Simon

HI Bryan .. quite a few companies do refurb laptops - a google search will bring them up - with a 1 year warranty. Here's an example :- Refurbished HP Elitebook 840 G2 Ultrabook Core i5 5300U 8GB 256GB 14 Inch Windows 10 Professional Laptop with 1 Year Warranty £350 regards Simon

Just had the "month end" sales show up, very pleasantly surprised with a number of 3 figure news sales that I wasn't aware of. It's good to see that my ideas of what might sell as topical, is working now, even from the darkest depths of Cornwall. Hats off to our adopted family member Titan for being in a good number of uses this month .. love the little guy.

I can see emotions are flying high here, which based on events is 100 percent understandable. Can I just ask you all to consider for one moment how this may be affecting the employees , not directors, on the Alamy news team ? I don't know all the background, and I haven't asked, but I'm guessing this is having an impact on them . It would to me as an employee, especially when I know that I've given my all even through challenging times. Those guys and gals have my vote of support. If things change that makes me re-consider then fair enough , I always have a plan b, c and d.

How about if you redefine "News pictures" to be "Topical pictures" ? The papers need to fill their pages with topical images, a lot of which are seasonal. It's not really news that the moon and sun are going to rise over St Michaels Mount on a certain day, or that there will be murmation of starlings in the winter around a well known pier, but it's topical and it makes a pleasant relief from the B word.

There are other agencies out there that take live news images, some better than others, and some paying much better than others. I've had success with some of these, but on the whole I prefer to work with Alamy, one of the main reasons being I think the people on the news desk are friendly, responsive and supportive where ever they can be. I was approached by 2 different agencies last week to submit to them. In terms of are weather pictures news, then all I can say is that the papers seem to like them, so from a purely commercial perspective I'm going to carry on doing them, because if I don't someone else either from Alamy, the paper itself, or another agency is going to fill those slots. Sure, some of the pictures I take are naff and often repeat the same location or theme, on the other hand I'm really proud of some of the pictures. I do go and cover events when I have the time but they don't seem to get the coverage. One final comment .. by going out and getting "weather pics" I've met some great and inspiring people who have become friends and clients, discovered places I never knew existed, and that continues to happen on a monthly basis.

A 4 figure month for me, so pretty pleased , getting out there at 5.30 am has certainly made a difference 🙂

I'd thought I'd share this story with you all. I took several pictures of the full moon coming up behind St Michaels Mount in Cornwall last year. This one I uploaded as was, and then with a crop as I thought the ship spoiled the picture. As well as putting out with Alamy live news I also sometimes tweet my pics and sell to the local papers. The WMN put the picture on the whole of the front page including the ship. Shortly afterwards I had people emailing me asking to buy prints - all were related to the boat in some way, either the owners, crew etc.

Hi Mark, Thats a really good ratio, so well done .. I'd be intrigued to know what sells the best for you having had a quick scan through your images. regards Simon

Hi - did a quick search on the forums for this, but nothing should up recently so here goes. Do you have any recommendations on an IOS app for model releases, also any comments on their suitability vs a piece of paper. I've googled and found a few, but just wondered what the "panel" thought ? regards SImon

Drop me an email info at cornwall-ideas.co.uk

Hi Mark, I can put you in touch with one of our suppliers. Every so often they have an absolute bargain on new Dell desktops with a very high spec. I got an I7, 32gb ram, 512gb SSD hard drive ( you could fit another internal drive, or use a NAS for storage ). Way lower in price than your budget. ON their stock list at the moment they have an i7, 16gb ( which you could add to ) 256gb SSD drive + a 1Tb hard drive and a 2Gb graphics card ( although not sure which one ). 3 year on-site warranty for < £700 . Alternatively go have a look at Dell factory products, again they quite often have more ram in as standard and less price than if you configured one up as usual.

What I need right now is the weather to go downhill ..grey skies, no wind, mild temperatures and flat sea doesn't work for dramatic news pix.

For those of us not in the know, what's the "American POD" site ? Simon

Hi I actually got the Dell original one from Amazon. Search for Dell 65 W USB-C Auto Air Adapter