For quite some time I have been writing online for sites like Suite101, and have made some, but not a ton of money from this writing. It has been a good way to keep my name out there and to begin to write about things that interest me, things that I am interested in learning more about and things that I want to advocate. As I have learned more about photography and increased my skills with visual communication I have looked for ways to incorporate this into my freelancing life. I am not a professional photographer in the traditional sense, but I have been fortunate enough to use my photographs with things I have written for Kalamazoo Weekly and to enhance my online articles. I've also recently begun submitting my photos to stock photography websites like bigstockphoto.com and shutterfarm.com. I've included one of my recent stock shots that isn't the most exciting, but can be very useful.

I have wanted to explore more of the purely creative side of photography, so I recently began selling my photography on Etsy.com. This has been challenging and at times, frustrating, but it has been wonderful to be the sole gatekeeper for an online project as I am here for what I blog, and to determine my own success or failure. So far I have not devoted the time that it deserves and I need to devote more time to advertising and marketing myself if I want to be successful at it, but have been occupied with other things.

I hope that those of you who read this blog will explore my etsy store and give me your input via comment or email and tell me what you think. What can I do better, how can I market myself so that people will come upon my store. Also note that it is still in development and I am planning on adding more photos and perhaps cards that incorporate my photography and would be at a lesser price. I'd appreciate anyone's help!

Thanks!

P.S. My Featured Photo (on the right side of this page) right now is one of my favorite etsy shots that I took on Jim and my recent trip to St. cloud to practice with my new telephoto lens that Honey gave to me for my birthday.