If you like colors (who doesn't) here's a photographer you'll like

My friend Maura has her new website up (common theme these days!). She has some wonderful images of flowers, cityscapes and people. Here photo of Picadilly Circus is a favorite of mine.

Well done Maura!

Great meeting today with the Classic Car Gallery in Southport Connecticut

I met with Alan Goodman at the Classic Car Gallery today. We've been discussing some type of show to display my images in his showroom. This meeting he brought up a great new opportunity, a "Carbecue". They aren't roasting old Ford Pintos, but they will have a meetup of local car enthusiasts, classic car guys and the like. He'll serve hot dogs and hamburgers and invite one of the local radio stations to broadcast from the event.

So Alan offered me the opportunity to have a vendor tent and sell images. Wooohooo! Mark your calendars... August 30th from 10:00 - 2:00 we'll be havin' a blast at the Classic Car Gallery.

What to do with $150

Last week I answered a trivia question in a Berlinetta Motorcars email. I got the answer right, and for being the first person to respond with the correct answer I won $150 gift certificate to the store of my choice. I usually go with Amazon, but to help build my photo business I figured it would be best if I had the credit at a photo store So I chose Adorama.

Adorama carries just about anything I need for the camera, so it seemed like a good choice. Now what do I get? $150 is a lot but not enough to get what I really need (body, tele-zoom, etc.). Oh well, it's a good problem to have!

Five photos in the Fairfield Arts Council show

During July I have five photos in the Fairfield Arts Council show: Fairfield in the Movies. This was a juried competition, however nearly 200 images made the cut. Anyhow, I am glad mine are on display. The show runs through the end of the month. More information at http://www.fairfieldartscouncil.org/

Moving to PhotoShelter

Early last month, I attended a seminar at Adorama about photo websites and SEO. The seminar was hosted by Allen Murabyashi, the CEO and one of the founders of PhotoShelter. I was expecting the seminar to be a sales show for PhotoShelter's advantages. But it wasn't. Or was it?

I'm not really sure, truthfully, Mr. Murabyashi did not talk much about PhotoShelter. But what he did talk about made me realize my current site (a scrappy Dreamweaver site married to a Backprint ecommerce platform) was not working hard enough for me. And to get it SEO ready would take a lot of work. Plus, the site just looks so 1997.

Yesterday, I bit the bullet and started uploading galleries onto PhotoShelter. I really like the integration with Aperture and the pulling in of the meta data. There is a lot of customization available that I have yet to explore, but so far it looks a lot easier than creating this on my own in Dreamweaver.

I guess the proof will be in how many photos I sell. First I need to finish the site. Stay tuned!