Real portraits… Real People… Real Beauty…

Quote of the day: “I don’t know what inspiration is, but if and when it comes, I hope it finds me working…” — Pablo Picasso

I’ve been working hard this week updating my Zenfolio photo gallery website to do two new things:

1. Advertise my portrait photography services
2. Sell my fine art photographs from the Zenfolio site on products like iPhone cases, iPad folios, T-shirts, mugs, and more.

These are a courageous actions!

For the past year I haven’t advertised myself as a portrait photographer. I’ve done a lot of portraits for friends and acquaintances for free but I haven’t set up a price list and advertised. It’s taken a lot of practice, portrait photography workshops, and time, but I feel ready at last!

I’ve looked at portrait work of many photographers and for a long time said, “That’s not me. That’s not how I want to work.” But finally I realized that the way that I make portraits, focusing on the real person, not on creating some kind of glamour shot, is ok. In fact, it’s more than ok, it is owning my vision, sensibilities and talents, and working in integrity with that.

So my “who” in the portrait photography arena are people who want real portraits of their real beauty. This clarity helps me communicate my work and make sure that potential customers connect with that before deciding to hire me to make their portraits.

Fine Art Side

While I’ve been selling my fine art prints on my Etsy shop for almost a year now, I had not made prints available from my Zenfolio site. Zenfolio’s recent changes that added products like iPhone cases and iPad folios with photos printed on them, finally tipped the scales in favor of selling from Zenfolio as well as from my Etsy shop.  If you haven’t visited my Zenfolio site, stop by and take a look. There are so many ways you can experience my photography, from traditional framed prints, to photos on clothing, to photos on cutting boards!

To celebrate these changes, you can get 10% off on all Fine Art Photography products in my Zenfolio site through the end of September 2012. Just enter the coupon code CELEBRATE when you check out.