New Year's Eve Eve

It’s nearly the end of 2008; only one more day. Although there were notable successes and achievements in 2008 (the photo show comes to mind with all the friends that came), I am looking forward to 2009 and the start of financial recovery for many including yours truly.

We had a quiet Christmas after the hectic first two weeks in December. Our week at Fort Clinch in the RV didn’t quite work out as planned. We anticipated a quiet, lay-low week with occasional jaunts to the house to take of miscellany. But last-minute prep for Christmas and various other tasks resulted in being out of the park for most of every day; returning at dusk. To simplify things, we ended up eating most meals away from the RV (less clean-up; fewer things to move in/out). Suki-the-cat did not make the trip! He ran every time Margaret tried to corral him. Probably for the best since we were gone so much and it was not a good place for him to roam outdoors.

A benefit of our short stay was we did get to walk the beach in the early morning and late afternoon. Besides the obvious enjoyment, I learned / discovered “beach” photography! That may sound strange but my thoughts on “beach” photography was there was nothing to take a picture of! Why, you ask? Other than the early morning sunrise / late p.m. sunset, photos of surf and sand can be pretty blah!

Well, as luck would have it, we had several mornings of fog which made for some interesting stuff. That plus some fun shapes / patterns discovered along the way. I now believe I have “local” photos to add to my portfolio of mountains et.al. We’re still in the thinking stage, but several of these (and their ilk) are possible candidates for local postcards and note-cards that could be offered in the local tourist “traps” and a gallery (if we ever find / decide on one for my photos).

Finally, the snags of getting my web-site up and running have been “solved”. Specifically, I signed up with one web-site company but they weren’t aimed at photography and I could never get the pages to accept my stuff. So I found another photography-oriented company. It has taken nearly a month to resolve the issues of domain name ownership and transfer to the new company. The new company (www.photobiz.com) says I should be up by the end of this week (Jan 2nd). But I’m taking that with a grain or two of salt since I’ve heard that before. Keep your fingers crossed.

Photo Show - a success!

What a wild ride! Since I last wrote, our daughter Carol arrived, we had the photo show, unexpected friends came from California for the show, and Carol went home. We are beginning to recover and understand and appreciate what happened.

To begin, the show was a great success. In numbers, we hung 30 large prints plus another 70+ smaller prints (matted and mounted, unframed) in bins along the wall.

We had pretty much standing room only. Since we didn’t sell tickets (ha-ha), we can only approximate how many came. We know of 50 friends that came plus a good number of walk-ins; probably close to 75 total. Everyone seemed to have a good time. I received many very nice comments about the photos. And the icing on the cake: we sold three off the wall, two more are spoken for, and several folks said they’d be back. There are also two more that the individual wants in a different size.

The wine shop where the show was held has asked me back to meet and greet. So we’ve let folks know that there would be another showing (smaller this time) today. So between 4 and 6 this afternoon, I’ll have another opportunity.

A big surprise was the arrival of Carolyn and Harry from Los Angeles. Margaret and Carol knew about it, but I sure didn’t. It wasn’t until Thursday (4th) before the show that I was escorted to the front door and told Margaret needed my help. There was Carolyn and Harry walking up to the front door! They were staying at a B&B in the next block. What a wonderful surprise. They went home Monday so we were able to catch up on old times and share some good food and wine.

Another surprise was our friends, Rasa and Arunas, drove up from Palm Coast (about 60 miles south of here). We hadn’t seen them in years; 60 miles seems a little far through all the traffic. Plus they are busy with family and work. It was great to see them again.

The photos today are from the show including a really, really young art patron; Rasa and Arunas enjoying the wine; and the front of the store showing the flyer announcing the show, Harry guarding the door, and Gator wine. Something for everyone.

Tomorrow we’ll move to Ft Clinch in the RV for a week of recreation and relaxation.

By the way, if you have tried unsuccessfully to access my new web-site, it’s not up. Well, actually it was up for a few days. I could never get it the way I wanted. It (the web-site design) wasn’t meant for large photo displays. So I’ve cancelled that arrangement and signed up with a photo web-site company. It will be the same name (www.aMUSEingJourneys.com) but won’t be up until I can finish switching to the new company. I’ll let everyone know when it’s ready to go. My first effort is putting all the photos from the show on the site.

Until next time (after Christmas!), have a wonderful holiday season.