This blog is at the end of chapter one. This first chapter was about doing something creative five days a week and uploading it for the world to see. The second (hidden) goal of this blog was to document my thoughts and interests for two years. I started writing this blog about two weeks before the birth of my daughter. The premise of keeping a working portfolio for my daughter to look back upon sat well with me. I wanted something more than a handwritten journal but nothing with too much editing (besides grammar), I wanted to keep the work real. I will get the archives of the past two years printed in a book and save it for my daughter to read when she’s older. I wonder if the words “blog” and “upload” will still be in use when she reads this.
This blog has been a complete success and a complete failure. The success part has been the marketing it has provided me with to sustain our business. Blogging is sort of a backdoor marketing plan. If you keep at it, it pays off better then spending money on advertising. Another triumph is achieving the goal of creating 600 new posts in two years. It just feels good to complete a goal. The final accomplishment is the documentation of two years of my life to hand down to my daughter. I’m sure she will find this blog to be odd and weird but hey, I’m Dad.
The failure has been the online store. To my own confession I did not work the online store very well. One, I did not write or post many photos about it. Two, I did no other social networking type of marketing to grow the business. No matter how you slice it, the online store is a bust.
To my delight the blog supported the greater of the two needs. There is more money to be made off of selling photography services than there is in just selling prints. Here is a tip to all you photogs out there; People pay for the service of what you do not see more than the product you would think should be seen. What I mean by that is everybody has a camera but not too many people kno whow to take a photograph.
Chapter Two
There will be a slight change in what my goals are for this blog. The slight change will be the lack of goals. I will not force myself to post five times a week (but probably will). The photography focus will be on ambient art and the written topics will still be compositions, journals, rants, moments and photos of the week. I will start some new projects and relationships in 2008.
Thank you to all for hanging out with me and reading this blog…
