It's On
It's on! The website is a goer. For the next year I'll be trying to make a full fist of getting my work out there and in front of as many folk as possible. Hopefully lots will see it and enjoy it.
I went with Zenfolio because they've got integration with print labs across the planet (including here in Oz), and their site capabilities look pretty good. So far I'm pretty impressed, but will see how things go over the next year.
At the moment I'm trying to work through a backlog of shots that need processing, as well as getting this site up, and ramping up my shooting as the warm weather rolls in. Add to that part time work, two kids under three, and a move to Tassie for a few months, and you've got "frantic". However life is good and fulfilling.
My hopes for this site are to primarily show my work, and hopefully earn enough revenue to fund a few equipment purchases and trips to shoot new subjects. Well see how that works out. In this blog I hope to be able to share some of the insights etc. I've picked up or been shown. I'm serious about improving and learning and love the idea of us building each other up. Steel sharpens steel.
This blog will also contain stories and thoughts about my work and the subjects I shoot. Once again to kick off lets talk about the attached photo I just finished processing. It's Litoria Raniformis. It's common names are "Green and Gold Frog" in Tasmania and "Growling grass frog" in Victoria. I've chased them mainly in Tassie, as I tend to spend time there most summers. They used to be very common, however they are in serious decline there (probably due to habitat destruction and the introduction of Mosquito Fish (Gambusia holbrooki)). They are big strong frogs, beautifully marked with vivid colours.
Raniformis is not easy to find - though that wasn't the case to fairly recently. I first saw them in the Tamar wetlands, where they often seen basking in the sun in a small section between the visitor centre and the car park. Good eyes are needed to spot them. In my searches for them, I ran into an old timer who was telling me about a land care project site that was apparently crawling with them. I did manage to spotlight a couple there also.
Older folks I've spoken to about them on Tassie and King Island talk about how common they were. They'd find them in all sorts of places and I even got the unfortunate retelling of how they used them for bait. It alarms me that these folk don't seem to have a sense of loss or concern about such an amazing part of their natural world disappearing. It's not ignorance: they know the frogs are gone. I think they just don't care. It also alarms me that younger people don't know that these beauties were once common - and so don't know or notice their absence. Either was they ARE dissapearing and we ARE largely indefferent to it..... but both those things can change!
“You cannot depend on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus” - Mark Twain