Sometimes one has to hit bottom in life to see what has been right there in front of you the whole time. At 58 my life is at that proverbial bottom where things have to change, where desperate times find you taking a very hard look at your life, searching for answers and a way forward out of the chaos. I need to find a way to earn a living, find a way to keep a roof over my head, and perhaps the way forward has literally been right in front of my nose now for quite some time.
For a period of almost 20 years I was a successful potter and sculptor doing Arts and Crafts shows all over America. I had a 40 acre farm in the hills of South Eastern Ohio, and life was happy. That part of my life ended when I sold the farm back in 1998 after having sold the business. In my early 40's I was ready for a change in my life, wanted to go to college, and get the degree I had always wanted.
I enrolled in Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh, NY, finishing the degree in one year, graduating with Honor's with a 3.984 GPA. The next semester I enrolled at SUNY Plattsburgh planning on getting a Bachelor's degree. Sometimes life does not work out the way we plan, and plans change. My plans changed when I met and fell in love with a woman who lived five hours drive from me in downstate NY. Love sees us do strange things...for me love saw me move down to her at the end of the semester, the two of us getting married in September of the year 2000.
A new wife, a new life, an old 16 room Victorian (that she owned) in need of a lot of work, her with a demanding career...we talked, and agreed it made sense for me to put my college career on hold for awhile, the plan being to fix the house up, sell it, move into a condo in a couple years, then put me back into college. It was a solid plan...unfortunately, that plan did not quite work out the way it was supposed to.
Placing blame never solves problems. Life and life's troubles just happen, and sometimes those things upset the apple cart. A downturn in the economy, a real estate market that crashed, an attack that saw my right arm severely broken all, my wife being diagnosed with breast cancer all added up to a life and a marriage that were spiraling out of control.
The house was foreclosed on and is gone. The wife wanted space to find herself post cancer, and that space turned into me being served with divorce papers. Couple that with me being unable to find gainful employment, and we have my current situation...no house, no job, living in a small basement apartment and my cash reserves almost completely gone. The one constant, the one thing that can always put a smile on my face...being out and about with my camera taking pictures. It is my passion in life, the one thing that always brings me joy. People seem to love my work, but trying to monetize my photography has been a rocky road with more money going out than is coming in.
Printing costs, framing and mounting costs, finding places to exhibit my work see a situation where I do not have enough time to see all those efforts creating positive cash flow, bringing me to a point where my passion in life would and could pay the bills. That is when an idea came to me...what if I offered the world my photographs via the internet as a download for a price that was to great to say no to!
"One Dollar Photographs" was born, the concept pretty simple. Put my photographs on the blog with no restrictions on the JPEG's so that they can be clicked on and downloaded by anyone who sees a picture they like. Put a Pay Pal button up, and on the "Honor System" ask people for one dollar for each JPEG photographic file they download to their computers. Hope you enjoy my photographs, and my very simple business model...One Dollar Photographs. My vision is to fill your homes with beautiful photographic images and earning enough money in the process to support myself.
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