Catching up for 2009

It's been quite a while since I updated, so what have I been up to? I spent a lot of time enjoying myself, catching up on other hobbies, getting some stuff done around the house, all with some photography thrown in here and there. But as of June I'm stepping things back up again.

Late last year I upgraded to Lightroom 2.0 and discovered that my computer was way too slow to deal with it. So, this April I built a new computer and everything is running great. In June I took a trip to Yellowstone/Grand Tetons (and hit a few other places along the way), and although the weather wasn't the most cooperative for the photography I wanted to do, I managed to get by (though I got almost nothing in the way of sunrise/sunset, unfortunately).

I did my first show of the year in late June...the Northville Art in the Sun show that I was at last year. Whereas last year was pretty darn bad (just about broke even as I recall), this year was alright. Not superb, but better than a lot of shows I've done recently. I dropped the Livonia show I usually do in early June, as it has been absolutely terrible the last 2 years and I wasn't very thrilled with the way they were running the show. In exchange, I picked up 2 shows in mid September and early October, so I have 6 this year (and maybe more...I'm considering picking up 1 or 2 in Nov/Dec if I can find something worthwhile).

That about covers it for the most part. Not a whole lot beside just working on some new works, printing, matting, etc. I'm trying not to change a whole lot this year, as my goal is to keep costs down and try to actually turn a profit this year. I've been taking losses up to now because of how much money I had to spend between supplies, my camera and lenses, my wide format printer, the new booth and panels, etc. If I stick to the basics and most of my shows go decently, I'm hoping I can make it. It's not easy, as I'm always researching and thinking "I could buy this to make things easier, or build this thing to help organize things, or buy that to make my display nicer". For someone who is continually searching for ways to improve everything, it's not an easy thing to do, but I'm trying to restrain myself.