Within the last week we have seen energy prices going up sharply, and in some parts of the country combined electric and gas prices have now risen in one step by 27%, I hope you took your meter readings the day they went up so you don’t end up paying the ‘new’ inflated rates for the energy you used before. Previous times energy prices have gone up many have found low estimated bills before, and while this puts off some costs, it meant they ended up paying the higher rate for more than they should have.  A practice very profitable for the energy companies. Others are finding coming out of existing mortgage arrangements that mortgage costs are rising by as much as 50%, although the published average is 30%. Of course other costs, stealth taxes and both train and petrol costs have also been going up rapidly. While this hits everyone, those like most pensioners, who are on fixed incomes are affected far more.

With more costs rising and values of pensions falling, it is a time we should all be considering supplementary incomes, even if we are not desperately in need at this time. Supplementary incomes are not like ordinary employment, you can't turn them on like a tap, they need time to develop, and grow.  So planning, development, market research, gaining skills, getting the right equipment and experience is the solution.

Many types of photography provide good supplementary income streams, either to meet the need of an additional income or to develop the hobby and lifestyle around photography that we enjoy.

Perhaps you also want to get more equipment, more lenses, perhaps some studio or flash lighting, and want to cover the cost of those dream trips to get the photographs you would like to take. Across many issues of this newsletter we will be looking at different types of photography, and many areas where there is an income potential, and to get the ball rolling we have an article today giving an overview of a number of areas and perhaps some thoughts of what may be worth looking at sooner rather than later. Relevant to this is our lead article this week which looks at An Income from Photography.

NEW SERVICE

Within this newsletter we want to offer our readers the chance to find a new home for their surplus quality Nikon equipment. There will be no charge at all to be involved in this, just tell us what you have that is surplus to your needs and the price you would like to get for it. As we are not charging you for this you can afford to offer it to readers at a good price. Why not take a look now, some of what you have, such as spare lenses you could sell and use the proceeds to buy some other item that would be of more use to you.  We only want to promote items that are in full working order and very reasonable condition, so if you've dropped a lens in a swamp, taken it on the beach, or some other mishap has happened to it then why not try selling it on eBay instead.

To get the ball rolling we have had a look through our kit and decided to offer 3 camera bodies, a D100, D70 upgraded to D70s software and the D2H upgraded to the D2Hs software. We will have details of these in next weeks newsletter.

Perhaps you have recently purchased a D300 and got a free copy of Capture NX. If you already have a copy this will be surplus so why not offer this via our newsletter for say £50.

Don't forget to take a look at the newsletter each week to see what bargains are available.

What to get out and photograph

For this weeks Photographers Diary we have put together a Highlights Forward guide, giving you the highlight events of 2008, month by month, that will be worth photographing. This is what we consider to be the major events of the year with a lot of opportunities to get great photographs or to test out new skills you have gained. It is organised by month starting with the tail end of January and over the coming weeks it will be added to as we come across new items or events. I hope over the coming weeks, if you come across or visit any great event that you feel other photographers might also like to attend and photograph, that you will let us know. Drop us an email and we will add it to the calendar.

Location Guides

Each week we give you 4 or more interesting locations to photograph, and this is building into a reference guide of UK locations for photographers. We have been trying to line them up with the time of year so that you can get out and start visiting them now, and this week is no different. Forde Abbey near Chard in Somerset, is a large manor house, which used to be a Cistercian Monastery, has a large 30 acre garden, with ponds/lakes and an arboretum. Although the house is closed during the winter months, the gardens are still open and according to their latest newsletter, this week the snowdrops are starting to appear in pockets all over the garden, and if you want colour then the Courn Cyclamen in the rock garden are out. Within the gardens there is lots to see and photograph and like a lot of gardens that can be visited over and over again, as it is always changing. Of course if you don't live near Chard and need to make a trip then you could always visit one of our featured locations nearby, Cricket St Thomas Wildlife Park and have a great photographic experience.

Other News This Week

Nikon D40x Cashback Extended

Those of you who read our article last week looking at the lightweight, small format D40x as a handbag or second camera will be interested to hear that Nikon UK have announced that they are extending their cashback promotion until the 29th February 2008. If you buy a D40x with Nikon AF lens between 7th January and 29th February you can claim back £40 on purchases made from UK and Republic of Ireland retailers. You must get your claim in before the 31st March 2008.

Memory Cards

For those of you who use the D80, D40x or D40 Lexar have just announced they have increased the capacity of their SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) format cards across all their range, which includes Professional, Platinum II and standard to 8GB, and should be available later this month. Their top of the range Professional 133x deliver write speeds of 20mb per second and includes free dedicated technical support, a limited lifetime warranty and a suite of software for free download, including Lexar Image Rescue 3 and Corel Paint Shop Pro X.

Photoshop Elements 6 - For the MAC

For those of you who have an Apple MAC computer, Adobe have just announced that the latest version of Photoshop Elements 6 is now available for pre-order from their online store at a cost of £55. It will run on the new Leopard (MAC OSx V10.5) as well as previous versions of MAC OS X starting with 10.4.8. Elements 6 for the PC has been out a while.

In Las Vegas this week they have had their annual technology show, this tends to show things which are coming rather than arrived. Amongst these is some new Digital Photo Frames by Ceiva, that 19inches across with a resolution of 1280x1024 which is the same as a standard PC monitor resolution. Lexar the worlds best known memory card producer working with another business Eye-fi have developed a new type of memory card that will fit into cameras, this not only records the photographs but has built wireless access to your computer. This means that images will be able to be uploaded without a direct wire connection. The announcements made so far don't say how near the camera needs to be to the computer and we would not expect this to be able to be used instead of a radio base or pack for event photography and the like. There have been very many other announcements and amongst these several relating to the production of 3D TV, over the next few weeks we will be looking at 3D photography as we feel that this is an area that will become far more popular in the future.