Come together right now

About time things finally started to come together.  So this whole photo thing is finally taking off, finally.  Selling photos, working on an exhibit, and there's a store/gallery that wants to put my stuff up and sell them.  Good for me, now comes my biggest headache: pricing.  There are 3 different pricing schemes: friends, strangers, and galleries. The cheapest is for friends, I barely make anything from this, for strangers I make a decent profit, for galleries you get ripped off, but they take a decent cut out of every sale so photos need to cost more.  I'm almost at 32,000 views on Flickr and I'm getting more and more complements for my photos, now who's got an upcoming event that isn't really important and wants photos taken?  I need more work with objects that run away or move.  But I'm feeling good about this. Now to keep trying to figure out pricing.  Well enough of that time to go watch mindless explosions and go see Iron Man 2.

To post or not to post that is the question these days...

I've been having more fun and taking this photography thing slightly more seriously than before, now that has led to the problem of me having pictures that I'm not sure what to do with.  I do enjoy going out as many of you know and most of these places serve alcohol, and seeing that I almost always have a camera around I do manage to get some interesting photos.  Which leads me to the conundrum that the title of this posts asks, do I publish these photos or do I sit here laughing at them?

Ahh pre-social networking days you just showed these photos to your friends, or at parties and go look how stupid so and so was or how drunk he/she was, now within 5 minutes everyone can find out about your idiotic dance moves, or what new and inventive way you've come up to hurt yourself.  Speaking with other photogs I've learned that almost everyone likes the camera guy and yes it does make it easier to approach certain ladies, albeit these ladies are usually attention whores who you would never bother to call back.  But seriously what is one to do with such photos, do you go up to the people and go look hahaha we were so funny and stupid, now can I post these for the world to see? I shall sit here lamenting with my choices and at the same time be thankful that I am the one behind the camera and not in front of it.

I need to refocus my attention

I now see why so many people don't do exhibits, or at least people with my attention span don't do them.  I love taking pictures and I love seeing how they come out, and am beginning to like the post production parts of it too.  My main problem is I want to keep going out to take more pictures of different things and not work on actually getting my photos ready for an exhibit.  I've actually agreed to an exhibit at a library, but I haven't actually taken the time to sit down and go through my photos and decide what I want shown.  I keep going out and taking more photos of new things, and this is complicating the process.  I love taking photos of urban decay and of Detroit in general, but then there's my nature shots that are pretty good too and seem to go over real well. 

Hmmm what to do, what to do? Do I keep postponing my exhibit, like I've been doing for months? Do I actually sit down and decide what the hell I have to do, or do I cop out and do a contrast of urban living in Detroit, and the serene peaceful nature of northern Michigan.  The beauty of destruction vs. the beauty of nature.  Well I'll figure something out and let everyone know, but most likely I'll cop out and do a split exhibit of my work, it's my show and I can do what I want!

The last post needs some explanation

So the search warrant was at work not for me, some sheriff's deputies came to get some information on a patron and I said we can't and won't give anything without a search warrant. I told them they can make a request for information but it won't necessarily be honored, so two days later they came back with a court ordered search warrant. Lovely. I get to deal with two deputies about technology who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, so I have to dumb everything down and explain how things on computers work. The other tech was trying to do the same thing to them but alas if a person does not understand technology you cannot really explain it to them in a few minutes.

In other news I'm hopefully going to get published in the Metro Times. I sent some photos in and the Arts & Culture editor wants to use mine along with some other photographers photos in an upcoming issue. HELL YEAH! Now if only I could figure out a way of making some steady income from this photography thing it would be even better. I have a friend who's helping me meet and talk with different photographers so recently I have met a Free Press photographer, a really cool combat photographer who got back to the states not too long ago, and a bunch of local photographers. By the way Detroit has many interesting/weird things to photograph with our art crowd here, and once you get to know them you keep getting invited to weirder and weirder things. I love this city.

Also so much to look forward to the Blowout, the Muse Concert, St. Patty's Parade in Corktown, St. Patty's day all over metro Detroit and after all that hopefully some sleep, rest and relaxation...but who am I kidding, I won't get any of the latter.

Anger is my motivation

To the guy who looked at my photos a few months ago and told me in not so many words they sucked F*CK You, and thank you. It was you who made me go out and hone my "skills," it was you who led me to go take pictures of anything and everything. It was your stupid little words that were in the back of my head every time I took a photo. I realized I needed to improve and your damn "talk" did it for me. Failure is not an option for me, and because of who I am I will make damn sure to prove you wrong if you tell me I can't do something. I will do everything humanly possible to prove you wrong if you tell me I will fail. There is no real reason for this post other than to vent and remember me going through my photos with a prick who told me I'll never get anywhere with my photography. Now I have two offers for exhibits an invitation to join an art collective and having a hell of a time doing what I'm doing. So to you good sir who said I would fail thank you for the motivation I needed to prove you wrong.

This blog has changed

So this blog is completely different than when it first started, I mean I just used to post random useless crap about things I found online that made me laugh. Now I post random useless crap about myself that no one reads (not really since I started these random postings my site views have gone up and from different places, go figure).

So to keep the tradition of updating everyone of my so called interesting life, a girl threw a plate at my head and that was the last time I talked to and saw her, the sale of the Minido falls photo fell through because the woman wanted me to put a $200-250 frame on a photo she only wanted to pay $200 for (I'm beginning to think the world is running out of sane people), and I sort of kinda quit my local paper photographer gig. Do I have to write an official letter of resignation when you tell your so called boss to kiss your ass and find a different idiot photographer? I do have something else lined up to take photos of local bands at one of the biggest local band concerts in the world...hint hint figure out what that could be.

Also I'm taking the photography more seriously and my style has improved, I'm not sure if I like nature photography or urban/architecture photography more, it's a toss up. But I do enjoy the weekend getaways to take pictures around Michigan, it really is a beautiful state the entire year. Where else can you find everything you find in this state, I can go to the same place in different times of the year and get completely different shots. Now I just need to find more buyers for my photos, so I'm having my first faux-exhibit at the library in February. My boss wants me to use the photos from my last trip up north, I have to come up for a name of my exhibit and any help is greatly appreciated. Well that's it for now, I'm off to go drive around Detroit to figure out what to take photos of, but first I need SBC to finish fixing my damn internet.

Being a photographer is fun...

sometimes, that is. I love taking the pics, and recently began to love selling them too! Haha, that's right selling them now too, so far I've sold 1 photo, with one photo in the process of being sold. I needed my friend's advice on pricing, he told me to start high and work down, so I did. She wanted a framed 16x20 I told her a price of $400, she said how about $350, I told her sold! Yay for me, hell I would have been happy for $100, so anything else is a bonus. But getting up at 4:30AM after getting home at 2:00AM is not that much fun, although the payoff is great. Today I went out to go get photos of the Dequindre cut, and realized I need a new pair of gloves that gives me access to the camera buttons and dials. Why do I need new gloves, because my fingers turned purple and started to tingle, you know that small sensation like small needles, yeah that's what it was. I take my gloves off to take the pictures, and I don't realize my fingers are freezing until after I get the photo I want.

Now I can't keep a cohesive thought together, so back to the other photo, It's a 30x20 photo of the Minido falls, I have said that I will only print 25 of these large photos, and I have one hanging on my wall. Fun thing is the 30x20 will probably be sold for less than the 16x20 photo,but like my friend also told me sell to your audience. The photos for the local papers is beginning to get annoying, annoying as in you're giving me crap pay to go to crappy venues to see empty bars and not get my photos published. Also I really have no intentions to keep being sent to see a band that plays at 1:00AM on a weekday, I might jokingly say I can sleep when I die, but it is starting to catch up to me. To make matters worse I need to watch my mouth at these bars, especially when I make fun of my so-called employer's magazine in front of one of their writers...oops!

Oh yeah Happy New Year everyone, may this be the best year ever!