Being a wildlife photographer
Bobcats have been on my short “list” of most desirable animals to photograph since I started down this path. I’ve seen and photographed a few, but the images have all been lousy, really lousy. Well, ‘it’ finally happened! It’s hard to describe the feeling when I ‘get’ something special. Happy. Relieved. Tearful.
My business has done OK the last few years – I’m an artist, so that isn’t really saying much *LOL*…But it has stopped growing. I have big goals that aren’t being met, artistically, wildlife conservation wise and financial. Its time to shake shit up. I’m not waiting anymore.
For years, I’ve thought of doing a Kickstarter or GoFundMe campaign (crowd funding platforms). I love the concept – simply ask for the money to self publish a book, get new equipment, travel, etc. So every few months, I start browsing one of the above websites, sure that I’m going to move forward with my own campaign. Invariably, I end up reading about someone who needs the money much more than I do. A couple of times, I’ve ended up crying all over my keyboard and donating to a cause like this one: Jasmine’s Tumor
Enter Patreon . What makes this different, is I’m going to offer people who love my work a great return on small amounts of money. Patron’s will be more like subscribers. They will get new and different content than I’ve ever offered before. I can’t wait.
Stay tuned.
..but what happens next? I’ll put it on the website, Facebook, Instagram, maybe even twitter if I ever figure out how the hell that works.
I feel this is a very strong image. Super gusty winds are ruffling up the plumage on this eagles head and I love the clean white back round. I might sell a few prints at the Artisan’s market, and that’s great. But, there has got to be more.
I’m making a serious attempt to change the way my business, Elster Photography operates. While travelling up and down the west coast selling my photographs in a tent has it’s charms, it’s not what I want to do anymore – at least not every weekend. I’m going to work towards (manifest) a business that gives me more camera time and more family time. My true passion and talent lies in being in the field, camera in hand, with the wild things.
This blog will certainly have some of my wildlife images and stories, but it’s also going to be a place where I touch upon my business successes, failures, rants and more. I’ll probably talk about techniques and camera equipment from time to time, even though the technical stuff doesn’t interest me much.
