I’m always a little surprised by where I am today. I never expected to be at the point where creative endevours was my primary goal. And by creative I mean painting, photography or woodworking. Of the three I would say photography is where I’m most skilled.
Yet here I am, entering art shows, volunteering for the local art guild and spending an enormous amount of energy getting this website up and running. But even during this process, my mind returns to what I’ve created and what I may yet create.
Going through images of past work, I find myself thinking about how I might have gone a different route with some pieces. I’m also thinking about creating a completely different piece that might be related to what I’m viewing.
Looking back I’ve previously been concerned with just making a living, providing for my family, taking care of my husband. Art was there but it was never in the forefront. I’m reminded of my variation of the successful versus starving artist comparison. I believe that for every successful artist there are a thousand more of equal or greater talent that simply haven’t been discovered. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be discovered, but I can say that I’ve been more successful of late when it comes to selling my works. I joke and say I want to be the next David Yarrow. If you’ve never heard of him do a Internet search. His wildlife work is beyond amazing. Hell, thinking about it, I’d gladly be his assistant as long as he paid expenses. Especially if it was duing one of his trips to Africa, Antartica, or Alaska.
I’ve had my share of photography trips, but not at the level of David Yarrow. My husband and I have travelled quite a bit, but it has been so he could spend time with his sisters, who both currently live in Germany. They are from Ukraine. My goal is photography, but destinations tend towards the “tourist” genre. Paris and London we’ve been to several times. Australia we went to by ourselves and I went crazy with taking photographs. Misha, my husband has mentioned Japan a few times. Having lived there I wasn’t all that keen on returning, but on reflection, a return with the idea of seeing more of the country might be a good idea.
2015 is the year I began to take photography seriously. In my 20s I bought a Ricoh XR7 kit which included a 35mm, 50mm, 70mm, and a 2X converter. I later added a 300mm. As much as I enjoyed working with that camera I wasn’t that serious about photography. Film while not horribly expensive, was an expense, and the cost of processing kept me from experimenting as much as I would like to. I’ve never had a darkroom, so I relied entirely on commercial developers.
Digital came of age and I stopped using my Ricoh. Actually I pretty much stopped taking photographs. I do mean taking because I was no where near “making” photographs. I continued to paint and draw and then fortune smiled and I landed a job as a graphic designer. My first husband had taught me to use Photoshop, at least enough to do some basic editing. By this time I had also finished my degree in Computer Science specializing in Web Development, so graphic design wasn’t that much of a stretch. I might have made a career of it, except that the job was with a newspaper and the design world isn’t impressed with the skills of newspaper artists. We’re viewed as hacks and I can’t really argue the point, but I’d like to see an “agency” artist handle deadlines, last minute changes all while producing up to 100 ads in a single day. Maybe there is a touch of sour grapes in that statement.
I worked for the newspaper for 8 years and my knowledge of Photoshop as well as Quark and later InDesign increased. I won’t claim to be an expert, but my Photoshop skills are above average. Disaster struck and after 12 years together, I lost my husband to a heart attack. This was a life changing event in so many ways. I had been laid off from the newspaper along with all but 3 of the artists that had worked there. I think at the heyday there about 40 artist. Yeah, the Internet was killing the newspaper industry and I’m one of the victims if you will. Mark was why I was in South Carolina. With his passing I decided it was time to go back home to Maryland.
As it turned out, I didn’t exactly return to Maryland. Instead I stayed with my sister in nearby Delaware. My first concern was finding a job, any kind of job. I tried finding employment in the graphic design field but constantly ran into that “newspaper hack” designation. I won’t say it was desperation, but I briefly worked for Amazon in a warehouse. Not something I enjoyed and it didn’t last long. With no other prospects in mind I decide to try apartment management again. I had worked in the field for many years, in the capacity of property manager, maintenance manager, and maintenance technician. I applied for and landed a job in the field and that took me to New Jersey. For my purposes, that was close enough.
I won’t say property management is at the top of my list for things I want to do with my life, but it paid the bills and gave me a little breathing space. It also led me to meeting my current husband. He alone is well worth whatever aggravation property management gave me.
Then there was the day I lucked into a Nikon D90 kit with a 50mm lens and a 300mm lens. That was also about the time my husband and I took our first Alaska trip. For the first time I was actively making photographs, being conscious of exposure and composition. From that trip came “Alaska Sunset” and “Clouds and Fog”. I had caught the bug and it wasn’t long before I bought a Nikon D7100. I took several online courses to brush up and increase my technical knowledge.
I continued to work in property management for a few years and then decided to make the switch to real estate sales. It seemed to be a logical progression. My years of property management gave me what I considered to be a very good perspective of real estate. Maybe, maybe not. One of the greatest challenges facing a new real estate agent is gaining clients. Sales of any stripe is tough, real estate is very challenging.
While I was trying to establish myself as a sales agent, I quickly realized that I did have one very marketable skill in real estate and that was photography. I had the equipment and the skills. I took an online course and talked to several fellow agents. I could provide photographs that were every bit as good as anyone else in the field, and in a lot of cases better. I began to learn how to take video for real estate, and acquired a drone and a Part 107 license. I tried to make it as an independent, but self marketing is not my strong suit. I wound up with an agency and for a time even worked for Zillow. There are of course pros and cons to agency work. Zillow in my experience paid the best but also demanded the most. Demanded not only skills but a lot of travel. It didn’t happen every day, but there were a few times when my day started in New Jersey and ended in Chester County, Pennsylvania. If you can stand the travel, Zillow, or technically Showingtime+, is a decent gig.
One thing I do want to cover about real estate photography is that photography is only part of the picture. At this stage, agents want photos including drone, video and walk through tours like Matterport or Zillow. And agents want all of this from the same person. They do not want to schedule a photographer, a videographer and a drone pilot all separately. They want one person who can do it all. So for anyone who is thinking about getting into the business, make sure you can do it all. One of the four primary skills won’t get you far.
Which brings me to now. Technically I am fully retired, and a man of leisure. What that really means is I’m concentrating on art. I haven’t painted in a few years, but I know that will happen again. My relationship with painting has always been on again, off again. I may go for years doing nothing and then within the space of a couple of months or so churn out a dozen or more paintings.
My main concentration is currently abstract photography. I’ve gone through a paper phase, a smoke phase and currently am looking for anything where form and color presents an interesting visual. Mix in the odd floral, landscape, or portrait session, and that can sum up any individual day. That or mowing the lawn.