Photography Sales in 2010

Promotion is everything

After a nice start selling twelve items in 2009, I sold five in 2010. Three of those were calendars that someone in Montana bought on February 4th. In March and June I sold a greeting card each. And that was it. No sales at all for the rest of the year. I’m sure it was my fault. I wasn’t promoting my sales. At this point, I believe that the three sales were to the same colleague who purchased so many calendars in 2009. In any event, I continued adding items to my Red Bubble gallery and sat back. That’s right, I hoped people would somehow find my gallery and buy my art. Guess it doesn’t work that way. The rest of this post will look at my photography sales in 2010. All five of them. Not a long post today.

Welcome to Port Orford

A view of the Pacific Ocean from Port Orford Head, Oregon
A View From Port Orford Head
Port Orford, Oregon

I no longer know which twelve photographs I used to make the Welcome to Port Orford calendar. I have taken around two hundred photographs in that lovely coastal town. However, I did not buy one of the calendars. What I do know for sure is that the photo at the top of this page was the cover photograph. I also know that the one just above was not in the collection. How do I know this? I took the photograph opening this section on November 5th, 2012, almost three years after I sold the calendar.

Port Orford is one of my favorite places on the Oregon Coast. I could return there over and over and never get tired of the scenery. I’m especially fond of the view above. And when I look at the different products Red Bubble makes with it, I just want to buy them all. Well, maybe not all. The mini-skirt makes me snicker because of placement of that sea stack. Nuff said?

Pacific Coast Lighthouses

The Yaquina Bay Lighthouse in Newport, Oregon.  One of my photography sales in 2010.
Yaquina Bay Lighthouse
Newport, Oregon

The second of my photography sales in 2010 was another calendar. This calendar consisted of twelve photographs of lighthouses. They went from Alki Point, Seattle in the north to Point Arena on California’s Mendocino Coast. Lighthouses are one of my favorite subjects, but they can be tricky to photograph. Coastal light is always changing. Then there’s the fog. Grabbing a lighthouse with beautiful blue skies is, in my experience, an anomaly. I was fortunate on April 30th, 2008 when I took this portrait of the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse in Newport, Oregon. The lighthouse operated for three years only (1871-1874). The Yaquina Head Lighthouse replaced it, just a few miles north. I love this photograph and feel it would be a beautiful framed print in a home with a nautical theme. Or maybe a jigsaw puzzle?

Coastal Views

The Coast Guard Cutter Dorado and the Battery Point Lighthouse in Crescent City, California
“For Those in Peril on the Sea
Crescent City, California

I happen to have my own copy of this calendar, another of my photography sales in 2010. The view above is one of my favorites. (I seem to have a lot of favorites, don’t I.) This image always gets me singing the hymn Melita, Eternal Father Strong to Save. The final line of that hymn’s first two stanzas is “For Those in Peril on the Sea.” The juxtaposition of the Coast Guard Cutter Dorado and the Battery Point Lighthouse speaks deeply to me. I used this image for February in the calendar Coastal Views. I know I’ve said it before, but I am really sad that Red Bubble no longer offers calendars among the many products they do produce.

Pattern on Pattern–another of my photography sales in 2010

A self portrait torso, nude, lying on a porch swing.  (No naughty bits visible.)
Pattern on Pattern

I do take selfies from time to time, and even rather naughty ones. This image is fairly tame, at least to my eyes. It doesn’t violate any Facebook rules, for instance. And on March 14th, 2010, someone in Texas bought it as a greeting card. Not sure to whom he/she would send it, but what the hey. It is my body, and I’m not so ashamed of it that I don’t put such pictures out for sale. It is, however, naughty enough that Red Bubble considers it “adult” fare, and if you go to look for it there, you will be blocked unless you tell RB that you don’t mind seeing such images.

The Last of my Photography Sales in 2010

a home in Parkersburg, West Virginia.  The last of my photography sales in 2010.
Parkersburg Home
Parkersburg, West Virginia

The first of my international sales, this photo of a house in Parkersburg, West Virginia, caught the eye of someone in the United Kingdom.  Purchased on June 2, 2010, it was the last of my photography sales in 2010.  Not sure why nothing more sold, but again it probably comes down to a lack of promotion on my part.  I won’t let that happen again.  For what it’s worth, I took this photo on my birthday, October 17th, 2007.  Parkersburg is my mother’s home town and I have many cousins who still live there.

I hope my images have caught your eye and that you will consider them as gifts, either for yourself or for someone you love.  Again, let me post a link to my Red Bubble Gallery.  You’ll find all these images (just no calendars) and a lot more.  And Red Bubble does a very good job of putting artwork on a great variety of products.  Not just wall art (prints, posters, metal, acrylic) but clothing, bath mats and shower curtains and clocks as well.  I like their jig saw puzzles, and have a couple of their mugs in my kitchen.

So until tomorrow (Klickitat County Washington),

TTFN

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