Why Fine Art Wedding Photography Matters?

In the past, photography has been looked at as a very boring and limited way of expressing your idea through pictures, especially when it came to wedding photography. Talking about models and media, you see their pictures have an absolutely different flavor, brightness, color and flamboyance which were never really there in the ordinary wedding photographs. It was however realized by some photographers that they need to put some life to wedding photography and the result of those efforts was fine art wedding photography. The ways pictures are taken and edited in this form of photography make it a completely different thing than the conventional photography that has been done in the past.Fine art wedding photography is the use of coloration, discoloration, blurriness, prominence, dimness and a number of other effects that are used to make the pictures look special. This is a completely different way of taking pictures and the photographer who takes such pictures works in an entirely different way as opposed to how conventional photographers used to do. It is not about telling the family to stand together, asking the short ones to come forward and taller ones to go in the back and taking the picture. It is not about telling the couple to stand hand in hand, look towards the camera and give a cute smile. These things have gotten old and photography has moved on.In fine art wedding photography the photographer makes use of everything that comes into the camera lens and even those that don’t. He will make use of shadows, reflections, deflections and elevations to come up with a photo that speaks for itself. What difference did it make in the conventional and old photography whether you were laughing or crying because the pictures looked all the same? In the modern photography techniques, every expression on your face changes the whole look of the picture. For example, the photographer will make use of some black & white colors, dry leaves and dark shadows in a picture where the bride has tears in her eyes just to make the impact of the picture powerful.Use of bright colors, greenery, birds and flowers in the pictures where the couple is laughing and smiling makes the pictures memorable. Modern softwares and tools are used for editing to enhance the pictures. Hundreds of new effects are used to make the pictures look more than wedding pictures and fine art wedding photography is thus the best choice in today’s weddings. At the same time, you will notice that these modern techniques don’t focus faces only. Wedding is not all about faces and if it was, why would people buy the most expensive dresses they can to wear on the weddings? So if you have spent thousands of dollars on your wedding dress, jewelry, shoes, venue and preparation, why not giving them some highlight in the pictures as well? This is only possible through the new fine art photography

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Why Travel Agents Should Use Technology to Automate Their Back Office

When it comes to execution, back office operations are a crucial part of any organization. Travel agents are often seen balancing and memorizing the clients and the revenues over the month. For travel agents and agencies, identifying and extracting manual activities are a challenging task due to the nature of well integrated processes at the back end. Hence, this requires identification of these manual activities at the very beginning.Below are a few manual activities that agents come across as a part of their work routine that can be replaced by automation at back end offices:1) Accounting and ReportingSince allocating revenues via account is a comparatively easier, it still stands apart from costs. Why costs? Because it is difficult to calculate the cost of sales for various accounts depending upon the efforts. Consider finding out the number of hours invested in the account every month and then capturing it in spreadsheets. How about reporting exact cost and analyzing the profitability of individual accounts? Manually tracking payments, commissions and booking revenue is a complex and time consuming task that is prone to errors. Hence, using an effective Travel Agency Software for on-time reporting and calculating costs without much manpower/manual work can be a good decision. Here, making use of technology will reduce the manpower required and also the manual errors.2) Business Intelligence related Travel Account ServicesProviding progressive travel pattern reports, travel policy compliances, etc., can add to the travel agents’ business value but, it surely involves a lot of manual work. This further increases the labour expense and results in the insignificant stage of poor competitiveness, thereby leading to loss of revenue. Hence, automation of the back end office is a must to reduce down the labour cost and enhancing productivity, reducing time consumption through its integrated applications.3) Business Rules and Revenue ManagementTravel Agencies work with a wide range of customers, agents and suppliers. They vary in terms of type, location, size, booking etc and require separate business rules, such as markups and margins based on predefined criteria for effective revenue management. Traditional processes demand the manual application of these business rules for each transaction and on multiple entities.Let’s say you have different markups for flights and hotels and you also have a commission structure for sub-agents based on the number of bookings they make. Every time you or your sub-agent makes a booking, you need to manually apply the relevant markup depending on whether it’s a flight booking, a hotel booking or a car booking. You’ll also need to calculate the commissions you need to pay your sub-agent, based on their class. If you do b2c then you may even have to apply an additional markup based on the customer class.If you do 5-10 bookings a month, it may not be such a big problem but if you do hundred odd bookings a month or more, doing all of this manually for each booking can become extremely time-consuming and prone to errors. A Travel Agency System can automate this process and save you a lot of time and manpower cost. You just have to configure the policies once and the system will automatically apply them on every booking.4) Supplier and Agent CommissionsCalculation of commissions of sub-agents and vendors or suppliers such as airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, etc. can get too confusing against the total revenue generated. A sophisticated travel ERP can help in calculating outstanding commissions, release payments and notify accounts of remaining or due amounts.5) Last Minute Itinerary ChangesCorporate travel accounts often make changes to the travel plans at the last moment. Hence, customizing it manually every single time is a tedious job that makes dealing with corporate accounts less flexible for travel agents. Through an automated integrated system at the back end, travel agents can flexibly make changes in travel plans without compromising on the time. This will help in managing account relationships in a better manner and not losing out on implementing last minute changes.How can you Automate your Back Office?A Travel ERP is designed to provide integrated applications that work for front office as well as back office business processes. A majority of departments or processes in an organization comprises of payroll, HR and accounting.Likewise, ERPs have the capability to render these roles effectively through their primary software applications that can help the travel agents in having standardized processes and thereby reducing the cost to company/agents. Common data structures/models and standardized processes are the most important values these ERPs can add to the back office of agents. It is because of lack of one or both of these aspects, the manual activities are carried out in non-integrated systems.Through common data structures, the information can be collated and drafted once and can be updated or customized at individual levels as per the requirement, thereby adding flexibility to the processes and hence, reporting of information or data becomes an easy task every day.Business intelligence is the need of the hour for the travel agents in order to have a systematic and structured flow of work processes such as accounting and payroll where the flow of information needs to be smooth.Travel agents need to understand how travel management can be simplified through automation of back end office by replacing manual work activities with software applications that bring down the frequency of committing manual mistakes.Investment on automation software or dedicated ERPs for travel agents is a one time investment that can resolve manpower issues and management issues of the travel agents.Considering the recent evolution of travel and tourism industry, there has been a sudden spurt in the competitive nature of the travel industry, which demands bold investments and result oriented functions to be brought in place for increased efficiency.

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How To Become A Sports Psychologist

Psychology is a field that has diversified hugely over the past few years. One direction of interest is the growth and popularity of a career in sports psychology. With the hype surrounding many of our modern day sports people at an all time high, it is no wonder that more and more people are training for a career in sports psychology.Sport and exercise psychologists focus on the mental and emotional aspects associated with sport and exercise. Most will either specialize in sport or exercise but it is possible to work in both areas. Once qualified as a sports psychologist, you can expect to work with teams and individuals at all levels of expertise from all backgrounds, from amateurs all the way up to top professionals.Generally, a sports psychologist will work with a team or individual to deal with issues such as nerves and anxiety before a big game or event, improving self-confidence and thus improving performance, dealing with the stresses of a demanding training regime and also improving concentration. Many sportsmen and women struggle to maintain motivation and focus when faced with extreme pressure or stress and a sports psychologist will help to improve the situation. They will also help sporting individuals to deal with the frustration and stress of getting injured, controlling aggression during play and help individuals and teams to set themselves achievable goals in order to focus the mind.Within your role as a sports psychologist you can expect to work in close proximity with not only sportsmen and women but other sporting professionals such as coaches, managers, nutritionists and physiotherapists. Sports psychologists need to be a specific type of person in order to be successful. They need to be genuinely interested in people and human behavior; they also need to have a keen interest in sport. It’s really important to have a desire to help others and have excellent communication skills. You need to be able to work within a team on a professional level and have a tolerant and patient manner. A good sports psychologist will have good problem solving skills and apply a logical approach to all areas of their work.In order to work as a qualified sports psychologist you need to undergo the relevant training. You will need to complete a bachelor’s education requirements for psychology to begin with, and if possible choose a degree program that studies sports psychology. Most psychologists are advanced degree holders so in order to be competitive it is a good idea to further your career. You will be able to gain an entry level position with a two year degree but in order to be really successful, most professionals will advise the completion of a 5 year doctoral program based on sports psychology or sports science.Many sports psychologists kick start their career with an internship as this can be really beneficial to set you apart from the competition. Gain at least 2 years of clinical work experience in order to gain the relevant on the job skills necessary. You will also be required to take the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) issued by the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB). This is a requirement if you want to work in any of the states in the US and once completed you can practice as a licensed sports psychologist.Many sports psychologists combine consultancy work with education by teaching or researching in other areas of psychology. Others opt for full-time employment with a professional sports team.

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