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Re: [OM] (OT) Ramblings & Rumblings

Subject: Re: [OM] (OT) Ramblings & Rumblings
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:30:21 -0400
I've often thought of picking up a Whitmire original or two.  Point me 
to your surplus inventory and maybe I'll buy something.  For the future 
maybe you should just make prints of the size you think looks good for 
the image, no exceptions.  Just don't make the prints so large that 
people have no place to display them even if they can afford them.

Chuck Norcutt


On 3/22/2012 12:20 PM, Bob Whitmire wrote:
> Warning: AG-style stream-of-consciousness post ahead:
>
> So the last couple of years I’ve known something wasn’t working, I
> just couldn’t put my finger on it. Logic and deductive reasoning
> failed me. (Either that, of it was my self-editing mechanism, which
> also is known as my ability to argue with myself to the point of
> distraction—and sometimes self-destruction.)
>
> As most of you know, the past several months have been something of a
> strain. Mostly personal, but professional as well.  At one point I
> told Esteemed Wife that I knew the experience was going to hit me
> hard in some yet-to-be-determined way. I knew everything was going to
> change, I just didn’t know how. Since leaving the hospital, and now
> that Ben is doing very well and on his way to what appears to be full
> recovery, I find that comet is closer than I thought.
>
> With some degree of crisis-induced clarity, I’ve determined that the
> 2012 season here in Maine is not going to be business as usual. First
> and foremost, the mass-production mentality is kaput. This business
> of making many different sizes of prints for many different venues is
> putting a strain on my mental health and not producing the desired
> result, i.e., profit and artistic satisfaction.
>
> So, I’m dropping a couple of venues, most notably the gallery at
> Southwest Harbor, on Mt. Desert. It just isn’t doing what it should
> for me, and I’ve got a lot of time and money tied up in inventory and
> effort. Wave of the wand. Gone. (Actually, a letter and a trip to
> pick up inventory, but you know what I mean.)
>
> Secondly, I reckon this will be my last year at the Pemaquid Craft
> Co-op in New Harbor. That’s where I do the bulk of my business. It’s
> also where my business is bulk. Same image, different sizes, and lots
> of phone calls to see if they can get a big image smaller. (Every now
> and then it goes the other way, about 1 in 1,000.) There’s also a
> gracious plenty of hack work: I shoot a lot of sense-of-place
> pictures, and a lot of them I print and market not because I like
> them but rather because I know I’ll sell a few.
>
> That’s not good enough anymore. I want to produce the work I want to
> produce, the work that moves me and shakes me and at the same time
> maybe moves others. So this will be something of a sell-down year at
> Pemaquid. Inventory reduction, as it were. Then more sizes will
> disappear as I begin to concentrate entirely on the gallery and the
> web. As His Mooseness noted a while back, some images just look
> better at some sizes, and that’s where I’m headed.
>
> Which goes hand-in-hand with something else: my kit is out of
> control. I haven’t been making much profit lately because I’ve been
> dumping it all into acquiring a kit that now totals a good thirty
> pounds. That’s too much. Well, maybe it’s not too much for some
> people, but it’s too much for me. It’s not fun anymore. There have
> been times when I thought about grabbing the bag and heading out the
> door and have resisted the urge because I didn’t want to mess with
> the kit. More kit, fewer pictures.
>
> It ain’t supposed to work that way.
>
> I guess what I’m saying is this: I’ve wandered off the path and need
> to find my way back to what it is I really enjoy. The old business
> model of pretty pictures for tourists just isn’t cutting it anymore.
> I don’t have any artistic pretensions, but I do presume to redirect
> my efforts more toward an excess of quality rather than quantity.
> Perhaps even in a less commercial way than before. God knows how many
> pictures I haven’t taken because they didn’t conform to the business
> model.
>
> That ain’t right, either.
>
> Maybe I’ll buy a motorcycle (those new Triumphs are SWEET) and a Fuji
> x-100 and call it good. Or a Nikon D800, and two lenses (two and only
> TWO) and call it good.
>
> Stay tuned, or be prepared to hit you delete button.
>
> --Bob
-- 
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