The Year Was 2007

A lot happened to me in 2007.

My eldest son moved to London, while my youngest son moved to Chicago. I was studying for my AA degree at Valencia college, and Out & About Photography was born. Furthermore my health was still precarious; Dr. Everett visits were on my agenda more often than I would have liked. If you meet me today you would never know that during that time my walk was more like a shuffle, my weight was even lower, and I had this little, well make that big, problem with retching. Sounds gross I know--believe me, it was miserable.

Here we are in 2013 and some of the above remains the same---Matt still lives in London, and I still have my business, but by golly, I somehow graduated, and I got better! Because the illness came out of nowhere, AND was never fully diagnosed, every now and again a little fear creeps in that it may return, but mostly I think positive about it all. If not for being sick, I might never have gone crazy for taking photographs, so hurray to Bruce for giving me a camera as medicine.

Most definitely the camera gift was a life changer. Finding old stuff while organizing and cleaning lately made me think perhaps there are those amongst you that might find it interesting to do a little of that with my photo library. Why not look at some of what I took that year?

People often ask me if I can remember where I took such and such....why yes, I can. I may not remember much, but the photographs I sell are like my children, very, very special to me. On my way to class one day, I stopped at a little pond near the Winter Park campus and took this one:

I still quite like it, however, I haven't had it printed in years although it sold well at the time.

Another flower shot taken in a yard nearby; I knocked on the door, asking if I might photograph their tree:

Clearly I recall the woman who bought this, along with several other pieces, because she wanted a discount for buying more than one! To this day people still do that and I wonder why that is? Would they go into, say Nordstrom, and ask for the same? At the time I was still driving my darling yellow Mini Cooper, which I gave to Jonathan, apparently in May of that year.

Would you believe me if I told you I still miss that car? I got it a few weeks after my Mom died, calling it my "happy face" car. Although my navy blue MINI was fantastic, it was never the same kind of love I reserved for my yellow one.

You've probably experienced the whole, "busy begets busy" syndrome in your life haven't you? Armed with my new camera, I would go, or stop anywhere, to take pictures including one day at a carnival not yet open for the day:

It didn't take me long to discover that most folks would never buy something like the above, but the truth is, I still take this kind of shot, you just don't see it, and neither does anyone else!

Another day after class I roamed the campus of Rollins College, the school Bill and Dave graduated. I was so thrilled with the photo below, thinking I could never take anything so pretty again. Sadly I was the only one who thought so because when I put it out for sale, no one else shared my love.

On the other hand, it was during this time that I shot all manner of fruits and vegetables. In fact, one of my very first sales was three photos of citrus in one frame with multiple mat openings. Back then Costco had the frames in a six pack at a reasonable price, and in order to sell stuff, I needed reasonable prices! Then along came Roger and Trish.

While set up at the market, they came along, stopping to chat and buy the print of the above for her orange-themed kitchen. His words to me back in 2007--"I think I can really help you out." You bet he has! Our motto back then, coined by Bruce, was "we'll take baby steps" in our business. Thus, two weeks went by before I made an appointment to meet with Mr. Roger. Flabbergasted at what he knew, along with his willingness to teach us, we cautiously began our partnership. Remember those baby steps...This was the kind of thing he did frequently to help me out.

Our now deceased neighbor Walter Sims had, for the longest time, a grape arbor:

Following his death, I printed the above for his wife Gail as a gift. Because he had it for so long, she took it for granted; the photograph brought her fond memories.

Somehow we took a trip to both Savannah and Charleston during that summer. I was not well, dragging along, but I'm sure it was me and not Bruce that thought it was a good idea! My sister Maureen has a print of this hanging in her living room:

I told you the other day about all my Leu Gardens visits, and I was not exaggerating. Although I have trashed much of what I did that year, a few from there are still hanging around:

Fallen rose petals:

The rose petals have never seen the light of day, but the daisy has sold several times; I still recall a little boy counting out his dollars, coming up about four short, to buy the print for his Mother. He was one of the few who got a discount!

Roaming everywhere to take photos I was in East Orlando when I came across this horse:

At Bruce's urging, from the beginning, each photo was titled. These days many folks who go through my baskets remark that they like the titles nearly as much as the photos. Above is called, "Mane Attraction."

Part of the Honors Program requirements were two Honors classes in either math, or science, both subjects which leave me cold. Math was out of the question, so I took both Honors Biology and Historical Geology, squeaking by in both with very hard-earned B's. Professor Rogers gave us an option for extra credit in Geology if we visited the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. Bruce, bless his heart, drove me there one day. Spending about thirty minutes with the fossils, the remainder of our visit was in the Butterfly Rainforest.

In my view, being amongst the living was much more thrilling than spending time with old bones!

Here is my blog post from December of that year when school was all over. And here's a picture I took that sold very well from my run down to Key West with Jane.

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times--"you must have a good camera." These days, I do have a more expensive camera than the Panasonic point and shoots these were all taken with, but honestly, it's not the camera that takes the pictures. It's what is in your heart and mind, AND being in the right place at the right time. To tell you the truth, in 2007 I took my two best sellers, "Street Art" and "Beach Daisies". Perhaps it is because they have been for sale for so long, but faced with choices of newer photos, most folks still go for them. So much for the above camera theory!

Without the help of so many people I would have never made it this far. If you've got more time on your hands than you know what to do with, I've included a bunch of links to blog posts from that year and the good news is I was so busy doing the above that the posts are much shorter!