Sunday, March 29, 2009
I am spending most of my blogging time on my biz site now, but thought I'd drop by before to do a little cross-posting. I just finished designing a sample coffee table book for my photog biz, and wanted to share a few key pages.
I know you've seen these before here, but not in published form, right? Favorite crafty pets from our favorite crafty bloggers!
Grumperina's Kitty:
Frecklegirl's Bob:
Maritza's Malachi (her cat LG is also in the book):
And of course, Bunny and Veebs:
I love the way the book came out, and loved best of all the thrilling experience of flipping through your own coffee table book.
There is however one more print vendor I want to try. I hear their finished book product is a tad better, for about the same printing price. In the end, these books are not going to be cheap. It's all in the labor: all the time sorting through each photo, processing them, determining page layout, deciding which photo gets which layout, DOING the layout. It doesn't get much more custom than this. But if I can give potential clients a little more bang for their many buck, everyone wins.
Alas. I have no knitting to show :-( But if anyone out there is still interested in Sundara Yarn prints like the ones shown here, THEY ARE COMING. I have just come out of the R&D haze. Blergh. I wanted to offer postcards but have changed my mind. The papers used for items such as cards simply did no justice to the yarn color. I wouldn't feel comfortable charging what I would have to charge, so I'm abandoning that idea for now and just sticking with prints. Beautiful, vibrant, matte prints. 5x7s will be available soon. It's been a matter of packaging them right, and finding the time! Always a battle with the time!
Still working through your Q&As from last month! I haven't forgotten about them
Filed Under: Pet Photography
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Hey dudes. Notifications have been sent out to all of the 10 winners of the FOCStudio contest, and all prints have been mailed out. I sandwiched the prints between two pieces of sturdy cardboard - it doesn't look pretty, but it works!
I will be offering the prints up for sale soon, as well as flat note cards that can be used as postcards. I hope to have these ready in a few weeks, or as soon as I get some of the logistics squared away.
Stay tuned!
Filed Under: Contest
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Thank you so much for all your great questions on my new biz blog. I plan on answering every single one - eventually! The winners are those that posed the "top 10" questions. I've already started posting answers. I'll be in touch with the winners within the next several days.
Again thanks for visiting, thanks for participating, thanks for supporting. This blog - when I can devote time to it - will now officially go back to being about knitting, and knitting only.
With the occasional cat photos thrown in, of course.
Filed Under: Contest
Friday, February 13, 2009
I've gotten my hosting issues resolved and now FatOrangeCat Studio is officially rearing to go! The FOCStudio portfolio is up, the FOCStudio BLOG is up, and business cards have been distributed to neighbors. We had a fun neighborhood association get-to-know-each-other-better dinner the other night and I did bust out the cards. No one had ever seen Moo cards before, so to my delight it was a little like picking and trading Garbage Pail Kids cards as they tried to decide which card they'd like to keep, based on the image on the back. Love the Moo cards!
I'm still not 100% done with everything. There are some photos I need to add and tweak in the portfolio, some details I need to flesh out, and copy I need to write. The one area I'm having the most trouble with is the "About" section for my blog. I know I always go straight to the About section when I come across a new blog, so it's important I set the right tone. And since this is a business I must be more open and honest about what and who I am, without using any cutesy pseudonym. We're talking full names here.
But I have trouble talking about myself when not prompted. I have no idea what to say that would be interesting...and incredibly witty...and insightful...and serious. And yes it needs to be all those things at once.
So, it would be great if you could help. This is what I propose: Leave a message on any post on the biz blog and ask me a question, whether it be about photography, my favorite drink, how much VanBuren weighs, what Bunny's other nicknames are (he has a lot!), what the weather's like today, whatever. It will give me something to write about!
No matter if you don't have a specific question, just drop by and say hello!
OH and if you could make no mention of this knitting blog, I'd really appreciate it. Not that you WOULD. But in case. I'm trying to keep them separate. It's a slight neurosis of mine. ********
ETA: OH MY GOD! So many FANTASTIC questions already! I'm going to be answering them all! Keep 'em coming! - Feb 13
*******
In return, I'll be giving away 5x7 prints of Sundara Yarn. As mentioned in an earlier post, these were taken back in the summer/early fall '08 when I had the privilege of being her product photographer.
1. Sundara Yarn Stock Pile, (2) 5x7 prints and (1) 5x7 print mounted on foam core.
What does a print mounted on foam look like? This:
The board is about a quarter of an inch thick, and is extremely sturdy. Totally unbendable. It can be framed as usual, depending on the depth of the frame you use, or hung unframed using plastic or metal formboard hangers. I haven't actually tried this myself. I'm testing this out to see if I'd offer it as a product.
2. Sundara Yarn Pretty in Pink, (2) 5x7 prints
3. Sundara Yarn Fresh Greens Trio, (2) 5x7 prints
4. Sundara Yarn Violet Trio, (1) 5x7 prints and (1) 5x7 mounted on foam core
5. Asiatic Lily, (1) 5x7 print mounted on foam core
OK so this isn't yarn, but it's a SNEAK PEAK of a series of florals that I'll be working on for the spring. Next to orange cats and knitting while watching baseball, I love flowers best. At one time in my life I even wanted to be a florist. Haha!
That's (10) prints total that I'm giving away. I'm not sure yet how I'll draw winners yet, but it probably won't be randomly. Maybe the 5 questions I decide to answer get the prize, plus 5 comments...Something like that.
So stop by the FOCStudio blog anytime between now and Tuesday Feb 17 (or so), and really, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your encouragement and support!
Filed Under: Contest | Pet Photography
Thursday, February 05, 2009
I said to myself that I would consider my photog business officially launched once I got my portfolio up, my blog up, and my business cards in. All three. I've been working the last month on the site, and finally my cards have come in. They're MOO business cards and they're fantastic. I ordered just a set of 50 first, to see how they look. I picked 45 of my favorite photos, and interestingly some of them did not translate well at all onto a little card. Anyway that's fine, because I plan to order 200 next using just 20 photos so that I can have duplicates. With these 50 I'm going to have a hard time giving ANY of them away since they're all one-of-a-kind, for now.
The group of cards on the left made the cut.
Ha, I just realized I didn't take a photo of the other side. I'll do that later. Very happy with these cards. They're the recycled "Green" versions, by the way, but still sturdy.
Anyway, I'm going to rant now. The cards are in, but I am still NOT officially launched. I've been having major headaches with my site. I ignored my own favorite piece of advice - You Get What You Pay For - and went with a cheapo hosting plan from Godaddy. Beware people. Running your site on their shared server is UN.belIEVE.ably slow. As soon as I installed Wordpress for the blog, the whole thing ground to a sticky, ugly halt. It was ridiculous. I did my due diligence and added caching and compression and tweaked some configurations, to no avail. Do a quick search on "godaddy wordpress slow" and you'll get back a hefty set of results. GOD I wish I had researched this better, what's the matter with me.
When I contacted customer service they told me to upgrade to a virtual private server and then closed the ticket. I'm like, Uh I am the ONLY PERSON LOOKING AT THIS SITE RIGHT NOW. So you're telling me this plan you offer is actually unable to handle A SINGLE VISITOR? Their online admin is unacceptably slow too. They suck. Hard. And I suck for picking them. I can't wait to move and get this show on the road already.
I had a whole giveaway contest all ready too to celebrate the launch. I'll have to postpone that until next week at least. I hope you guys can contain yourselves. Harrumph.
Filed Under: Pet Photography
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Coming back out to scarf model part-time has proved detrimental to Bunny's full-time job as House Sheriff.
Here we see him having some words with his brother, for some unknown infraction (Veebs probably deserved it, whatever it was). Any more lip out of you and the sheriff is going straight for the jugular.
However, we can plainly see that Veebs is no longer intimated. For Bunny let Mommy wrap him in silky mohair.
Perhaps the neighborhood squirrel will show respect to authority more appropriately.
Dare he so brazenly steal AND consume a nut while looking straight into the eyes of the merciless sheriff?!?
Why yes. Yes he dares.
Sorry I did this to you Bunny.
Filed Under: Cats | Pet Photography
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Trinket Scarf, from Amber - A Winter Gathering by Kim Hargreaves
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Swish, just over 2 balls
Needles: US2 and US6
Mods: Shorter length, and no beads
I love this scarf so much that I had to make it again. This time the frill factor is at 100%.
I snagged the yarn off eBay for a great price, 3 balls for less than the retail price of 2, and for a discontinued color too! It's only the 3rd time I've ever been on eBay. Hate eBay. I was desperate for this golden color though.
I snagged a rabbit too, convinced him to come out from early modeling retirement. Maybe it was a bad idea. It's hard to say who exhibited more patience during this shoot, me or the rabbit. There were plenty of blurry shots, cat treats, high-pitched baby talk, scratches behind the ear, breaks, more cat treats, and still more disdainful glares from those piercing green eyes.
Forgive me Bunny! But I'm knitting a sweater and socks next, so you're off the hook for awhile.
Filed Under: Completed Projects
Monday, January 26, 2009
Starting out on a new career path is an extremely scary thing. You're not sure if it's all folly, a lapse in rational thinking because you're having an especially bad day at work. You're not sure if you'll have the time, the finances, the energy and courage to follow through. It's too much of a risk. You're already afraid of failing before you've even begun. But before you get mired in having all the right answers to questions that don't yet exist, take the first step and Say it out loud. Your dream, your fantasy, your wish. It's the biggest step. And say it like you mean it. I want! I want I want I want! For sure, just saying it out loud has been the best first step I could have made. You just never know who's out there listening...
A month after I announced out loud to myself and Duck that I wanted to be a photographer, I got my first paying gig.
At this point I still had no clue what kind of photographer I wanted to be. I daydreamed, nightdreamed constantly. Sundara and I had been emailing back and forth during this time, and in the middle of a particularly bad week at work, I blurted out, "I don't want to be a web developer anymore. It's not my true calling. I want to be a photographer." But how, right? How? I heaved a million forlorn sighs.
And who knew what would happen next? Even though I meant it, the remark at that moment was offhand, same as saying, "I need to win the lottery." But I did say it, the right thing at the right time to the right person. To my shock and almost horror, she took me up on it immediately, hired me on the spot to take product photography of her yarns for her new site. The whole arrangement was hammered out in a series of emails that were typed in all caps because I was literally screaming with excitement. By the next week, a box full of glorious yarn arrived at my doorstep, and I was officially a photographer! Paid! With money! To photograph YARN. Which many times I do FOR FUN. To Duck I said, "Pinch me!" To Sundara I said, "Marry me."
Every week for the next several months, a shipment of yarn came to the door. Every week I photographed a dozen or so skeins in the traditional, "full-length" pose with a stark white background, post-processed them, optimized them to 3 sizes, and uploaded them to the site.
I also photographed them in additional poses, and those were included in the site as well. We called these "Glamour Shots." So fun. So so so so so unbelievably fun. A job that doesn't feel like one. Can it always be this way, please?
Sundara had given me "creative license" to photograph the skeins in whatever manner I saw fit. One thing I tried was to give the skeins some personality, if such a thing were possible in a skein. So the skeins below are actually swimsuit models. They're wearing skimpy bikinis, laying belly down on the beach and propped up by the elbows, cleavage spilling out and mouth half opened as they stare into the camera.
These initially made the cut, and then when they were on the site, Sundara was spooked. She was "scared" of them. Ha ha! Too aggressively suggestive for yarn I guess. Rar!! Hahahaha.
When I wasn't busy making p*rn, I let the beautiful colors speak for themselves.
Then came that sad day, that very sad awful day when All Good Things Must End. Sundara's new shopping cart site was crashing left and right at every update, and she had to change the way she sold her yarns. Instead stocking x number of skeins each week, she went to a monthly subscription process. It came down to a set handful of colors and base yarns each month, and with that it no longer made sense logistically to have me photograph her yarns. Sob.
The last shoot I did was for the Sock Collection.
Even sadder still is that I had to ship all the yarns back. No I did not get to keep them! (Although I did swipe a few on the way out, heh.) By now I had I think almost 100 skeins of her yarn, mostly in Sock. With a tear-stained face I gathered them together for one last hurrah.
Just recently I printed some of these group photos, as a way to test out a few printing vendors.
Sundara Yarns are worthy as "fine art" prints, no?
You never know how your first break might come about, who might turn out to be your biggest supporter. Put yourself out there, and someone just might take you up on it. When I told family of this gig, they were very confused. They were like, Yarn? All this so people can buy yarn? What? Who is she? Sun-dar-a? What kind of name is that? Dyes yarn full-time, really? How did you meet? And they get more fascinated still when I say that we have never met (yet!).
Being given a chance by a stranger could only be possible with the crazy phenomenom that is blogging. Specifically KNIT blogging. The knitting community amazes me.
So that's how I got started on photography. It was the best gig ever. Thank you, Sundara. Thank you very, very much. :)
Filed Under: Life | Pet Photography
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