The Open Sea Looks Good

I may be drowning, but I think I'll just keep heading toward the open sea just the same.

My pictures came in yesterday! I ordered photos from my Zen account (http://shellyleduke.zenfolio.com/) a week or so ago. I could have printed them at home I guess, but I couldn't wait to have my brother in law come set up the wireless printer. (It's all set now, of course.) Also, I've noticed over the years that the photos I print myself tend to fade. Does that happen to you? Add professional-grade printer to my wish list for the future.

Anyway, they came in. I opened them up and was immediately admonished by my 17 year old daughter for handling them incorrectly. I was touching their "faces" instead of holding them by the edges. This coming from a girl who abandons blue ray DVDs anywhere she pleases despite it being a pet peeve of her step father, who she loves dearly. I followed her advice, though, giving her credit because she wants to pursue a career in art therapy and does have a respect for art.

So after I had them spread out over my lap, theoretical finger prints and all, I realized that there is nowhere in my house where I can package them up in their bags (check!) and with my business cards (check!) without sharing with all my future customers the fact that we have a golden retriever. His name is Jake and one of the books we bought when we first got him said that all retriever owners call it "condiments", not dog hair. We are not surprised that this has manifested in our house as well. I keep asking Jake to please do some tidying up but he is very stubborn. I tell him that I read about a companion retriever who knows 180 commands, including how to remove a child's socks without biting toes. If another retriever can do that, why can't Jake just clean up a bit of hair that's his anyway? Does he need a special tool? Because I could take care of that. He doesn't care what I say as long as I keep giving him the heals from loaves of bread.

This means that I and all my new photography toys will head to the library today to use a clean table. Once things are put together we will probably go to Pakulis Farm where I hope my mom can make her customers feel guilty enough to by my images. (Oops. Drowning again...) We will go to Pakulis Farm and drop off the images that the owner ordered when she decided to expand her offerings to customers!

Wish me luck.

Drowning!

Yes, I'm doing it again. I often do this - I get excited about something, give myself too many choices, make things too complicated, try to start in the middle instead of the beginning, then quit.

Well, I haven't quit yet. And I'm glad. I really want to make this work.

Ok, so what have I done so far? Let's start with what I wanted to do.

"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."

I skipped #1. It's too complicated right now.

For #2 I found www.clearbags.com. I spent a day hemming and hawing about what to order. I was set on a basic mounting kit for 8x10s (with matte boards, backer boards, hinge tape and mounting corners), when I got to the checkout and discovered that there was a minimum order (if I didn't want to pay a service fee), and that my shipping was going to cost over $15! I did a quick search of Michael's and Staples to see if they had the kind of art bags I needed and didn't see them. Then, as usual, I changed my mind and instead of going with mattes, I scaled down the packaging and got bags that just fit the photos, without mattes. I nixed the hinge tape and mounting corners, but got bags and backs for three sizes of photos instead of just 8x10s. Then I ordered them! Then they came in the mail!! Then it took me 10 minutes to open the box (granted, I was using scissors instead of a box knife to cut the tape) and I wondered if the whole idea was crazy. Once I got the box (it was actually two taped together, which had been part of the problem) open, it was like Christmas! All these art supplies. Time to get moving.

#3 My business cards are printing as I type. And I'm proud of them. They almost got the best of me, but I didn't let them. Earlier today, as I sat down to get #3 done, I started flooding myself. Business cards... I had already bought the paper, now I needed a template. Should be easy, I've done it before. Wasn't. Now the flooding: Publisher has a place for a logo. I don't have a logo. Maybe my son can design one. How much should I pay him? What if I don't like it? What about my daughter, who is planning on going to college (next year!) to study art therapy? Should she make the logo? What about the font? It should say something about me. What should it say? I thought I wanted it to be formal but I'd go to work (at my day job as a teacher) in jeans and bare feet if they'd let me. Surely if my business card was formal and a client met me in person they would think I was a fraud. I tried out some fonts. I built, in my head, an advisory board of everyone I know whose opinion I would value about my personality and art. I set up tiers of assistance so that my boss, whose daughter went to art school, didn't have to come to all the meetings... I think I'll call the weather service and ask them to give a name to this flood that I made all over my computer station. (Deep breath here. Breathe.)

#4 I tossed around some ideas about how to price my photos. I was thinking $10 for a 4x6, $15 for a 5x7 and $20 for an 8x10. Nice and simple. Then I considered that I might give a free 4x6 of the same print to everyone who buys an 8x10. What would they do with a duplicate photo? Give it away, of course! Along with my business card, which will be packaged inside.

To be honest, I did do some work with the actual photos today. I uploaded more to Zenfolio. But I think I did too many. I am going to take some down, because they are not all fantastic pics. If I'm not going to print them to sell, they shouldn't be up. I also uploaded some to Snapfish. Prints on Snapfish are much cheaper, and since it's been a while since I've logged on they were trying to entice me with 50 free 4x6 prints. I couldn't figure out how to redeem my 50 prints and it annoyed me until I figured out they were only going to cost me $4.50. But again, I didn't order any because I want to limit the prints I'm offering at first and I'm not sure which ones I like best yet.

Oh! And two people besides my mother have checked out the Zenfolio site! They both signed on within two days of when I put it up. No one has looked at the site since, though. But two people!

So I have 30 business cards and enough materials to package 100 4x6s, 100 5x7s and 75 8x10s. Now I just need pictures!