Trying to come up with a creative name for my photography business. Does this metaphor jive?

How’s to try and define the metaphor within the context of its usage.

i was just wondering i want to major in photography and id like to know what collages are recommend and who has the hookups like contacts like trans world mag id like to be a action sports photographer(snow skate bmx) and whats the best way to go about it

If you really feel the need for college, Brooks Institute of Photography is what I recommend.

First off, the basics & fundamentals is absolutely key… & more important than who you know. At Brooks, you will learn everything you want about photography & even things you really don’t care about. Although I majored in Photography in college, I learned more in my first year that I went to Brooks, then I did in the 2-3 yrs of photography offered at traditional universities.

Though there are no specific sports class that I am aware of, it will be a "piece-of-cake" IMO compared to a lot of the other skills you will be required to master. Once you have those basics mastered, you will then be able to focus all your time & attention to the aspects of getting to know the players in the industry, developing contacts, & making sure you are at the right spots at the right time.

I went to school with a buddy who took what he learned & applied it to shooting motocross. Of course the fact that he used to ride really helped him to excel — as he could anticipate action very well. After Brooks, he worked with a couple motocross magazine companies for a year or two before moving away from sports and into the big leagues of shooting for the bike companies & car companies.

In addition, Brooks alumni are pretty prominent within the photography community. Brookies are very good about helping other Brookies to get a foot in the door. Though at the time there were not many Brookies in the motocross world, his work being above-&-beyond everyone else’s got him a job within 2 races.

My final piece of advice, make sure photography is for you before you commit serious time & money to an education that is so focused. Spend a lot of time photographing at sporting events. Make sure you don’t mind the lifestyle, the competition, etc. Take the time to check out the pros at the local events… how are they doing? Are they able to make a living shooting action sports?… or are they having to hold other jobs to make a living? Though we all dream of making the big leagues , you can’t forget that you’ll need to make sure your path is sustainable while you work your way up.

Best of luck!

In a home environment, when taking a portrait using reading lights, how to achieve "studio like" turn out for portraints & still life? What equipments are essential to bring out proper lighting? Is it necessary to buy metering device, flash, transmitter, reflectors, etc?

Your best bet is to buy a cheap off camera flash and look at cheap wireless triggers. You can get a Yongnuo flash which is manually adjustable by power levels off eBay for about £40. A set of triggers, like RF-602’s (1 transmitter + 1 receiver) will cost around £35. Buy a 5-in-1 reflector (£8) and you’re good to go.
Whilst the continuous lighting solutions offered by others might be a tad cheaper, they’re a pain to white balance and you’ll quickly find out their limitations & end up with flash, particularly if you want to do a lot of this type of work. If you want to do location portraits for example, the hotshoe flash is the way to go for portability (batteries only, & lightweight).
You don’t need to buy a light meter either at this stage.

I suggest you read Lighting 101 at the Strobist site (see right hand pane);

http://strobist.blogspot.com/

LOTS of information there on off camera lighting (principally hotshoe flashes)