I'm glad I love learning, because I am learning a LOT.

I could make a list, but it would be very long and probably somewhat boring. Instead, I will summarize: it is much more fun to take action while you are putting plans together than to try to hone the plan to perfection before you ever take the first step. (Wordy? Yes. But the beauty of written language is that you can read it again if you don't follow. A cliche won't do here.)

This is new to me. The fact that it's new explains why I am 44 years old and just now giving selling my photos a try. As a reflective person (with anxiety issues to boot), I have always been much more willing to think about something ad nauseum until I finally just feel bad about myself for never having done it, and then I don't ever even make an attempt because I'm convinced I am not going to succeed. Instead, right now I have prints hanging in a cafe, a ready inventory worth over $1500, a sales rep(!) and high hopes.

One doesn't plan to find a 200+ degree rainbow at the
Lowe's parking lot, so it's good to stay open.

It seems odd to consider myself someone who does not normally jump in, given my impulsive nature. In some ways, I am happier not pinning things down so I can be free to interesting opportunities as they come along. Planning or not planning my weekends is one example. My husband is a planner and feels more comfortable when he knows what's coming. I suspect he may be more focused on having a plan than he is on what the plan may or may not include. When we first met, his drive to plan often trumped my reflective nature and before I knew it, he had planned whole weekends. He always ran things by me, and I agreed because they sounded good, but I was never able to formulate and express my own thoughts in a timely manner. As the months went by, I started to see the pattern and was able to, early enough, ask for some planned "unplanned" time and I felt better.

So, action during planning, for me, has been new and good. I have also learned that I should not label myself, as that is limiting. I am both reflective and impulsive, and that's ok. I may be successful as a part-time photographer and I may not, but I am certainly on a more direct path to finding out now that my work is getting out there. My plan (since I CAN still plan while also doing) is to keep doing and also to develop a parallel stream of planning time, when I will continue to examine my niche as a photographer and learn more about photography and business as I go.

I am so looking forward to it!

I Picked Up My New Business Cards Today

I'm a little nervous. I'm trying to quickly take a photo of my new business cards for this post, and it's not working. I think that "quickly" is the key term here. I’m trying to get a blog-worthy shot on a cloudy evening in my barely-lit dining room. And with my phone, even. My options now are either to take the whole shebang outside or give up on the shot. I haven’t decided which I will do yet, but if you scroll down right now, you will be able to tell immediately which I chose.

I have much to do tonight in order to get ready for my photography booth event on Saturday. If I don't get things printed tonight, I'm out of time until Friday night, when it will be too late to let the images dry for 24 hours before I put them in sleeves. The other problem is that I'm out of ink again. My very-fancy printer seems to be sucking the cartridges dry. How much magenta (photo magenta, to be specific) can really be in these images? Magenta is pink, right? I am printing pumpkins, barns and winter scenes. I suppose my software would show me just one ink color in an image if I could find the right setting. Someday I’ll try it.

A compromise: the image from my
business card, and also one that I
KNOW uses lots of magenta.

Meanwhile, I am having other... concerns. Not doubts, really, but two things in particular are on my mind. The first is, I am wondering when I will finally make a sale. A sale would be very nice and would take the pressure off regarding when the first sale will finally be and whether anyone really does like these “fantastic” images enough to actually buy one of them. One sale would help. The second thing I am wondering is what I will focus on after this Saturday. I was lucky enough to get two relatively easy-to-get-my-brain-around events on back to back weekends. Now that the first is over and the second is three days away (and I have put more than a few hundred dollars into inventory), I find myself trying to line up the next event before I even know what I’m going to print for this one. I’m pretty sure that that’s the right direction to be headed, but I also know that, with my personality (read ADD here), I love to start things but don’t always finish them-finishing is hard. If I don’t finish planning for Saturday’s event, there won’t be one and then I would only have myself to blame if I don’t sell anything that day.

For now, it’s time to finish up here and get to work. You already know that I have given up on the business card picture, so if you want to see them you will have to look me up and I will be happy to give you one in person. Then maybe we can continue our conversation about photography face to face.

My New Bio

This morning I wrote a new bio for Saturday's cafe grand opening. I know that bios are usually written in the third person, but I also know that the bio-ees are usually the ones who write them and to me that adds a layer of mystery that seems counter-intuitive to helping people get to know me. Maybe I will change my mind when the editor of National Geographic writes a third-person bio about me to go with my one-woman spread!

Anyway, the bio I wrote follows. I hope it's ok.

Can you tell my daughter
 (used to my camera)
 from my niece (not so much yet)?

 Do you have teenagers? I do. Actually, my oldest is turning 21 in a few weeks. When kids are little, they love being photographed. Get them little enough (as we often do) and they have no say in the matter. But have you experienced that turning point where they suddenly start to put their hands over their faces, turn away, or, if caught by the camera, give you the eye-roll? It can be frustrating, but I have learned that persistence helps. Simply keep shooting. Eventually, they have to come out of their rooms or their teachers will start to miss them.

"Is she shooting?" "Yes,
she has been all day. Who cares?"

That's what I did. I have taken well over a thousand (according to my directory) pictures of each of my six kids. What is interesting for people outside my immediate family, though, is the other photos I was shooting in between, during photo sessions that still managed to get on my kids’ nerves. Imagine happily riding down the road, minding your own business in the backseat, when the brakes come on for no apparent reason and you have to sit by the side of the road for 10 minutes, or, in winter, until Mom can’t feel her fingers anymore.

Willington, CT. No kids in the
backseat that day, but you get the picture.

Taking this many photos, I have been able to capture a few good ones that I love to share. Despite how much I love the challenge of capturing what I see and being able to show it to others, I love even more to have conversations about photography. That’s how we all learn. And when my 12 year old asks if he can take some pictures with my $600 camera, I say yes. He has earned it.