Summer Night Sticks To My Skin

After yesterday’s rant I calmed down. I brought my thoughts back to what really matters. Reflection and review brought me to a quiet place. We all need a quiet place. Especially now, when external forces are attacking us from everywhere. As Bob Dylan once wrote, “You won’t get out of here unscathed.” And, they won’t.

That’s only self defense. What matters is my insides and how they relate to my outsides. Same thing for you.

So.

For today, and just for today, I’m balanced. As we used to say, I’m mellow.

My thoughts on this quiet day, the first day of October in the month of goblins and ghouls?

I learned something a long time ago. A little over 27 years ago. Just do what I can and let the rest go. I can’t help with the rest anyway. I don’t have the power, the reach and contacts to do some of the things that need doing.

What’s my next best step?

My photo business is almost non-existent. Even though I split my time between two careers, I kept the picture making very viable. Along came CoVid 19. Nobody wants a picture because what are they going to do with them? It’s likely that their business are suffering.

Then, this week. Three deep archive sales. I’ve told you about them. I may have said that I started thinking after one art director told me why he reached out. Unique and better work. That’s what he was after. I can’t help thinking that picture buyers are getting tired of reaching Instagram for new and viable photographers.

Besides, Google released a new and better way to search for images. There’s a little backend work but after you’ve completed that, art users can find you easily.

I have another website. http://www.laskowitzpictures.com. I built it as a portfolio site. Guess what? They’ve added new software the for a couple of kinds of sales. You can put up light boxes and let your client see and select the work that fills their needs.

Or, you can use a store front and sell fine art directly to the client. They select the art, pay for it and off it goes to the printer who ships it to them. It won’t be signed, but you can work around that and have the finished print sent back to you.

You can do both methods of selling your work.

It’s going to be a lot of work and many long nights, but I’m going to make my website be the heart of my “new” business. It is also something I can build during pandemic times when nobody is hiring photographers to make pictures of anything.

Wish me luck.

The picture. It’s the all seeing dog’s fault. Once we went outside, she headed straight to my car. She stood her ground. She was looking up at the car.

Okay, I thought. She’s always right. Normally, on a drive, she curls up and sleeps in the backseat. Not this time, she sat on the front seat. She wanted the window open. She got her way. She was being a dog.

She watched as we drove. Finally, she started barking. This is the place.

That was fine with me. We took a walk in a place we didn’t know. If you look at the gate, you might notice that is secured. You need card key to get in. Somebody jammed that up with a piece of cardboard, so in we went.

But.

Before we went exploring, I made a bunch of pictures at the gate because the light was streaming through the trees.

I couldn’t resist.

I have to admit I did a lot of work on the picture in post production. I made a lot of versions of it. I saw some muted work somewhere, so I tried that. Nah.

I settled on an early version of this picture and fine tuned it.

That’s what you see in front of you.

Stay safe. Stay mighty. As cities start letting people do things again wear your mask.

One more thing. I have a young friend. I’ve known her since she was 17. She’s in her late thirties now. Her doctors predicted that she wouldn’t live until she was 30 because she had cancer. She survived. Of course cancer treatment weakens your body.

She caught the virus. She survived that too, but it left with inflammation of her heart, kings and belly. She’s been in the hospital twice for that.

I have a really bad feeling. I don’t get them often, but when I do they are usually right.

Have a good thought for her. Do whatever you do. Please.