whatadqr's photostream  

I'm currently a full time Graphic Designer and part time Photographer. I now make a decent portion of my living from photography, which started initially as product and location work for my clients, and from referrals.

Photography has also become my main hobby, and as much as I like receiving income from it, I don't actually push that hard for gigs. I feel that as soon as I'm forced to make my living at it, it will become just another job and lose it's passion. By doing it part time, and only about as much as I choose, whenever I do get gigs, I never have to consciously decide if I'm working or playing.
;¬)

I tend to use flickr like facebook, so I post mostly hobby shots and day to day stuff for the benefit of friends, family, and fellow flickrites. I post very little of the paid work that I do since those images belong to the clients who paid for them. I'm becoming increasingly leery of internet thievery, so for privacy and copyright considerations, I prefer to leave the client work completely off of the open web. Of course that means that it appears as though all I shoot is landscapes and airshows, or whatever stuff I shoot for the hell of it, that day. For hobby fun, I like to experiment with different things, like macros, long exposures, and documentarian candids, trying out different styles to see what is involved, since they all require different skill sets. But for work, it's product shots, locations and architecture, and people shots, for brochures and advertising. I don't shoot for the 'art' or 'creative or emotional expression' of it all. Nor do I post to impress people on flickr, especially those who have an axe to grind over something I said in a critique group or discussion thread and want to 'judge' my skill by my photostream. There's no money in that, and it's not all that interesting to me.

I live here in sunny Southern California, where the weather is fabulous nearly year round, but am finding it crowded and a bit lacking in visual drama. Bad weather makes for dramatic landscapes, so my dream would to someday be able to move to a more seasonally dynamic part of the country, with a few less people and more wide open spaces. Los Angeles and San Diego aren't that far, and are more photographically interesting than the mild suburbia of Orange County, so at least that helps.

This is a set with some of my personal faves from my own photostream though I still struggle seeing through the eyes of others and determining what they would like best, rather than what I find interesting. The never ending learning involved in photography is both compelling and overwhelming at the same time. My philosophy is that it's never about achieving some imaginary level of mastery, but just to enjoy the process and be happy whenever there is even a tiny measure of growth along the way.

My Completely Useless Rant:
Caffeine is my drug of choice, and yes, I dig the whole Starbucks thing. I can't stand that Starbucks has somehow become the universal symbol of wasted money. Everywhere you turn some busy-body says something like, "Well, if you'd just give up your morning Starbucks, you could afford (fill in the blank / anything in the world)". Huh? Yeah, give up anything and you can buy something else with the money, duh! But what if that's just someone's thing? I buy a $2 cup of regular coffee a few times per week. I'm actually saving money, since by the time I would have bought the coffee myself, the filters, the sweetener, plus keep half&half handy, then spend the time on the set up, waiting and clean up, It would easily cost more than $2 to make it at home; plus I don't have a dirty cup to manage for the rest of the day as I take it around with me and bring it home to wash. If those people would use the time they spent on something productive instead of poking their noses into and trying to manage my business , they could afford (fill in the blank) too! So there!

Remember, when deciding the value of something, time is not worth zero!
;¬)


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