Month: July 2013

 

 

 

Gang.  Seriously.  Pace yourselves.

The response to the new for sale tab has been overwhelming.  Thank you.  Tomorrow will be a busy morning of printing and packaging.    (For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I am now selling prints of photos.  Explanation here.)

3 of 9 images are sold out already!  Several others only have one to go.  There are two that haven’t sold a single print!  And the strange thing is that they were two of the selection committee’s absolute favorites.   Go figure!

Just to address a few questions that came in over email and in the comments section..

– The prints WILL be signed.  On the back, with the date printed.

– I WILL be shipping overseas.  I apologize about the cost.  I am shipping USPS priority flat rate, and have simply rounded the actual cost up to the nearest $.50 to help cover the cost of packaging materials.  Sadly shipping overseas (and even to Canada!!) is quite pricey.  (shipping for additional prints is just $1.00 more to all destinations)

US $5.50

Canada $20.00 (!!)

Everywhere else $25.00

In all cases, additional items just $1.00

Maybe for those of you overseas that imagine you might want to buy prints from upcoming batches as well, you could just include a note to that affect, and I can put a hold on your shipment until several photos have accumulated?  Folks in the US..   please don’t make that request, it will end up being much too hard for me to keep track of!

– As for the request that I charge more for the prints..  or I guess the suggestion, not request..  I appreciate that.  Very kind.  For now, as long as I don’t make the quantities available too large, I think that the price point is fine.  Adequate compensation to make the time spent printing and packaging feel like time well spent.  While I don’t want these to feel cheap, I DO want to keep them accessible.  

– Special requests.  Feel free to make them as long as you promise not to be insulted if I don’t respond, or if you don’t see your request reflected in an upcoming batch.

Thank you all!  What fun.

Big Love.

Have a good weekend.

Fast boy OUT!

 

I would like to start by saying thank you.  Sincerely.  The response to my last post was really quite a boost.  It has made me excited about this whole project and the process.

I will be curating small batches of 9-12 images that all fit together in some way.  The connection between the images in these sets will start out pretty obvious but will become less literal and more  ..  occult? as time goes by.  The photos will be available in limited numbers, and the sets – batches – groups, whatever we end up calling them, will not be available indefinitely.  I have no idea how much longer I’m going to live..  and there are quite a number of these little curations (not a word, I don’t think), that I’d like to put up.  They will go up.. they’ll stay for a little while..   some individual images may sell out..  and soon a new collection will go up in the old one’s place.  Once a group comes down, those images won’t be available anymore, unless one happens to show up in another group, which is likely to happen with some images.

It’ll be fast and furious.  Hopefully fun!

But, to be clear..  I am not putting up a static page of images for sale that slowly grows over time.  Instead it will be a dynamic process.  It is an exciting opportunity for me to look back through years of photographs and it’s my hope that finding interesting ways to group them will allow me AND all of you to see them with fresh eyes, and maybe discover some photos that slipped through the cracks the first time around.

For now, all the photos will be printed roughly 5×7 on 8.5×11 paper.  I’ll be using %100 cotton rag, acid free, matte paper and archival inks that are supposed to last a million years.  I will be printing them all myself, here at the Vermont House in Harlem.  I am keeping the number of prints limited to make sure that I don’t end up feeling overwhelmed by the process.  I want it to feel manageable and fun.

I landed on this approach after much discussion with family and friends.  I was universally encouraged to start with self portraits.  I have taken SO many over the years that narrowing it down to just 9 was pretty difficult.  Undoubtedly more of them will turn up in other sets down the line.

Thank you all again for your undying support.  Go buy lots of prints!  (I’ve got my eye on a new camera!!!??, and I’d like to leave Hill some money in the bank when I GO!).  Please let me know if you run into any trouble with the site or see any errors that I’ve missed.

Now.  Off to the shop to make pill flasks!

Happy 4th of July.

Fast boy OUT!

 

A number of you have emailed me asking me to sell photos again.

After my really major surgery – my evisceration – I was faced with a 6 month period of adjuvant chemotherapy.  I made the decision that unlike the first time around, I would not try to work in the shop through that period.  I sent back some down payments, and I just took it easy.  It turned out to be a pretty good decision because that second 6 month round of chemo really brought me to my knees.  There is no way that I COULD have worked during that time.

It isn’t particularly in my nature, though, to be unproductive.  And while we had plenty of support from family and friends, I felt as though I wanted to be able to contribute in some way..  Wanted to be able to help out a little, financially.  So I opened up an Etsy store and sold some photos.  It was quite a success!  You all rose to the occasion and bought prints!

I now find myself in a similar position.  I have retired from bike building, because I simply don’t have the strength.  It is heartbreaking for me, but it seems that the Ultimate Tight Ass HAS turned out to be my ultimate bike.  I mean, I’m not dead yet!!  I’m not making any promises..  But there is no question that the disease is progressing rapidly.  It takes me a long time to get going in the morning, especially on the days that I have to perform my strange gut emptying procedure!  And evening exhaustion seems to be setting in earlier and earlier.  My days, in short, have gotten shorter and are getting shorter still!  (I am writing this at 5:00 in the evening and keep falling asleep mid sentence).

In some ways I am greatly enjoying my retirement.  I am playing pool MOST days.  I have fairly limitless attention and patience for the game.  I typically play for 5 or 6 hours and it does not get boring for me.  And YET!  it does not satisfy the creative urge in me that seems never to go away.  And by creative urge, I mean the urge TO create..  to bring things into being.  The urge to make stuff.  At the end of a day of playing pool, I put my cue away and I head home on the train, and even if I’ve had a great day of pool, I have no artifact to show for it.  The artifacts, somehow, are important to me.

I’ve got some little projects going in the shop.  Pill flasks (keep your eyes peeled.  Those will go fast!), and other small projects that don’t require the commitment of a bicycle.  But printing photos is something that I can do in a physical state that would make working in the shop impossible, or at least a bad idea.

So I’ve decided to go back to selling photos.  I’m working on a section of my photo site where you’ll be able to buy prints.

Now.  This is much more easily said than done.

I worked out all the details.  How to package.  How to ship.  How to deal with the e-commerce.  I got a label printer, so that I wouldn’t be wasting paper, or dealing with messy tape.  Everything was ready to go, streamlined, and then it came time to decide what photos to actually sell.

Suddenly I realized what I should have realized from the very start!  That to put these photos up for sale is to announce that I take myself seriously as a photographer!  The confidence that you are all used to seeing from me, arrogance even, DOES actually have some bounds.  In fact it makes me quite anxious to present myself as a photographer.  I’m not sure why it was easier the last time I sold prints.  Maybe because I felt that there were those of you who wanted to help us out, and that buying a print gave you a way to.  That the photos were just thank you cards for your support..  they might as well have been tote bags!

This time, I’m going to try to be bold and sell you some art.  After much deliberation about how to do this, lots of discussions with friends and family, I think I’ve landed on an approach.

I’ll be making a for sale tab on my photo website live very soon.