Us

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. April 2007 - 23:00
  • Foto-Biz.com is an independent publication, and is in no way affiliated with, nor is authorized by any other publication or any other company.
  • All opinions expressed on this website are the personal opinions of Syv Ritch. They do not represent the opinion of anybody else or of any other company.
  • Syv Ritch's opinions are based on facts, on experience, on knowledge, on know-how, on the age of the captain and where the wind comes from...
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