Foray into commercial photography

by eldan Posted on May 14, 2012

I’ve been a hobbyist photographer for many years, and putting stuff up on Flickr since 2005. Over that time I’ve sold the occasional image, and donated a few more to nonprofits for their websites and a fundraiser auction. Recently I decided to make a more concerted effort to actually make some money from this. I’m not trying to do much as a landscape or travel photographer, because much as I would love it I know just how crowded that market is, and I’m no Don Hall. But my latest foray into the real estate market has reminded me of just how bad the photos are on an awful lot of property for sale listings. This is something I know I can do better, and that has a clear value for the listing agent: the economics of this business are such that if they make one additional sale in a year, the expense of a professional photographer will have a stellar ROI.

So I’ve started photographing houses and condos for sale. So far, I’ve done some freebies to build the portfolio, and some work for the agent who’s listing my own place for sale. I have my first job for someone I didn’t already know coming up this week, and I think it’s about time to start showing off the portfolio:

portfolio screenshot

I would really appreciate feedback on both the photography and the portfolio site itself, as well as referrals if you know anyone who could use my services. So far, I’m thinking the obvious clients are realtors, builders and stagers, but I’m certainly open to other ideas.

And finally, a massive thank you to Kevin Hanes for helping me make the portfolio look waaaay better than it did before his input, and Jeff Prescott for helping me find my feet in this business. For the sake of Kevin’s reputation, I should mention that he’s not satisfied with the website yet—he’s quite rightly pushing me to replace the text links at the top with something more graphical & visually appealing—but while I will be acting on his suggestions before too long I think the site’s at least good enough to start showing people now.

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More on marriage equality

by eldan Posted on May 10, 2012

Time to follow up a bit on yesterday’s post. First with a few quick things:

  • Erin’s comment is really important. Even though the situation she’s describing is one I had already suggested must be happening, it’s more powerful to hear about real people suffering it. There’s a broader lesson about storytelling here, but in the specific context it’s just a reminder that we are talking about real peoples’ lives being ruined, not just some vague ideal.
  • Here’s a beautiful post by someone much more directly affected by yesterday’s vote than me, who yet managed to be far more compassionate in his response: A challenge to both sides of the Amendment One debate. His is the example to follow, not mine.
  • And this piece argues, very plausibly I think, that the broad generational shift away from homophobia is happening within Christian groups too. Most encouragingly of all, it seems to be part of a broader shift away from any interest in pursuing the Culture Wars, even among young people who are highly conservative in their personal morality. I wish we could fast forward that trend by a few decades, but at least it brings the end into sight.

But the big news is that as I was writing yesterday’s post, Obama finally came out in favour of gay marriage. Now obviously this is progress. He’s the first U.S. President to say such a thing, and many people seem to be overjoyed about it. But all I can find it in myself to respond with is “What took you so long?”, or as a friend put it:

I’m honestly not sure how much of my annoyance is (or should be) directed at Obama here, and how much at the electorate that makes this still a somewhat risky position to have taken, but either way it’s clouding any sense of triumph.

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Banning marriage

by eldan Posted on May 9, 2012

Another year, another state decides that same-sex couples aren’t already sufficiently banned from marrying, so they’d better enshrine the ban in their constitution. I don’t understand the mentality that leads to these votes, but my own situation makes me very keenly aware of the human cost. If this were just about having a ceremony and a party and wearing a ring, no-one would need government approval to do it (and thank heavens this country is not so oppressive as to ban that). But marriage also provides access to some really important rights; rights which are made more difficult to get because of other policies pushed by the same hateful scumbags as constitutional amendments to doubleplusban gay marriage.

In my own experience, as much as it’s about publicly sanctifying a relationship, marriage is about the right to live in the same country as my beloved. Since every year we also get politicians falling over themselves to be more vicious about people who didn’t have the foresight to be born in the same country as them, this right keeps getting scarcer and more important. It makes me angry to see it pushed further out of a group of peoples’ reach. Not to put too fine a point on it, if I were gay and had fallen in love when I did, our relationship would have been doomed by other peoples’ prejudice.

Also in my own experience, marriage gives literally life-saving access to medical care. At least on this issue the current trend is one of improvement, as the Obamacare provisions gradually take effect, but to be without health insurance in the U.S. today still means being mostly without health care. The improvements underway are only a partial solution, though, and they’re fragile: one of the few remaining reasons that I will vote for Obama if I have a vote by the coming election is that if he loses we can expect all of this progress to be torn up. Until this country fixes its brutal health care ‘system’, a vote against gay marriage is also a vote to deny a group of people access to health care.

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Why Earth Day makes me cringe

by eldan Posted on April 21, 2012

Alright, let’s not beat around the bush. It doesn’t just make me cringe: I hate Earth Day.

Every year we have this ritualised set of photo-and-sponsorship opportunities, in which every politician and every company wants to reassure us that they care deeply about the Earth and we are supposed to be impressed. But what happens the rest of the year? It’s as if I only phoned my mum on Mothers’ Day, and then tried to pretend I was anything but a terrible son.

I think this one went out of bounds by eldan, on Flickr

Having a designated Earth Day seems to reinforce the message that there’s this “environment” box, that can be safely detached from the rest of our lives, and as long we pay our respects from time to time it’ll all be OK. But it’s a bit like having an annual “Yay breathing” day: we still need to breathe through the rest of the year, and we still need not to be fouling our own nest.

The Haul by eldan, on Flickr

Now if either Earth Day or the awareness it’s supposed to raise were new things I’d be inclined to be patient. But this event is older than me, and we just don’t have the time to be messing around with empty gestures like this.

If you want to make something meaningful of this Earth Day, don’t bother going to any of the publicity events. They are all a distraction. If you want to volunteer at one of the many cleanups and habitat restoration work parties—if you’re willing to actually get your hands dirty and make something better—that’s worthwhile, but don’t pretend your responsibility ends when you leave. If you really want to make it mean something, think about what you can do the rest of the year.

What can you start tomorrow and then keep doing to make your own impact less destructive to our shared life support system?

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The Passover Story: What about the Canaanites?

by eldan Posted on April 14, 2012

The ultimate end of the Passover story has always bothered me. We talk about the Israelites’ liberation from slavery, and we acknowledge that many Egyptians had to suffer for this to happen. In the Seder, the spilling of a drop of wine for each plague is a deliberately grim memorial that blood was spilled to get us here, and there’s this lovely passage in many haggadot:

Midrash teaches that, while watching the Egyptians succumb to the ten plagues, the angels broke into songs of jubilation. God rebuked them, saying “My creatures are perishing, and you sing praises?”

In this spirit, I’ve always used this festival to commemorate the struggles of other people, not only my distant ancestors. This year, our Seder included a couple of passages from Jewish Solidarity with the Native American People, about the travails of the Navajo and the hopes of a Wabanaki chief. I know I’m not the only person who draws this connection; here’s a great piece Melinda found drawing the links between Exodus, the end of the Holocaust and the Emancipation of African Americans, and in the past week I had the honour of meeting the founder of the Jewish Abolitionist Movement.

And yet, for all that grand universalism, the prior inhabitants of the Promised Land are just an enemy to be shoved aside. Here’s the passage where God tells the Israelites how they’ll get their land:

Exodus XXIII:20-24 “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off. Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.”
…
Exodus XXIII:32-33 “Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.”

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