The Sky is Not the Limit; Your Imagination Is

Think you need to travel the country to get great photos?  Not so.  Start in your own backyard...where you live.  There is plenty to see and do.  Places you may know about, but tourists can't seem to find. You know, those off the beaten path spaces that you visit when you want to be alone.

If there isn't any of those to your knowledge, any location will do.   This local venue could've been seen and photographed numerous times but no one is viewing it quite like you.   We all see life through our own filters, lenses, and experiences so no two people will be alike.  They will look at the same photograph and see it completely different.  We are wonderful, unique beings!

Ocean View Pier, Norfolk, VA

Another angle, another effect of Ocean View Pier

Ocean View Pier at Night

Even as we learn and grow, what we observe may transform so a photo you took in the past, may show much diversity and contrast today compared to then.

Another tip:  photograph what you love and that love will shine through.  For me, the beach is a sacred space.

Crabbing at Sunset on Chix Beach

Whatever your pleasure is, it's there waiting for you.  What's taking you so long?  Go out and claim it whatever it may be!

The sun will never set exactly the same way or with the same colors.

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!