What is your passion? If money were no object (and just what does that actually mean anyhow???) what would you be doing right now? Now, how can you turn this passion into your living?
Something I enjoy doing is taking pictures, I fully intend on turning this passion into a living. The first thing that makes this possible is I have to take better pictures than the average person, my photos have to be of a quality that someone will want to part with their money to posses one of my photos.
Most EVERYONE has the ability to take pictures with little trouble, nearly everyone has a smartphone and some of the those phones can take some great pictures. But not everyone knows how to take really good pictures, look on most phones and you will find dozens of selfies and mediocre shots.
I did not go to school to learn how to take pictures, what I did was I looked at other photographers to see how they take fantastic pictures, I looked at how they framed their shots, I have learned about lighting (morning and evening tend to be the best times to take outdoor pictures), framing and lighting are the 2 biggies, being in the right place at the right time, I am always making note of a particular place that would make a good shot, but knowing I’ll come back at a time of day when the lighting would make for a great shot.
I have also learned about filters, color enhancing, basically taking a good picture and making it fantastic, something special. This requires a LOT of experimenting, taking lots of pictures, lots and lots. I would say that if I would take 1 picture of a scene, I actually take 20 or more shots of that same scene, using different filters, different angles, sometimes the difference between a mediocre shot and a prizewinning shot is just a matter of a slight angle change.
I also know that some days I may come home with a memory stick full of duds, and that’s OK too. I am not at a point where I can just go out merely to snap pictures, but since the job I do requires me to drive all over west Texas in some very scenic areas, and since I have a very flexible schedule, I have the opportunity to get some wonderful pictures. Honestly I would be taking these pictures anyhow, I love doing it, it’s my passion and in the year I’ve been doing this, my skills have improved greatly.
So now I have all of these pictures, how do I get money for these images? I plan on turning my photos into postcards and such for the tourists that pass through our towns. Living in such a scenic area, much of the income that comes into these towns come directly from tourists, and they are looking for an inexpensive memento of their trip. I’ll write more about this as it develops.
Now to the teaser I promised you last week, honestly I was hoping it would be further developed by now, but life happens and things don’t always go as hoped. A few years back PB build a propane grill for me, he even drilled the black pipe for the burners. It works great, I love it and use it on a very regular basis, mostly cooking hamburgers, chicken, veggies and the occasional hot dog. We began talking about wanting to be able to cook an entire chicken on this grill, one thing lead to another and he designed a rotisserie style oven in his head. Using spare parts laying around, he came up with a tall lid that could accommodate 2 chickens cooking at the same time, he needed a way to turn the chicken while it cooked.
First he thought about using an electric motor to turn the chicken on the spit, then in classic PB style, he worked out a way to do it without using electricity, using a clockwork style gears, weights and such, we will be able to cook the chickens, turning them over the heat. It sounds like an old cranky grandfather clock, squeaking and squawking, but it works, and right now, he has gotten the gear to run for half an hour, pretty good for a few spare parts that have been re-purposed.
I’ll post more about that as it develops, until then, you can watch the videos of the clock mechanism that PB manufactured.