OMGoodness

Why did I only take the 70-300mm lens to go house shopping? I got hundreds of pictures of either vast landscapes or tiny little spaces, lol! Oh well, live and learn, but I did get a couple great shots. One was a close up of a grasshopper w/ orange legs. Another is a bamboo bush. Working on those edits.

How did it go w/ the house shopping? Well, I am looking at another for comparison today and still on the look out for others, but I spotted a 3 acres 5 fenced pastured w/ 3 stalls and an air conditioned w/ toilet outbuilding place. It's a long shot, but it is my top choice and a serious contender for the thrown.

The best part was spending great fun w/ my Realtor in her car (I was told to go to her by my trainer Karen last winter). She drives a Jaguar w/ air conditioned seats, which is much appreciated on a 96 degree day when the seats are leather and suck heat from the sun into them. You know the kind that burn your butt in the summer time? Who knew there was such a thing? She is so fun to spend time w/ and I know she hated me at first, because I got lost and was late on our first meeting, but I know she likes me now. I am glad I was able to redeem myself. Not sure how I did that though. I guess just by being myself. What is cooler is she wants me to do her Christmas card photos. I am so looking forward to that.

Anyway, I could see that location as a great place to run my photography business base too. W/ all the natural light and open spaces all around. However, there was another place w/ a conservatory. It reminded me of the ones in the UK. A conservatory is a place like a porch, but surrounded by glass instead so you can have it heated or air conditioned, but still go "outside". You can also open the glass up so you can let air in once the temp outside is perfect. I thought that would be perfect as a studio as well due to all the natural light, yet w/ protection from the elements and giant Florida bugs.

I also learned that the kind of spiders in my previous pics are Banana spiders and they get huge. I mean like the size of your head huge. I guess they bite, but are not poisonous. More like a giant colorful garden spider. At least those giant bugs are protecting me on either side of my cottage from other more dangerous giant bugs right? Plus, they are just stunning to look at and so colorful. As they get larger I will get more pics. it will be interesting to see how they mature.

Spider Shots

http://bevinsdigitalwonerland.smugmug.com/Florida/Wildlife/11994286_wuj8d#949954427_g36o2

I just got the most awesome spider shots. You can find them at the link above. I am currently perfecting on of the shots stills so it may not be up tell tomorrow, or Wed. There spiders have gotten bigger and bigger every week. Just goes to show everything is bigger in Florida. I just hope they don't get as big as my, because the each live at the corner of the cottage I am staying in while looking for a new home to get. I had one lined up, but it was a short sale and well they take up to a year of waiting to get so after 6 months of waiting we decided to start looking for other options. Thus, I go out w/ my Realtor, who I just adore, she is so nice, tomorrow to view 5 places.

The rents have ordered me to get pics of those places so may have some interesting work to put up on architecture too after that. Who knows?

I did get the new tires yesterday, and I love them. They grip better, stop better, and don't make the squeaky sound in the Walgreen's parking lot anymore when I turn, lol. I have to say the Sear customer service was splendid. Totally recommend them for tires in the Ocala area. They even have a huge slat screen TV w/ cable, that WORKS w/ the remote! This is actually quite a rare thing. I met and talked to a really nice guy about what we were watching too. Everyone here is so nice! I cannot get used to it and I just love the slow pace as well.

Not to mention Florida has the most perfect natural light to get great shots. Now I know why professional fashion photographers choose locations in tropical places so often. You can't beat the lighting.

Another neat thing I am going to be dong is scanning in Karen Licciardi's old pics from shows for her, editing them to make them pop and then emailing them to her so she can add them to her facebook to show people what she has done. I am so privileged that she asked me to do that for her. She's very busy so it may be a bit before I get hold of the originals, but that's fine. Again, it's the southern pace and I love it. Even though they are her pics, I am excited to get to further practice my scanning and editing skills.

Plus, I love marketing, and in a way it is like marketing. Helping her market herself to a wider audience. I adore stuff like that and that she trusts me w/ it is just, well, you have no idea how wonderful that makes me feel and what an honor it is, because she really didn't do much marketing of herself before I came around. I mean, other sites add info on her. Like stables she trains from besides her own her her personal clients, but I mean none she's really done on her own as I understand it so it is great to be involved in anyway I can in that.

What is more exciting is she said for me to write up a reference for myself and she would sign it tonight. She brought it up herself. I told her it would be better if she wrote it, but she said she wanted me to, because everything I'd put in it was true and she really wants to do it for me and she is too busy to write one up herself for me. Which she is. I am thinking I will add photography and training and instruction in it, but I will take a couple days to think and talk to her about it more to grasp her thoughts on it as much as I can. I am however, just thrilled at having my first photography refrence and a refrence for a Grand Prix Dressage trainer about training horses and giving lessons. Never in my life have I ever thought anyone of her caliber would be so support of me and what I do. I owe her so much and can't say enough about her.

My journey as a photographer starting out in Florida and restarting my horse business down here is so interesting and so positive. Course like all things, it has it's ups and downs, but way more ups that I have ever had. This state is like a magic kingdom in itself. I've met so many people who moved down here because of that very same feeling about it so I guess I am saying, if things get tough, move to Florida! It is the sunshine state for more than just having so much sun in it. It's also the sunshine state because everyone has such a sunny disposition too.

AAH Miracle

I have new photos up here: http://bevinsdigitalwonerland.smugmug.com/Animals/Horses-at-Leisure/13069955_rfHo9#947413299_6sf4d

They are from Karen Licciardi's barn where I give lessons, get lessons, have my horses, and am currently barn sitting at. I got some of my dog Foxy Lady too, but they are not up yet. I still have so much behind the scenes work to do that I don't have half of what I have up yet.

Things I am up to? I am getting new tires today though! That and getting to go shopping. See due to some recent things, well harassing emails (that smartly on their part have stopped) all because I wanted credit for my pictures (which shows that how far people will go just because you ask for something you deserve), which I have proof of as I am saving them all, my dad felt sorry for me and decided to send me some shopping money knowing, as a woman, I love to shop. Now that I am most excited about.

I am not sure what I will get, but I do know my birthday is on the horizon and I have asked for an Sony DSLR A550, which my dad said I may or may not get. Honestly I don't expect it, but there is always Christmas too. Or maybe I will rent to own it, who knows, but I have my eye on that camera!

Needless to say my favorite camera brand is the Sony DSLR Alpha series. I own the very first one they made the A100, which still does a fantastic job. I have had severa pros walk up to me, literally, and just gush over it, even though they had much more advanced cameras. That poor camera has been dropped, rained on, subject to mass dust influxes from barns (though cleaned professionally once), and then some, but it keeps on ticking. That is why I love those cameras so much.

Do you have a favorite camera? If so what is it and why is it? I'd love to know!

Make Lemonade out of Lemons

Well, wince my last post the photos in question have still not been removed from the business site, despite them telling me they HAD removed them. I had begun searching for lawyers specializing in copyright law when it occurred to me after consulting w/ some people another option.

See, I was once paid to do their website, and 90% of the photos I put up were mine that I took voluntarily at the time, because the stable had no real pictures I could use to advertise them on the site. Now, it is three years later and they have a "friend" doing a new site for them using my photos so in essence I can call them clients.

In fact, I can note, now they have been photography clients, mostly during my amateur years, for 3 years now exactly in total. Thus, turning lemons into lemonade. Not only does this save me time and money, but it gives me something to advertise. Even if the don't link to me or credit me, I can link to them, or the exact page my photos are on, and credit them for being clients and then if they stop using them, past clients that where with me for a very long period of time indeed.

Of course that all looks great on a beginner pro photographer resume. In fact, this is great news! I immediately let the business know about my plane in letting them use the photos, but that they would then be clients of mine and that I looked forward to being able to credit them as such. I have heard nothing back from them so can only assume they are now ignoring me, but it doesn't matter, because they are still using my work and I am sure they'd rather have this option than to have a lawsuit I would most likely win since I keep meticulous records and do have the email stating they were down "I understand your concern with the photos. They are no longer on the website so no need to worry or be concerned about them being downloaded. Congrats on your photography business." (which wasn't the only reason I gave them for wanting them down or to be credited)

Thus, now I am happy to announce my client of the past three years Dittmer Stables. You may see the work I have done for them here "http://www.dittmerstables.com/facilities-boarding.html" and the picture of the two horses were my horses at the time I took them. They were and still are very happy with the work I did for them, because they are still using my pictures to this day, at least as of writing this. If I ever notice they are down they will turn to past clients and I will notify everyone via this page.

Please note: I have no problems with people using my images for business use. My concern was not about that at all. It was about their right to use them ending once they had the new page up, but they used them anyway w/ out informing me or giving me credit or taking them down after they litterally said they took them down. If you are interested in using any of my photos for business or personal use or whatever, please just contact me so we can discus the terms and how you'd like to use them and how you'd like them delivered to you.

Lesson Learned

Several years ago there was a stable that I made a webpage for when I began boarding with them. I wont say which one. I voluntarily took barn pics and show pics for them and had them, of course, on the page. I only had a written agreement saying that I would be given $50 of board a month for maintaining the page and they could use the pics I got on it as long as I was boarding and that if I left, they could use the pictures still and I would turn the page over to them and help in that process.

I'd been making pages since 1996 so I was quite adept at it, though by know means as good as many out there. I do have an eye for things though so it looked very nice and so did all the shots I did for them. I never gave them the photos and I took them voluntarily and boy did I take a ton of them.

About a year later several things, like the owner being jealous that I fixed a horse she couldn't, and her going behind my back and steeling those clients away from me after she was the one who wanted me to work w/ them because she didn't think the horse was any good, which it was, turned the whole barn sour towards me for some reason. I will never know why, because I trained that horse and student only for the use of the horse as a leson horse, which I did once, and to show, which I did maybe 3 or 4 times that summer.

The barn did things like not feed my horses enough to keep them from getting so think they could barely walk. Not tell me they were dead lame, but still put them out. Refused to even speak to me when I came to ride and so on and so forth. Yet, I still worked on the page, the owner was more and more unhappy w/ all the time so I stopped taking pictures, because also the board went up more frequently than I had ever seen in 10 years of being at barns and which made my $50 mean less and less.

Finally, the previous spring of 2009, I decided to save up and move to Florida after I visit I had. Well, somehow the stable was keeping tabs on me and found out and told no one to tell me. In that time between then and when I put my official notice in things got worse and worse for me there. I even had things go "missing".

When I left, I deleted several pictures from the site, but left the main ones, only because they were part of a photobucket account I had had and I wanted to let go of the past. I wanted to wash my hair of all of Iowa by this point. I helped the owner as I said I would transfer the page to her and allowed her the use of my photos, not transferring ownership of them though.

A year has gone by and I reminded her the domain name was about to expire and wanted to make sure that it went through her account ok or if she needed help as I didn't want it going through mine, but I also emailed her because she was using my pics on a newly built site w/ no credit to me and she was using my tow horses that I had owned while there in close up pictures advertising her site, which, I did not want as I did not want my property to advertise anything of theirs. I didn't mind if they used my other photos and I never said a thing about the pics of my horses, because I figured no one would remember them much and they have new homes so I no longer own them.

I did tell the owner though that my images where still owned by me and she needed to credit me and link to my email if she wanted to keep using them as they are mine and very good pictures as well. Plus, I am starting a business in photography so I need people to know its my work.

She responded telling me her boarder Sharie's horse was in some of my advertisements under horses that I have trained, which I did for basically nothing for 9 months and they verbally agreed I could use those pics before things went sour. She said they were selling Joe and that I needed to credit Sharie if I used them, which I mean was ridiculous and Sharie needed to contact me about it not the barn owner, but at this point I don't want people to really know I worked w/ him, because he was beaten by the rider, literally, several witnessed those events, and ruined him. That is my name on the line and I don't want to be associated w/ bad training. Secondly I was using them as a physical proof of work that I had done in the past. Anyway, I deleted the photos just because it wasn't worth dealing w/ them anymore and the training issue.

The owner then said she had taken my photos off the site. I checked, refreshed, checked again, opened a new browser, checked again, no, they were not off. I was very displeased and told her I hoped she wasn't lying as this was all in writing. I didn't tell her I was going to look into a copyright lawyer to ask him about all of this.

She emailed saying it was a misunderstanding and she would get the person to make sure they were off. I will check again next weekend to see, but by accepting that she would take them down, I now had in writing that she accepted the terms that she couldn't use them w/ out crediting me which I had not had anything that said before.

I didn't ever say she had to remove them, just credit me or remove them. She choose to say she would remove them. My lesson here is this, and everyone please follow closely on this...

Get everything in writing as close to the beginning as you can to any work you do. Spell it out, what the rights to the images are in regards to use. I didn't know my rights or what to do at the time I did all that work, because I just did it cause I loved it. Now I am in busines so I have to learn about copyrights and so on and that's when I realized the huge mistake I had made and now it is haunting me.

This is important for non pros too. Simply because you never know what the future holds for you. Nor do you know if a relationship will turn sour. Everything can be great and all the sudden, boom, it isn't anymore. Always think of yourself and your time. As this has also cost me time, which is money, because I could have spent my time doing anything other than this.

I always thought she would credit me, because she used to tell me I should always credit myself, because my work was good and I spent a lot of time on it. She even said I should advertise myself on her site and mine more. Just shows how south it went, but it also shows that people don't always mean what they say, but just say what you want to here so you think more of them than you should. Not that you should not trust anyone, but you have to look at the bigger picture. You can only 100% trust yourself in business, because it is about money more than love for many people, even if it is not personal so take heed of my experience. Protect yourself as much as you can and make people and businesses earn your trust after a long relationship together. Never just give it to them. If they aren't as skeptical as you or careful at the start then they are probably just telling you what you want to here and don't mean a thing of what they say. Remember the honey moon period. It applies in all aspects of life. Trust yourself, be yourself, and protect yourself.

Discovering the Consumers of Photography

I recently asked a friend several questions. Such as, but not limited to: if she were in a place that sold photographic art and bought a piece, what type of atmosphere was it in that made her buy it, the lighting, the music, the customer service and how much she got and what turned her on and off about it and so on. What I got was a surprising answer.

My friend said she didn't own one piece of photographic art that someone else had taken. She said, she never shopped for pictures, though the things she liked were things that drew her into the piece. That made her feel part of the piece, not looking from the outside in.

This was interesting, because she enjoys taking photographs herself. Which, leads one to assume she likes art and would have purchased one piece from someone else. However, this was not the case. I did not follow up and ask her why she did not purchase others work, but it lead me to wonder a little about the aspect of vanity of ones own "talents" in creating what they need. Also, the aspect that a person could feel they were more a part of their own work, whether any good or not, than to someone else's.

Then, there is another question that comes to mind. Two actually. How does one overcome the hurdle of vanity to create a need? Also, how can we make photographic art that makes people feel part of the image? I think to do the latter one would have to put feeling into the picture. Some kind of emotional element. Still how can we do this and not alienate the feelings others might want to experience in the work?

How, also, do we overcome such a strong sense of vanity and turn it into need? Vanity is huge and a very strong feeling. In fact it makes the buyer even more picky, but at the same time, in my opinion, makes the buyer even less knowledgeable about actual art and what art actually is and whether they are in fact looking at it or just another non artistic piece.

Then you have two problems, a very picky buyer, but also a buyer who doesn't know what art is. Then you add that they want to be part of the image feeling wise. Thus, you add the element that feelings to the work are more important than whether the work is any good or not.

I am interested in trying to find ways and ideas to bridge this gap and create a more sell able item, but to not sacrifice quality of the image. How can this be done? Obviously, a person like that would not be able to tell me, because of the limitations in their own perspective. Also, the sales technique would have to be subtle. If my friend ever reads this, I hope they don't become offended. I am merely writing from my perception and trying to device marketing strategies.

Of course, maybe this is not a person I should market too, but she would be a "consumer". As in part of the "consumer" base that IS part of my marketing plan so maybe... I should narrow down the consumers type as well. Please note that consumers are different than art aficionados or art buyers. I learned that thanks to Dan Heller.

Anyway... this is part of the place I am at now. Trying to find a marketing stratigy. One thing I did do was to give my cards to the beautician of mine at the premier beauty shop in Ocala w/ the instructions to hand one to each customer as my webpage is on the back of each. She runs into way more people than I do and a higher class of people "financially" who are interested in fashion and art through her own business location and talents. She also is letting me do headshots of her clients in test shots to produce added genera to what I can do and a portfolio for her to showcase to her clients. Also, I would be able to net work and meet people.

I have also decided to run my business as a hobby while I build its foundation very slowly, have a gallery opening based on FL in the fall and open the doors to official business on Jan 1 2011. Now, I have to just fill in how to get to those points by working backwards, and sometimes forwards... depends on when ideas pop into my head and for which time period.

Anyway, part of this blog is to share my journey and to help others in theirs, which is why I am listing my ideas and plans here.

Wow, I never expected this, but it mademy night!

Dan Heller, actually had looked at my work unbeknown to me. I never asked him to, but I forgot I had my sites on my sig. HAHA, oh well. Well, I didn't know why he said I was talented so I asked him why. Well, he said he'd been to my pages and seen my work, and that is why he said it.

This person of wonderful standing and credit in the photog industry thinks I am talented! OH MY GOD! I never, ever would have ever suspected that. I wasn't looking for that, but it happened and I really needed it. I never asked him to check it out, because I wasn't looking for a door in or for anything like it. I just wanted answers to some questions, which he was so kind and polite about answering for me in depth.

If you read this Dan, thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me. Honestly. You here it from people. I do. I hear how good I am, but they aren't people who really know photography so I can't really judge my talent totally by that. However, I can judge it by what you said or others like you say a bit more, since you and they are more likely to know a good creative shot and I also know you wouldn't say anything to anyone that you didn't believe was true and sometimes friends say things you do are good not to hurt your feelings, which does someone no good. Wow, I will keep going and I will keep learning and I will see what happens. At least now I know it is worth my time to try rather than a waste of time I could spend on something else. Again, thank you.

Great Info on Photography

I recently found this site: http://www.danheller.com. It is very in depth and large and I am still reading through it and taking notes. I even ordered two of this mans books on the photography industry. I can't wait to get them.

So... what makes Dan Heller so awesome. What makes him different than the other photography people that gives information online. Well, because he doesn't tell you what you want to hear. He tells you how it is and what his experiences were and are. He doesn't want you to follow his advice because he says to. He just wants to give the budding photographer something to think about. He doesn't hold anything back and explains things in a very straight forward, and for me, an easy to understand way.

What is cool about Dan Heller himself is that if you have a question he takes the time to respond. Not just respond, but respond quickly. He is polite and does not make you feel intimidated or stupid. I don't just suggest his site for professionals either. I suggest it for EVERYONE who is interested in photography so check it out. I think you'll be glad you did.