Photo Composition and Perspective

Boring you with yet another definition of composition or perspective is not my agenda here.  If you don't know what it is then please educate yourself and look it up; there are plenty of wonderful resources available to you.

I would much rather show you.

Mt. Trashmore Park, VA, USA

Move closer, move further away, move up, or move down but move! If you have a zoom lens and not interested in the benefits of exercise, save yourself the trip and adjust your lens.

Keep shooting the same subject until you are satisfied you have gotten every possible angle and then use them to get a feel for what you like. By doing this, you will observe things differently and develop your own personal style.











Also, don't be afraid to go back and re-shoot your favorite spot or person (camera only, please) or whatever your chosen subject may be.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Park (FDR), South Philadelphia, PA

Visit at various times a day or night, lighting can be so dramatic.  What about a change of seasons or weather?  You may be surprised at your results!

Yup, still FDR Park...

Mt Pleasant Mansion, Philadelphia, PA

Wild Horse at Corolla Beach, NC

  

Photography, for me, is all about having a great time, enjoying the moment in a way most people don't slow down enough to appreciate.  With a few adjustments, you can learn how to capture that moment even better.  

Are We There Yet? The Art of Timing

A few fortunate beings on this planet have an innate ability to know when to act and when to wait. Many others are like the child in the back seat of the car with whisperings of "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" as little Susie kicks the back of your seat to a beat only she can hear, only to ask more insistently five minutes later when a whisper becomes a shout and then a shout becomes a whining plea of "Are we there yet?"  

Most parents will start with a patient, "No, not yet" but as you up the ante may soon come back with a frazzled, "Does it look like we're there yet?!" Not to be outdone, the child now recruits her siblings in a chorus of "Are we there yet?" to which the only decent reply is, "Who wants to play the quiet game?" and suddenly the parent is not above bribing their dearest offsprings with a monetary reward for who can stay silent the longest.  

Not only is there unreasonable expectations about the destination itself, and God forbid it doesn't meet our ideas of where we are supposed to be, but there is a whole lot of disillusionment about how long or short it should take us to get there, wherever that may be, whether it be a physical destination or a goal.  

Now add timing into the mix.  If timing is everything then when do you act and when do you wait?  I, myself, have certainly had times when I have pushed, pulled, stood on my head, did back flips, and nothing has come of it, except the thumping of my own head from banging it against a wall (silly me), until one day it happened on its own accord with no assistance from me at all.  

On the other hand, there have been times when I felt as if I was procrastinating only to find that the timing couldn't have been better.  It was as if the stars had aligned perfectly for my very own benefit! What gives?  How do we know the difference?  How do we know when to take action and when to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride?

In photography, especially with action photos or images dealing with people or animals, if you hesitate, you miss the shot.  A person may have walked in or out of the frame, the perfect expression was suddenly replaced with a frown, or any number of things varying from subtle to very obvious can happen. I expect this is much like life.  

If we get a nudge to act on something and we sit on it, we may lose it or it may change in some way. This is not to say the opportunity may not come again or that it may not come in another disguise, but why take the chance?

Is it always going to be appropriate to act immediately?  Maybe not so perhaps it comes down to intuition and discrimination.  Experience will teach us better.  If we missed it one time, we may gain it another and so on and on it goes.  Besides, who says you won't gain something better by taking that detour?

What does this all have to do with photography and your Etsy business or with any business? Many of us give up before we begin.  We have a few false starts or nothing seems to be working so we sit back and wait when we need to take another step.  Or we take many more steps when a little patience may have gone a long way.  

Sometimes we have to do all we can do and then let go of our ideas of how it's supposed to go.  We have to leave room for God or the Universe or whatever or whomever you believe in to do Its part and if you think it's going to come easy, well, you may want to reconsider.  It may but chances are it's another way for the universe to see how serious you are about attaining whatever goal you are striving for.  

In the end, everything is in its rightful place.  It just may be different from where you thought so if there is something you can do and it feels right then act.  If not wait but whatever you decide, don't give up!  

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out."  - Robert Collier

Be flexible!  Allow for transformation.  There may be a worthier plan than the one you have in mind but if you are too attached to what your own vision may be, there won't be any room for anything else and you might miss out on something better.

Lastly when in doubt, take it moment to moment, love what you do and do what you love because as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says, “It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up – that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.” 

Remember, there is always another mountain to climb, another level to go so listen.

The Beauty of Photo Blogging

Started a new job and don't have the kind of time that I had before.  I'm not giving up on this, though; it would be like giving up on a big part of myself.  Lucky for me this is a photo blog and so I will let the pictures tell the story this time.  Since animals have played an important role in life with me, I thought I would share a few of their portraits.   There have been many so here are a few...will share more later.

Jasmine's baby photo

Niyah

Our rescued blue and gold macaw

Harley has attitude and he's not afraid to use it!

Buttercup and Peaches - Great buds!

Working Past the Blahs...

Inertia happens but you don't have to make it a lifelong friend.  Show up and make the most of it. Know "this, too, shall pass" and move on.  Even a little step is better than no step at all.

When feeling weary or discouraged, a turn around is just ahead so proceed in its direction.  Do what you must do to work through the emotions (journal, paint, walk, go out with friends, volunteer...whatever works for you) but don't stop.  If a temporary rest is needed, do it, but give it a time limit.

If you're really burned out then perhaps a vacation is in order; take it!  Do whatever is necessary to get the juices flowing again but at the end of it...get back to work and do it with all of your love.

A vacation can give you new perspectives, leave you feeling fresh and rejuvenated. 

It doesn't matter where you go as long as it leaves you with a higher view.

Photographing The Heart of the Wild

With animals, perhaps more so than people, patience is needed.  They won't necessarily pose for you, although I swear some have, so another technique is needed.  Some photographers will take photo after photo and hope for the best and, others may patiently wait for that unforgettable moment spending even hours awaiting it.  Is there another way?

How do you photograph beyond what you see with your eyes?  How do you take a photograph with your heart?

There is a space most creative people, unconsciously or consciously, relax into when they are painting, dancing, inventing, or even simply manifesting a solution. In this gap everything changes.  Words fail to portray what that space is but I can tell you it's silent and you become almost hyperaware.  I refer to it as the "zone."  In the zone, time melts away and the way you discern your environment morphs.  This is the closest description I can give.  

In this field there is "magic," it is, to me, where all life connects and where "miracles" are made. It is where we are all one and that includes the biggest and smallest of creatures.

When All Else Fails...Experiment!

Selling art can be hit and miss, especially when it comes to photography.  Digital photography has revolutionized the way people take and make photographs and now everyone has a camera, even if it is only a phone camera.  (By the way, I'm not knocking those phone cameras.  Some of them take some pretty nice photos and if any cell phone companies would like me to test their cameras...why I'd be happy to!)  What does this mean to photographers?  We have to be even more creative.

First things first, if your art isn't selling, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to make dramatic changes right away.  It especially doesn't mean you have to drown yourself in a gallon of ice cream smothered in all the toppings because you have allowed negative self-talk to convince you that you are the worst person/artist/entrepreneur...fill in the blank...ever and now you need some serious comfort food to fill the void!  (I know how artists can get; we do tend to be a little sensitive, to say the least.)

There is a list of questions that can help in the decision making process on what step to take next. Is there variety?  Are you presenting a large selection of your work?  Is the price right? What are other artists doing?  Is their art selling?  Are you marketing your work appropriately; taking full advantage of social networks?

If you have taken an honest look at yourself and your work, and it still isn't going anywhere then it's time to make a change.  For me, it's experimenting, which I'm now in the process of doing so I can't tell you how it will turn out yet.  I'll have to get back to you on that later.

What I do know is the old saying, "If you do what you've always done, you will get what you've always gotten" seems to hold true so being creative and using your imagination is a good way to go.  There's always a way, as I'm learning, to take something old and make it into something new.

         This is my first experiment.  Where oh where will it go?

Truth is, it's fun to try something new.  Why not give it a try?  There's nothing to lose!

Back in Business!

Ride 'em, cowboy!  We just might rustle us up some dinner after all!  *wink*

Yes!  Woo hoo!  Yippee ki yay and all of that!  See More Divinely Photo (Etsy store) is back up and running. Forward march!  

That bridge successfully crossed!  Whew!  *wiping sweat off of brow*

You're cute and all but I can't keep you.

Now that we have that monkey off our shoulder, we can move onto more pressing items like "Where did that monkey come from?" and other fun stuff.  

Let's save that for another day.  

Not to procrastinate or anything but today is a beautiful day and I, for one, would like to finish up in time to enjoy it! We can pick up here tomorrow.  Have fun, y'all!

How to Market With a Zero Budget

Zero dollars to spend?  Don't let it get you down.  There's more than one way to iron out the details until you are generating a positive cash flow.

This is hard work! (Thanks, Beth, for indulging me in my photo endeavors!)

Google Adwords is free until you bid.  How do you use that to your advantage? Remember all those sites that ask for tags/keywords? You can see what tags are popular, and even not so popular, and you can build our keywords around them. This will drive more traffic to your store and, hopefully, lead to more sales at some point.

Social networking has already been covered but, at the risk of repeating myself, it's FREE!  If you don't have an account with Twitter or Pinterest or any of the number of other sites, maybe the time has come? Also, something I've only now discovered myself is there are groups for everything on Facebook.  You have an Etsy store?  There's a group for it on Facebook (FB).  How does a group benefit you?  Just one of the Etsy groups on FB has over 2,000 members with the same interest as I do.  This translates to lots of sharing and possibly exchanges of knowledge and goods.  (Artists will often buy or trade with each other.)  It also lets like-interested minds know, "Here I am!  Come and check me out!"

If Pinterest is your network of choice, there are also groups on there.  You're on your own there until I get a better working knowledge of how it works.  So far, I've been able to join a few groups but haven't figured out how to actually post to them.  If you figure it out before I do, let me know.  If not I'll get back to you on it.

Wishing anyone celebrating a Happy Fourth!

Tag You're It!

For years now I have played on social networking sites beginning with MySpace and then moved onto sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, and others.  It was a way to stay in touch with family and friends that, unfortunately or maybe you will say fortunately, lived on the other side of the country or even world. Not to mention, it was a fabulous way to spy on my boys.  Did I say "spy"?  I meant...keep tabs on.

As I began to think in more of a business fashion, I got involved with Linkedin, which I still do not completely understand how to utilize properly but appears to be more of a professional networking site. Why is it difficult to promote yourself and your business in a world where there are so many social networks?  My guess is, because you and thousands, maybe even millions of others are doing the same thing!  How do you set yourself apart from everyone else so you can be noticed?

Keywords!  Tags or keywords will assist your potential buyers in discovering you, providing you have the right ones.  What is the right keyword, you say?  Here's where things can get a little sticky.  

What do you mean there's no fish in here?

Some may even say it can be like fishing in a mud puddle when there's a river right behind you if you aren't choosing the words that your average user is searching.  Of course, fishing in a river where the fish are plentiful isn't any guarantee either.  You can have a great keyword like "photography" but so do 300,000 other photographers, amateurs and professionals alike.  

Do you know where that puts you? Out in the internet boonies, no man's land, that's where!  Help!  I didn't mean to use my invisibility powers so well.  

What does this mean exactly?  We are going to have to get a bit creative.  You can use Google AdWords to help you out.  They have a neat tool called keyword planner.  Use it! It's free!  It will tell you what keywords are being searched in that category, how many users per month and, if you have a budget to promote yourself, how much it is going to cost you to bid on that word.  

Bidding for a keyword?  What does that do?  It gets you the primo spots on page number one of Google search engines or its conglomerates, that's what.  It can get expensive, though, so choose your tags wisely.  For instance, "photography" is searched 450.000 times a month but it's going to cost you $1.83; if you bid on "outdoor photography", you will only get 3,600 searches but it's only $.74.  It also narrows your search down to buyers who are looking for that category of photography.  Still with me?

Well, folks, let's leave it there for now.  Smoke is coming out my ears, and I can take a hint.  Til next time....

Pep Talk

Feeling a little resistance to blogging or Etsy or anything today.  Not sure where it is coming from but I don't care.  This isn't entirely true; I have my ideas but I'm not going there.  I will not give it anymore energy than it deserves.  My weapon is to ignore it and show up anyway.  You with me?

No one can hide forever!  

Ready or not, here we come!  It's funny how we can be our own worst enemies but, on the flip side, we can also be our own best friends.  We can pick up a book when our mind is going in circles like a dog chasing its tail.  We can run on the treadmill or take a walk or take a swim in the ocean when we are feeling down.

We can eat whole foods that nourish our physical, emotional, and mental bodies, instead of deplete them.  We can choose to meditate/contemplate or even just take a few minutes to reflect on a passage from a holy book or have some quiet time.  We can make choices to feel better every day.  We can choose to do things that bring us less or more happiness.  In the end it's all up to us! Yes!

Where did we leave off yesterday?  Oh, yes!  Goal setting and taking action.  We discussed Pinterest, Linkedin, and Facebook so what's left? We all have email contacts. Wouldn't they love to hear about our newest venture? Are there any other social networking sites we can tackle?  What about Tumblr or Instagram?

The thing is, it gets time-consuming going to all these sites and posting.  Is it worth it? Sure it is!  How is anyone going to know about us if we don't get the word out there?  It's an investment in one's business, and no one is going to take more of an interest in it than you!  So what are you still doing here?  Get busy!  The world waits for no one!

Dreaming Our Dreams Into Reality 2 - How Are We Doing?

Not an overnight success?  Me neither.  We didn't expect we would be...did we?  Seems there is a bit more to this dreaming our dreams into reality besides discovering the right track.

It's work.  First you have to know yourself well enough to know what the "right track" is, then you have to commit to it, and then begin imagining where you would like to go with it.

Harold Klemp says, "Act as if you are already there" or "work from the end." Meaning, for me, see yourself where you want to be...see it, feel it, and be it. Know you are already there. We covered this in the first part of this post. So now what?

Goal setting.  Our goals need to be reasonable and achievable. It is good to have both short term and long term goals.  For me, I'm still striving to achieve my two sales a week, which I thought was very reasonable. Turns out there may be a little more to it than that.  Or is there?

It's not enough to set that goal, though.  You didn't think we were going to get to sit back on our tufts while our fairy godmother delivered it into our laps so what are we going to do to achieve that goal?  What actions can we take?  I will continue to use me as an example since I, too, am in the midst of this.

I have been preparing two photos a day to be placed for sale in my store, posting a daily blog that is directly linked to Etsy, and I use every social networking site that I am a member of to get the word out there that I'm in business.  I have had one sale for two prints.  Not bad for the first week.  I am grateful to have that sale!  It was an amazing boost! I'm in my second week now, going into my third, and the well is dry.  Where do we go from here?

See anything down there, Kate?  No worries...it's coming.

Fortunately, I'm not the type to give up so easily.  While continuing the actions already in place, it may be time to add another action.  What else can be done?

More on that later.  I need to time to figure that out, too!  If you beat me to it, drop me a line in the comment box.  I'm open to suggestions.  

Dreaming Our Dreams Into Reality - Part 1

In a world where we are bombarded by technology and a need to do more, go faster, and have instantaneous results, how do we go about accomplishing our dreams?  Have our overstimulated brains and minds become so reliant on TV, the internet, and smart phones to tell us how to think that we have forgotten how to use our own imagination?  Or do we use these tools to help us expand our creativity?  I ask these questions and attempt to answer them just as much for myself as I do for you.

Imagination seems like a great place to start.  As William Arthur Ward said, "If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it."  Is it that simple?   

To put it another way, the Wright Brothers have been credited with saying, "If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance."

Wright Brothers Memorial, North Carolina

If so then maybe the starting place is every morning just before we get out of bed or every night before we doze into a blissful semi-comatose state, we take a few minutes to create our next painting.  We feel the textures.  We smell the paint itself.  We visualize the picture we are painting in our head.  We see the end result (in this case the painting itself hanging in a gallery or a museum).  

If our longtime dream has been to be a dancer, we would use all of our senses to hear and feel the music, our body flowing with it, the roar of the audience, and the freedom of pirouetting around the stage.  

Maybe it's more simple than that.  Maybe our only goal is to be a better parent or teacher or co-worker or neighbor so we imagine how our day will go.  We see how we are interacting with others in a positive way.  We see ourselves as light and happy.  The sky is NOT the limit.  

Take it as far as you would like and then take it a step further.  

Instead of dreading waking up tomorrow for fear that "Lucy" will dump yet another of your favorite perfumes down the toilet for the fifth time this week, see her perfect angelic face 

holding the perfume over the toilet but deciding to make another choice this day and she hands it to you smiling.  You dab a little on her wrists, paint each other's nails, and create a spa day.  You both have such fun that you plan a girl's day once a month, maybe sooner!  Voila!  "Lucy" is happier and so are you!

School is out of control.  You fear that every child walking upon the earth with a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD has landed in your classroom, and every night you worry yourself to sleep wondering who will do what this time.  After all this has been the scenario day after day since school started.  Why would it be any different now?  

Change it up!  Worrying is enforcing what you don't want.  Spend that time thinking about what your students and you would be like in a perfect world.  Be silly if you want but do it in a way that will be conducive to all.   

Are you getting the picture?  Imagination and creativity does not have to be used only for the great and wonderful achievements that have been on our to do list practically since grade school but also for the every day, mostly appearing mundane activities.  We don't have to be a re-run in our own lives.  We can create the lives we choose every day, brand new.  Hooray for us!

Please don't think because I'm writing about this that I have it all together.  I am a work in progress, learning just like you, and some days are better than others but, in the end, I only have myself to thank for the good, the bad, and the outright ugly.  This is not to say I am an island unless I choose to be, but that I am creating it as we all are, which is marvelous!  If I am creating it, it means I also have the power to change it or re-create it. Fun times!  We get to choose a new day EVERY day!