In Photography, Sales, Web on
25 August 2010 with No Comments
As something of a follow-up to instituting a new sales model for prints of my photography, The One True b!X | Photos now includes an additional new component: special orders.
While only a couple hundred photos are made available directly via my sales site, there are thousands more in my Flickr photostream. Beginning today, prints of the vast majority of those can be had via special order.
At launch, special orders are available only to U.S. customers, and the only print size available is 8×12. These limitations will lossen up once I make sure any kinks in the process are worked out.
So, if you’ve ever seen anything in my Flickr photostream but were disappointed to find it wasn’t available on my sales site, just follow the special order instructions and make yourself happy at last.
In History on
23 August 2010 with No Comments
This look back doesn’t go quite as far back as the first posts. Thirteen years ago, just a few months after moving to Portland and starting to work at the long-defunct Millennium Cafe, we held an event there on July 4, 1997: Independence Day.
The next day, the Metro section of The Oregonian led with a package headed “Fireworks, fun and freedom”. One part focused on celebration (“From parades to picnics, people get out and party”), while the other came to the cafe to report on contemplation (“Gathering celebrates liberty, not fireworks”).
Read Full Entry →
In Nonsense, Photography, Sales, Web on
20 August 2010 with 4 Comments
As of tonight, all of the prints for sale at The One True b!X | Photos are available at their rounded (to the nearest $0.25) base price. This is as close to free prints of my photography as you can get. In most typical cases, you now will pay more for shipping than for the print itself.
So how will I make any money off my photography? There is now an additional product for “sale”: the financial gift and donation, available atop each of the site’s seven galleries.
Going forward, when you purchase a print you also are invited to add a donation at whatever level works best for you, from a wide range of provided options. Due to the nature of the service I use, these donations technically are provided in the form of digital downloads, specifically of a “Proud Supporter of The One True b!X | Photos” graphic, which you can post online to show off your support, or simply delete. It’s up to you.
This is an experiment. I’ve had nearly a full year of selling prints of my photography under a more traditional model, and now it’s time to try something new. Those of you following me on Twitter might correctly be guessing that the experiment in no small part is inspired by Marian Call, who sells recordings and plays her music live via a similar model.
I have no earthly idea which print sales model will be more successful. I have no idea if the model works in this context at all. Certainly I don’t sell so many prints that I’m putting anything even close to a steady flow of income at risk. This simply is an experiment I can afford to conduct, and the premise intrigues me too much not to do so.
All photographs which have been for sale as prints on the site remain for sale, including some new ones you might have missed. Nothing has been removed. I’ve tried to make the new model as clear as possible in various parts of the site. If anything is confusing, or if some part of the new process isn’t working as intended, please let me know.
Addendum: See the comments below for some discussion of the old model versus the new model, based upon the first order under the latter.
Addendum: Under this “optional donation” model, buyers also could opt for barter or some other alternative form of donation, such as gift cards. Just use the email link on the sales site to make an offer.
Addendum: I can now take special orders of photos that aren’t on the sales site but exist in my Flickr photostream.
In History, Nonsense on
19 August 2010 with No Comments
This time we’re going back to 1995, when I was embroiled in the fight against the Communications Decency Act, a bill pitched by the (now late) Senator James Exon which was the first full-frontal assault by the U.S. Congress against First Amendment rights on the Internet.
What follows is the text of the opening to “Wanted! 10 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference”, published in the October 5, 1995, edition of Rolling Stone, which featured The Foo Fighters on the cover.
Read Full Entry →
In Nonsense on
16 August 2010 with Comments Off
Various places online lit up today with Geek Girl Diva’s open letter to anyone who thought that Adrianne Curry was asking to be groped by virtue of simply wearing a “Slave Leia” costume to a Star Wars convention.
We’re talking about a geek gal, dressed for a Star Wars con, who got groped and was both physically and mentally wounded. Before you open your mouth to offer anything but condolences, ask yourself what you’d be thinking if she was your sister, or your girlfriend, or your mom.
There’s good cause for the attention (I’d say “obviously” but obviously it isn’t as obvious as many of us would prefer it to be), and clearly I come down on the same side of the matter as Geek Girl Diva. Whatever else comes up in this discussion, that is the signal that can’t be allowed to get lost in the noise. Curry was victimized, did her level best to address it at the time, and has the support of any decent person hearing the story.
Unfortunately, some of the noise has been generated by Curry herself, as detailed in a post on The Bitsy Rant arguing that “getting your ass groped doesn’t excuse racism”.
Say what now?
It turns out that in the wake of the incident, while explaining to people via Twitter that the assailant apparently was not a con-goer, Curry made sure to explain that he was “some illegal immigrant who spoke no English”. When challenged on the relevance, Curry replied: “He has no reason being here praying [sic] on Americans”.
Since those tweets, Curry has blogged the incident (apologies for having to inflict MySpace upon yourself to read it) in which she reiterated that he was “Mexican” and “spoke no English”.
More than fifteen years ago, just a few short months after moving to San Francisco, I was jumped and beaten on by three or four guys. I had just stepped out of the corner market, was halfway across the street, less than half a block from my own apartment. It went on for several minutes (although my sense of time became fairly disconnected from reality), until my downstairs neighbor (himself a thug who regularly extorted money out of me) chased them away.
It is entirely irrelevant to the story of my being mugged that the three or four men (and, for that matter, my thugly downstairs neighbor) were black.
It does no disservice to the cause of supporting any woman’s obvious right not to be assaulted to challenge Curry’s needless, nonsensical, and prejudiced digression into (to put it euphemistically) immigration status and language comprehension.
The fact that the man who assaulted her was a drunk and a douchebag has far, far more to do with why he did what he did than the fact that he supposedly was Mexican and spoke no English.
By all means, please keep up the support for Curry against anyone “arguing” that she was asking to be assaulted because she was engaging in cosplay at a convention. But don’t let it slip by unremarked upon that in the aftermath she inexcusably let out a bit of ugliness of her own.
