First Photography Sales for 2013
My first five photography sales for 2013
Wednesday has become the day I crow a bit about my photography sales. When last we met, I showed my sales for 2012. In 2013, I sold twenty-five greeting cards between March 11th and November 29th. Most of those sales were to someone in New Mexico who bought eighteen cards showing government buildings. Of those eighteen, they purchased most on June 4th, then came back and bought a few more on September 10th. Mind you, I assume it was the same purchaser. All the sales went to New Mexico, and all had the same theme. But Red Bubble doesn’t give me a name, so I can only make the assumption. What follows is a brief description of the first five photography sales of 2013.
The Mount Olive United Methodist Church
When my father attended West Virginia Wesleyan College in the early 1940s, he served a circuit, or what we now call a yoked parish, of six rural churches in north central West Virginia. I no longer remember all six, but I know that one of his churches was in Jarvisville. It was not this church, however. In the 1940s, this church belonged to the United Brethren denomination–the church my father grew up in. There are plenty of Methodist churches in West Virginia, and since 1968, most, if not all, of the United Brethren churches became Methodist as well. The church my father served was just down the road a piece.
In 2007, while driving the back roads of Harrison County, I found this church and decided I needed to photograph it. I have several photos from all sides of the church. According to the sign on the face of the building, the church dates from 1855 and 1902. Another assumption, but I believe that the two dates indicate an expansion of the church building. Of course, it could indicate that the church was rebuilt after a fire or some other calamity. I really don’t know. What I do know is that on March 11th, 2013, someone in Ohio bought three greeting cards with the image shown at the top of this page.
Sanderlings and Surf
If you’re following my blog, you’ve seen this image before. Someone from Oregon bought it in the form of a greeting card on August 29th, 2011. As I noted in my earlier post, this is one of my favorite photographs, and a framed print of it hangs above my fireplace. In case you didn’t see that post, here’s the story of the photograph.
On December 21st, 2006, I took my new Nikon D80 camera north to Douglas County, Oregon. Between the Siuslaw River in Lane County and the Coos River in Coos County, the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area stretch some forty miles along the Oregon coast. Winchester Bay is roughly half-way along, southwest of the town of Reedsport. High on a bluff sits the Umpqua River Lighthouse. The photo above was taken below the lighthouse, south of the river’s mouth. As I’ve said before, this is one of my favorite photographs, and on March 21st, 2013, someone in Northumberland, UK, bought it as a greeting card. This was my second sale to someone in the UK, and only my third sale outside the U.S.
More Sales of Court House Photography
On April 25th, 2013, someone in Maryland bought two greeting cards showing court houses. The first was the Wetzel County Court House in New Martinsville, West Virginia. The courthouse backs up to the Ohio River, which you can just see on the left side of the photograph. There is a plaque by the front doors showing the high water marks from earlier Ohio River floods.
The Virginia Legislature created Wetzel County in 1846, taking land from Tyler County. Wetzel County’s northern border is the Mason-Dixon line which separates Wetzel from Marshall County. The county takes its name from Lewis Wetzel, a notorious Indian killer of pre-revolutionary times. The statue at the south-east corner of the building is of Levi Morgan, another West Virginia frontiersman.
The second greeting card shows the Arkansas County Courthouse in Dewitt, Arkansas. I took the photograph on the way home from spending a month in West Virginia. Kevin and I followed the song’s directions and “took the long way home.” We drove from Columbus, Ohio to Starkville, Mississippi, then headed northwest into Arkansas. Arkansas County sits on the Mississippi River, and the County Seat, Dewitt, is due east of Pine Bluff.
And two State Capitol Buildings–Photography Sales in 2013
On June 4th, 2013, someone in New Mexico bought a whole slew of county court house photos, all in the form of greeting cards. We’ll get into those next week. This week, let’s just look at the two state capitol buildings that were part of that sale.
The first was the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines. I photographed this building on my 6,000 Mile Sunday Drive. While I took a good many photographs on that trip, I collected approximately fifty of those and published them in a book through blurb.com. Should you be interested in such things, you can purchase the book directly from blurb at this link. I had a great time on the trip, connected up with several family members, and made memories that will last the rest of my life.
I certainly enjoyed my time in Iowa. Never before had I been in Iowa, and had no intention of doing anything other than driving across it, north to south. Instead, I stayed a week at a gay campground west of Des Moines and even attended the Tom Harkins Steak Fry where Democratic presidential candidates all showed up to shake hands and give speeches prior to the 2008 elections. What an experience.
The other state capitol photograph that my New Mexico customer bought was our Montana State Capitol in Helena. I love our state capitol and love photographing it. There is a flower bed in front of the building where each year, the year is shown in blooming flowers. (My 2007 photo of the capitol is one of the images in the 6,000 Mile Sunday Drive book mentioned above.)
And that’s all for now.
Next week, we’ll look at the rest of my photography sales in 2013. Most were county court houses, and all were greeting cards. Until then,
TTFN.
