[Benny]

Hi, great site. I'v been into photoshop for a year or so now and know the basics. I'm coming from a background as a pro- photographer in a small sea side town in Victoria Australia. Hope you guys can help with a few basic questions. Firstly, is it possible to do free-lance retouching for a large agency/company living in an isolated area? Can the large files involved be e-mailed via broadband or is broadband still not up to it? Will they send CDs via snail mail or is the time factor an issue for most jobs?
I gave up proffesional photography a few years ago after losing the love for it (mainly weddings) and jobs are few and far between in country areas. I love working with photoshop and if i could make a living out of doing this while still living in paradise, it would be great! Any ideas
Benny

[emarts]

Is it possible? Definitely. Broadband is certainly fast enough to handle large files. Even if it took an hour to upload/download a file, it is still faster than overnight delivery (and sometimes faster than personally delivering the files). I do freelance work for agencies and 90% of the time I am transferring files via ftp. Saves a ton on travelling expenses.

But here's the bad part. You'll find it difficult at first to get any jobs strictly through the internet. I have found that the creative directors, whom you'll be working for, will want to meet you personally. Some will be quite envious of your ability to work from home and will have a chip on their shoulder when they first meet with you. You'll have to somehow overcome that. I do it by taking a personal interest in them and make sure that they look good. If I speak to others in their firm, I will speak highly of them: "That was a great idea Jim had to change the color of that woman's blouse." Or I will compliment them directly: "Man I'm glad you told me to clone out those logos. That may have been a problem." Get them to feel comfortable with you and they will always look to you when they need something done.