Starting Again

A couple weeks ago, I attended the graduation ceremony at the organization where I teach. Seventy six students marched across the stage and received their high school diplomas-certainly a momentous occasion in anyone's life, but for these folks it was especially wonderful.

I teach in an adult education program. Each of these students was disenfranchised in some way by the public school system and they all finished their secondary education with us instead. Some left school as soon  as they turned 16 (or more recent ones, 17, as the law has now changed). Some left with only a few weeks left in their senior year - some even sat for the full 12 years and ended up as little as a half credit short of graduating. Some stopped attending around 8th grade, and some were squeezed out of learning in elementary school by a too-fast curriculum and then passed along until they could officially drop out. Graduates ranged from 17 or 18 years old to grandparents - people in their 50s and 60s.

One of the reasons why I am good at what I do in my day job is that I am able to greet each new student as a capable human being, despite what may be strong evidence to the contrary. I don't care what problems they may have eventually caused after years of struggling in a school system that wasn't right for them. I don't care if they are with me because they choose school over juvie. I don't care if they have pending court dates. I don't care how many times they have tried to start with adult education and then dropped off the face of the earth before returning - the average record for adult education students is that they will graduate upon their third re-start. That means that, for each student who is successful on their first try, others will restart many many times before finishing. Of course, that statistic only takes into account the ones who do eventually finish. There is no way to figure in those who don't.

I am patient with my students. If they need to take many, many breaks and start with work they have already mastered, that is what we do. If they need constant reassurance, they get it. If they need to be served pizza for good attendance, I do it. If they need to march around the building to present their good test score to everyone who will listen, I escort them. I take what they can give and know that it's more important for them to feel successful than it is for them to, on the first day, look successful on paper. At the end, they will know how to be a successful student, not at the beginning. I am patient with them.

Why am I not patient with myself?

Baby Steps

Today I'm pondering a photography business. I showed my mom a couple photobooks I had printed by an online company and she liked them. In fact, she's going to order three copies - one for herself, one for my aunt and one for my grandfather.

We talked about selling my photographs at her farm this fall when she sells the 2000 pumpkins they have growing there. It's already a hay farm so they have customers coming and going already, which is good.

There are lots of things I need to do if I want to do this, which I do. Let's list them, shall we?

1. Print some photos. (I could break this step down into about 10. Let's just say for now that I will probably use my Zenfolio account to print them so they are professionally done and won't fade like the ones I print myself. Also, before I even print them I'd want to take some specifically for selling on my parents' hay farm. I have some like this already, but a few more probably wouldn't hurt.)
2. Find (online) materials I can use to matte and package them.
3. Make business cards. I wonder if Zenfolio has a link for that.
4. Figure out how to price my pics. I don't want to start too low.

Ok, I'll probably also want to set up a Zen album with the hay pics on it so people can have a look and order them later. Or do I? My Zen account won't let me set prices, so they'd basically be paying just for the prints. Maybe I don't want to do that. Or maybe I will upgrade my account so I can boost prices.

Am I getting ahead of myself? Maybe. But maybe not. When am I going to start if I don't start now?

Could I print some photos and offer my parents' hay customers a chance to win a farm "sitting", where I would go to their farm for a few hours and take pics? They could choose to buy or not buy copies of the photos. Maybe I take pics and put them on Zen for the client, keep permissions for them, and sell them to others for retail. How in the heck would that work? Something else to think about. I need a sample contract book for photographers!

So first, pick some of my best farm photos and find packaging materials for them. Make a business card. Worry later about sales prices, when I have them ready.

Finally, I want to find a way to make my pics stand out. Anyone can take a picture of a flower or a wave. Why should someone buy mine?