Change your clothes

Yeah and that portfolio should include all your work, those are some beautiful landscape you took on your trip!

You are a photographer.
You don't need people modelling to take amazing photos.

Getting any kind of business discount would be great. Tax exempt status on purchases would probably be not worth the bookkeeping. All that would be tax exempt is stuff for direct resale. And Texas, bless its pea pickin' little heart, is a mad house. The various tax jurisdictions have been known to change from one side of the street to the other.

Agree on the gallery idea. Remember, I mentioned that in ABQ! Galleries sometimes include restaurants, coffee houses, local bookstores, etc. Your portraits are fine art quality. So are some of the cemetary shots. I'll bet you have more. See if you can work a deal with a framer to place their cards where your work is displayed. That's worth something to them.

Re: commercial work...
Put together a really good book, and fill it with the sort of shots agencies are looking for. You can stage your own photos--they don't have to be ones you've done for real clients. The idea is to show them you can do corporate shots, CEO portraits and the like. Also, include some product photography. (I know, I know, you'd rather shoot people. But there's a TON of work out there doing studio shots for catalogs. It's fast, easy, and you can do it year 'round. Sometimes it's nice not to have to work around other people's schedules.)

My mother is retired from a library that has done little photography shows; perhaps your local library would be interested? Particularly if you and Bean go there a lot.

PS Yes I've been following this. Go for it. Life's too short.

Can you turn one of your photos of Dys into a CEO shot?

That'd really show your brilliance!

Restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, libraries, theaters, waiting rooms....... there are many venues in which to hang art. We even have a mini gallery in an ice cream shop nearby.

Shewolf, I am astounded by your work. I think it is bullshit that you need a degree. Maybe for the corporate world you'd be better off with one, but if you can present a portfolio like you can put together, it doesn't seem likely that a degree with improve your chances that much more.

Try it first without a degree. Maybe you can fund your degree with the work you get without one.

Shewolf,

Remember awhile back we were all helping Sozobe look for children's entertainment places in the Columbus area for the Sozlet's birthday party?

We were coming up with all sorts of companies that provide in-home kid entertainment for parties.

That's something you might try hooking up with as a freelance photographer. Offer to give the entertainment party company a very small referal fee for any work that comes your way via them. Include the local pizza parlors and other places where kids have their birthday parties.

Getting to expose your talents to all those familes who attended the parties will help your business grow exponentially as they look for someone to fill their own photography needs rather than going to the mall for portrait photos.

Also, hook up with local small business associations in your area. New businesses are always looking for people to photograph themselves and their products. You can get in on the ground floor of a new business with your work and become their place to go for photography.

Same goes for the local realtor associations. They're always wanting new photos of themselves for their ads, as well as the properties they're marketing. Specialize in new realtors and helping them to distinguish themselves from others with your style of photography.

I want to take a flying leap here and I could use some opinions.
(whats new eh? )

I am eligible to submit my photos to a really large, very well known Photography/Art center.

I have photos that will ( I think.. ) fall in line with thier theme of --




My photos from inside the car on our trip caught a lot of 'waste', trash, and other excessive things..

I THINK ?

But .. are they what you would consider appropriate for this kind of entry?

Im going to link the ones I want to send below.

please let me know if you agree?





I think ^^this photo^^ applies because it was a yard overgrown and filled with trash, dead cars left to rot and completely unattended.
Great example of us.. just .. leaving things.. because we are no longer interested.




Again.. another example of what i said above.. just 'prettier'
and I have a feeling they dont want pretty....so to speak..









I also think I will go out and FIND more examples as well

But I really wonder if any of these show our environment of waste in a good way? In a way that an art gallery might want?

The winner gets cash and they have several awards to give.
But you also get gallery space for a year.
THAT.. would be amazing..

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I LOVE the one of the abandoned building. The abandoned car at the fence with the trash thrown everywhere also speaks to me.

The pictures don't have to show only waste -- just represent the footprint that humanity is leaving behind. Can you think of some good ways that people are trying to help the environment and get a picture or two representing good? Also, switching back to bad (I think your car picture captures ugly in a beautiful way), can you think of areas that are particularly polluted... skanky water, three-legged frogs, smoke-stacks?

I can not think of a place HERE like that.

Austin is truly a snob when it comes to trash

but that does not mean that there isnt something I am missing.

I plan on looking over the next couple of days.
I have a few ideas of places to go and one requires a boat rental which excites me

I would be tempted to expose the underlying hypocrisy of claiming to "go green" through the photos.

That way on the surface you can show eco-concern, but for those that see the true undercurrents, they would know the empty claim for what it most often is: a knee-jerk, feel-good, pop-culture, guilt-driven response, to conditions and circumstances most often very poorly understood.

Many of the great visual artists have undercurrents of skepticism / critique / cynicism.......and I would argue rightly so!

Chumly.


I . love . you. .

I can get things like Hummers parked outside of conservation halls


Super wealthy people , living in excess, excessive homes, large vehicles, overly processed hair screaming about organic foods



Starving vegans wearing leather


Homeless people being shunned by conservationists.. because they would rather hold a sign then feed a person

and Austin?

is full of this ..


overflowing..

My brain is racing.

Your most kind!

The true intent, and full history of the The Little Dancer by Degas comes to mind.

Someone coming out of Capers or Whole Foods with a plastic non-recyclable bag.

A wealthy person coming out of Walmart

capturing black smoke coming out from a car exhaust / clogged traffic

waste food outside a restaurant - you know, the bins at the back where everything is just trashed and wasted unnecessarily - decomposition

scavengers / landfill

smog rises in city / air quality

overflowing water in street

very old buildings next to brand new modern

pollution in a beautiful area (forest / stream / lake...)

damage caused by the weather

heat rising off ground

trees cut down / wasted paper

engangered species

erosion ......

Look for houses with solar panels on them and SUVs and Hummers parked in front.

Austin's City Hall has solar panels on the roof. Take a picture of that which also shows all the SUVs in the parking lot at City Hall.

Texas is home to the biggest tire dump in the country. Look for a smaller, local one and juxtapox it against one of the pristeen parks or neighborhoods.

Go to the local landfill and hang around a bit. You'll find some interesting things to photograph that have been dumped. You'll also find kids playing around in it while parents pick through the stuff people dump looking for items to take away for their own use. You'll also find big tractors just covering the stuff up with dirt for later generations to deal with.

Go to the local recyling center and take photos of the people and doings there. This website has the addresses of the local Austin ones.

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/default.htm

Same for the farmer's market and folks buying locally grown produce.

This imate of yours has a lot of messages in it too. Give it some consideration.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shewolfnm/2510381282/



You might come up with some more ideas from this 2007 article from the Austin Chronicle on ideas for going green.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A511012

I just love you.
Have I told you that ?

You are freaking awesome.

As an aside, I am not against the idea of being responsible to the planet, but it's quite clear we give only a passing nod in the direction of ecological sanity.

Separating your garbage, recycling, driving a smaller car, etc are all quite meaningless in the longer term big picture.

Why?

Because they are all mere gestures when compared to the underlying causes.