Christmas is coming.

[pecunium]

I spent last week in SLO, with commodorified. Apart from just spending time in town, we were checking out the actual accommodations at Hostel Obispo, as part of the prep for the LightZone Workshop in Feb. A few things are in need of tweaking (mostly minor bit of scheduling for the day, based on the way the kitchen works, nothing is fundamentally altered).

The other thing I was doing was looking about and getting a feel for the move back up there. Which is why I am pitching cards again. Moving is going to cost me a bit of money (with luck I shan’t be in the hole for too long, but a head above water job isn’t really possible to get from here. Part-time/service jobs like that aren’t willing to put up with hiring someone who can’t start until a couple of weeks after hiring). That, and the cost of paying for the motorcycle I’m buying; so I can manage to get around (and make practical trips to LA/SF and points of photographic interest).

Cards, for those who are late mailers, are still available (and, since they aren’t really holiday themed, can be used year round). After this the price will have to go up.

The other thing I’m offering is prints. Christmas is coming and they make pretty good gifts. With a couple of exceptions (which I don’t really expect people to want, since they are purely there to illustrate some bit of photo-blogging), everything you see at Terrence Karney Photography are available as prints. If you don’t have wall space, I am willing to do smaller prints (4x6 and 5x7), suitable for desktops.

Orders for mounted/framed prints received before Dec 10th are guaranteed to arrive by Christmas. Later than the 17th and they can get there, but shipping will be a little pricier. Unmounted prints ordered by the 13th will arrive by Christmas.

Comments

[b0dice-g0ddess.livejournal.com]

Terry-

Call me. Something came up and I need to reschedule a time for you to pick-up the bike.

Thanks!
~J~

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Hey... can we figure out a good time for me to come and pick it up/give you money?

Terry

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Um, so, given the gross impracticality of moving to SLO, why do it now?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Because it won't get easier. For several reasons I need to move in January. I want to get back to SLO. SLO is a better area to sell photos, I have places I can stay while I find work.

If I get work, and a place here, then I have the same problems, and more bedsides.

[(Anonymous)]

On the other hand, SLO is a far, far worse place to find other employment to get by on, especially in a bad and worsening economy. It's also generally a worse place to decide to switch careers from if the photography doesn't pan out. While selling art photographs in galleries is the archetype of the kind of work that you don't need to live close to. Portrait photographers and wedding photographers need to live close to where they sell. Art photographers do not. I'm not really seeing the practical advantage you gain. You surely have people you can stay with in Los Angeles, too, and as a place for someone who is job hunting, it has much broader resources.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm not a portrait wedding photographer, so that's not an issue.

It's where I want to be, so the rest of it is just something to deal with. If I get a job here, where I don't really want to be, the problems of moving don't really change.

Yes, I can try to bank money to make the move, but that's not fundamentally changing the problem of wanting to live in SLO, not wanting to live in LA, and so having to, sooner or later, take the plunge.

If I have to sell coffee, while I find other work, then I have to sell coffee. The freelancing I can do anywhere. The online photo sales I can do anywhere. The book writing, I can do anywhere. If I do enough of those, I am fine, wherever I happen to be.

The ease of shooting the area, well that's something I gain from being there. Right now there's no way to make a living on just photos (and not likely to be for a little while), so the need to find a new career is extant. I can do it here, or there, as a place to look for a living in SLO, Los Angeles sucks.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I'm not a portrait wedding photographer, so that's not an issue.

Right. That was my point. Your statement that SLO is a better area to sell photos is, in other words, irrelevant to reasons why or why not to move there. You can sell photos in SLO (or not) whether you live there or not. It's not a reason to move.

Ease of shooting happens anywhere you are. That's a matter of eye. And when it comes to selling coffee, maybe you've heard, Starbucks, for example, has been closing a lot of stores lately? Low paying grunt work jobs are not exactly thick on the ground anywhere, but they'll be a lot thinner in a tourist-and-college beach town where you face stiff competition from undergrads for those jobs, than they will in LA. It leaves you a lot less room for error.

Take it for what it's worth, but it looks like you could maybe use the cold boot of grandmotherly kindness about now. What I get from what you're saying is that your reason to move to SLO nownownow is because you feel like it, whether you're really financially able to do that, and whether there is practically speaking any work to do there, or not.

As someone who's been catching snapshots of your life for quite some time, I feel like you've spent quite a lot of that life living as the grasshopper in Aesop's fable, and letting financial details and future security take care of themselves, or hoping that friends will take care of them for you. Maybe you feel like that's worked well for you over time, but from a financial perspective, it doesn't look like it from here. So speaking as someone who spent quite a while making the move out of LA finally happen, I urge you to at least reconsider your timing. Hal spent a year out of work. Can you afford the same?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Ok, some of the issues of sales are related to being there.

As to the rest, I disagree. I can afford a year of less than full time work; in SLO.

I can't afford it here. Like it or not, I am looking at a career change, RIGHT NOW, here, or there. I have a lot stronger set of overlapping prospects there, than I do here. You haven't been here for the deciding. You are seeing the culminations of it.

Moving costs here, will be a little less, than moving costs to there. Living costs here will be about the same as there. Prospects there are better, in both short, and long term, than they are here.

And, all love and friendhip in the world condsidered, you've no idea what I think of my situation, nor how well I think it has been, or is, working.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

some of the issues of sales are related to being there.

Such as?

Moving costs here, will be a little less, than moving costs to there. Living costs here will be about the same as there. Prospects there are better, in both short, and long term, than they are here.

What specific prospects are those? Have you done a projected business plan for each location? Path to profitability? Compared the costs of a business license? Done comparative market research for the products and services you propose to offer, in each city? Compared advertising and marketing costs? Gotten good statistics for the comparative small business start-up success rates of each city in a declining economy? Found a lender in SLO who's willing to extend you a small business loan? Found other means to capitalize a sole proprietorship? Or are you really figuring that you'll just work part time at a coffee shop and somehow find the 60-80 hours per week it takes to make a small business profitable enough to pay the proprietor a salary inside a year?

Like it or not, I am looking at a career change, RIGHT NOW, here, or there.

And what research suggests that what you want to do in SLO actually has real world prospects of being a paying career. How many people actually make their genuinely self-supporting living there, doing it?

You haven't been here for the deciding. You are seeing the culminations of it.

Yeah, but I have seen the part where you are having to raise the price of your cards (already high) because you didn't correctly calculate the costs of production. If that's an example of the sort of financial calculations you're making in the wind up to this career, I think there's reason to review.

And, all love and friendhip in the world condsidered, you've no idea what I think of my situation, nor how well I think it has been, or is, working.

Notice I phrased it as a question. Suggesting, in part, that it might require further thought.