Argh! Marketing!

Public Aclaim

My Taste

On my ever ongoing journey of "let's try and make (or at least not lose as much) money on photography" I'm finding the most difficult thing isn't the finding of amazing subjects and the taking and subsequent processing of photos but the business side of things.  Specifically the marketing side.  Everyone can love a photo but unless they love it so much they crack open the piggy bank and actually buy a copy that love doesn't really help my bottom line.  Which is unfortunate. 
 

Its also an ongoing guessing game as to which of my shots people will like.  Pictures I absolutely love, that speak to me on a deep level, get little to no reaction when posted online or shown at events.  But shots that I almost didn't even post or include get rave reviews.  Very confusing.  Very frustrating.  Because if I cave to the demands of popularity I lose what I feel makes my work interesting.  And since evidently I'm not good at predicting what the general populus will like probably not a good road for me to go down.  And if I continue to do work that interests me I don't make money.  Catch 22.  

Good thing I have a day job!

SEO is another thing driving me batty right now.  Shows won't let me include my business name, but if google-ed my name doesn't tie back to my online gallery.  We've spent almost a year building up the business name and now I have to build up my name as well.  Argh and argh and there's a reason I fix networks for a living!

visit Samantha Byrnes' gallery online...

Swirl Like Water

Swirl Like Water

More and more when I go out searching for flowers and plants to photograph its about my seeing the potential of items and bringing it out than finding the perfect flower.

And usually those items produce far more interesting final prints than that "perfect" flower.

Point in fact yesterday at Tagawa Gardens I picked up two crazy-looking air plants.  The name Google provided was Xerographica, a cluster of odd pale greenish gray tendrils.  They're hang suspended in my  loft on the same hooks that held my begonias at the first of the summer.  And when moved into the sun they illustrate a play of light and shadow in the swirls of the tendrils in pastels of grey and green, blue and maroon.

Like currents in the ocean almost...

visit Samantha Byrnes' online gallery