Last Chance to Enter Photo Contest

Procrastinators, listen up! The deadline for my online photo contest is fast approaching. You need to email your images to me by midnight on November 30 to be eligible. Check my web site for complete instructions. Don't put it off any longer—send your image today!

Google Knows Who’s Talking About You

Google is as deep as you look. Recently, I signed up for Google Alerts which sends me an email every time my name is mentioned on the internet. You can set an alert to watch for anything—photography fellowships, portrait competitions, humpback whales, whatever. Try to target the search as narrowly as possible to avoid being inundated with alerts. It’s been interesting to see where my name pops up. There’s a high school swimmer named Molly Ahearn whose name pops up in the local papers occasionally. I’m quietly watching her career develop. I wonder if she’s watching mine…

Meet Moll Diavolo

In September’s Art Calendar, I caught a little side note about a blog dedicated to opportunities for artists in Second Life. For those of you unfamiliar with Second Life, it is a virtual 3-D illustrative world that mirrors the real world in every way—currency, home buying and building, shopping—except it is a complete fantasy. The first thing you do is create an ‘avatar’ to represent yourself. This is where the fantasy begins. You can be blonde, tall, muscled, sexy, tattooed, whatever you’ve most desired. My second life name is Moll Diavolo and she’s a vampy babe with a muscled butt (the view I see most frequently).

Having created Moll, I was ready to navigate to Artropolis, the place Ann Aubree created for her virtual ethnography project. Trouble is I couldn’t figure out how to get there. The graphics load in slower than your navigational instructions, so I frequently found myself in a hole, or wall, or under the ocean. I gave up on Artropolis and did a search for art galleries. Bohemia—Home of True Creators & Artists—sounded intriguing. A collection of studios along a tree-lined walkway, I tried to find some art. One studio I entered showed promise. A pig was roasting over a fire and a mouse kept dashing by at my feet. Gray squares—presumably art—were hung on the walls. But as long as I stayed there waiting for the graphics to load, nothing appeared in the gray squares. Sigh.

I searched for photographers. The Google-like search feature turned up 493 results and a sidebar filled with paid classified ads(!) I checked the International Photographers Society, a club for real life photographers who want to promote and sell their real life work in this make-believe world. A window popped up with what looked like it could be a directory but I was unable to make it do anything. Is my computer too slow?

Then somehow I clicked something that landed me in Artropolis! Happy accident. It’s a cool place with virtual art! And, my ‘fly’ capability was activated. I took off and flew around the island. Now I see what people like about second life—flying. I had a little trouble landing, but what fun.

I never ran into another person which was kind of a relief. What would you say? What are their expectations? Will they be themselves, or a make-believe person? I can’t say that I’m a convert, or that I’ll return, or that I can see how it would help your art career. Have you been? What do you think?

No More Shelter

Sad news to report. Photoshelter, the stock photo company that was founded on the idea that artists should make the lion’s share of sales revenues, has had to admit defeat. Their business model apparently didn’t translate into a profit for themselves.

Though I’d yet to make a sale through Photoshelter, I’d had over 100 of my images selected by their staff to sell and was very excited about the longterm prospects of selling through them online. Maybe there are other good places. I’ll keep you posted if I find any.

Make Your Own Book—and Sell It!

If you’ve always dreamed of being published, the internet has made it a quick and easy-to-accomplish task. The first thing you need to do is decide what the purpose of the book is and whether you’re going to sell it. If you want a beautiful coffee table-style book of your photography or artwork, you will need high-resolution output, quality paper and a hardbound cover, then blurb.com is a good place to look. For really high-end books check out loxleycolour.com (leather covers!) or photobookpress.com. If it’s more important to keep the price low, consider lulu.com or winkflash.com. I recently used lulu to print programs for my True Cowgirls show. An 8-1/2 x 11, 44-page book with a color cover and b/w inside pages only cost me about $6/per book including shipping. The quality of the printing on the inside leaves something to be desired and I learned the hard way not to have images fill the full size of the page, but at a selling price of $12, many people bought a copy.

All of these sites offer templates that you can download and insert your own images and text. Some of the templates are more artful than others, but using their templates certainly makes the process fast and easy. Since I’m a graphic designer, I prefer to design my own layout using InDesign (layout software by Adobe) and upload a print-ready PDF file. This takes more time, but allows me to maintain a similar ‘look’ to all of my printed pieces.

The beauty of these online sites is that you can publish on demand. In other words, you’re not required to print more than one copy at a time. While this makes the books more expensive for small quantities, you’re only printing what you want to sell or give away. So, if you want to make a big impression at your next pitch to a new client, design a custom book especially for that meeting. You can also make the book available for the general public to buy (and make millions!). The top sellers at lulu are e-Start Your Web Store with Zen Cart, How to Become an Alpha Male, and You Can Beat Prostate Cancer.

With the holidays approaching, making a book is a personal and special gift. Consider a cookbook of family recipes, turn your blog into a book, share your antique car hobby, make an unforgettable record of last summer’s vacation, document your family’s geneology, write a songbook of your original music, or be brave and launch that novel.

Central Park Draped in Fall Color

Ryley and I spent the weekend with our dear friend Paula at her new place in New York City. We spent Saturday afternoon wandering in Central Park. The leaves were in brilliant Fall plumage and the city was busy preparing for Sunday’s marathon. You never know what you’re going to see there. A woman posing as a statue. Break dancers flipping like pancakes. Avid birdwatchers with scopes. A squirrel that stood on its hind legs and danced like the critter in Caddyshack. Unfortunately, the line was long and the minimum age was 16 to get into the Chanel Zaha Hadid building, so we didn’t see that.