One Stop Shop at Alltop

I subscribe to several great Photography blogs covering topics from the technical to the artistic and everything in between. Most of the blogs I currently read I found via a Google search and then discovered others by following links from those blogs to other blogs.

Recently, Guy Kawasaki who was one of the original guys at Apple, started a new site called Alltop. It is basically a blog aggregator of all the best blogs on the Net organized by categories. The thing I like about Alltop is that it lists all the top blogs on a particular topic on one page with the 5 most recent posts from each blog. By surveying the most recent posts from a variety of blogs on a related topic, it's very easy to see if a particular issue or news item is bubbling to the surface in the blogosphere.

Of course one of the categories on Alltop is Photography and I have discovered some great blogs to read. Check it out at http://photography.alltop.com/

One of my new favourites that I discovered through Alltop is Scott Kelby's blog. He is the author of a great Photoshop book called The Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers. I highly recommend it if you are interested in photography and deal with an post-processing of images. Read Scott's blog at http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/

One funny side note. I was reading through their About section and found this great FAQ and I thought their response was great:

Q. Couldn’t I build my own custom aggregation using a feed reader, customizable home pages, Netvibes, etc?

A. Yes, you could—knock yourself out. While you’re at it, you could backup your hard disk, bake your own bread, iron your own shirts, floss daily, tune your own car, and bike to work.

Ltd

Three little letters I never imagined owning but last week that all changed. Even though I'm not giving up my day job, I decided to incorporate my business after several weeks of research and talking to accountant and lawyer friends. I had originally intended to hang up my shingle and operate as a sole proprietor but several people I spoke to advised me to setup a corporation to limit my liabilities. Liabilities? What liabilities?

I suppose I am the ultimate optimist and I like to think that nothing bad is ever going to happen. I enjoy photography and I just want to have fun capturing moments for people and sharing my images. I don't want to worry about things like liabilities and legal matters. Luckily I have good friends who help me take off my rose colored glasses and look at the worst-case scenarios.  What if my equipment failed during an important shoot? What if I accidentally photograph someone who doesn't want to be photographed and the image gets out and somehow damages their reputation? Granted, I am describing worst-case scenarios but what would happen if they came to fruition. Is it worth risking one's personal assets over? I think not.

So last Friday I headed down to a local registry office, filled out the paperwork, paid my $297 and presto - Moments in Digital Ltd. is officially born. What started out as hobby has started to get a little more complicated than I first envisioned but I'm having fun with it and definitely learning a lot about myself while gaining some valuable business experience. Where it goes from here only time will tell but at least for now I feel the proper foundation has been laid.