I’m back to selling photography! See my new store here!

I had a go at selling on Etsy a while back, but didn’t like it. On Etsy you pay a tiny fee per listing. That’s fine – it’s an amount I could cover with the coins dug out of my couch cushions – but it was annoying to pay given the lack of volume of business my store did every month.

I closed up shop and let it sit dormant. My best sellers were my copyright violating P*ep photos, anyway, and I couldn’t continue selling them.*

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One of the beauties of SxSW is the people you meeting hanging out in the hallways, at the parties, in the bars, and at the dinners. I serendipitously wound up one night at a table full of people who were launching a start-up called “Store Envy” storenvy.com

It’s a similar concept to Etsy; the biggest difference for me is that they don’t have a fee per listing. Like Etsy, it’s free to launch a store, although it’s in private beta now. (They currently have Pro stores available that offer warehousing and shipping for a 15% fee) I requested a free beta store and got one, because they like me.

You can visit it by going to theambershow.storenvy.com Right now I’ve listed nine different 8×10 and 8×12 prints.

One thing I’m going to do in the near future is offer custom-cut mats. The problem with the way I (and a lot of people) shoot is that we compose our images in 2×3.  That’s normally a 4×6″ photo, and if you blow it up again, 8×12″.   Most frames, of course, come in 8×10″. There would be a HUGE market for anyone who starts making reasonably-priced frames for 8×12″ prints, as many of us are loathe to cut off those two inches for many of our favorite pictures when we blow them up.

Since no one has thought to make millions doing this yet, custom matting is the solution, but Hello! Expensive! So I’m going to start offering custom mats (bought in bulk), sized to fit both 11×14″ frames (a standard size frame you can find anywhere) and 11.75×15.75″ frames, the size of the most common RIBBA frame from IKEA, and frame of choice for cheap people everywhere.

Go check out my shop and pass it along to your friends, if you would. I’d appreciate it so much. If you have a suggestion for me, please share. Currently, 100% of the profits from the sale of every $10 print will be going directly to getting these little guys off the beach and into a good home.  They are puppies born recently to a dog called Patches that some of my Puerto Rican dog rescue friends have noticed on the beach.  We really don’t want them to languish in the filth they’re in, but there is currently zero dinero to help them with.  Since I’ve gotten a handful of emails asking whether some of my prints were for sale over the past few months, this seemed like a good move all around.

*For you newer readers: I got a cease-and-desist letter from the maker of P*eps, telling me I couldn’t use their image for commercial purposes. If you’d like one, I still have a few of both “Godzilla vs. P*ep” and “4 P*eps” available, yours free with a $10+ donation to Manos Por Patas. Just forward your receipt to me with your address and I’ll send it along.

“I think a raving sea monster could have attacked your wedding and you wouldn’t have noticed from all the GOOGLY EYE STARING you were doing!” – Jen

This week SO needs a fork in it.

I got a hurt hand, went to the doctor, got majorly sick, had a disaster with Hey Brooklyn that Rob is looking into, took the first of hopefully many photos of shelter dogs, went to a Yankees game (with Chris Cavs!), tasted guacamole at the Bell House, had a lovely interview, celebrated my second anniversary, and began working on an exciting new project which I’m going to share here on Monday.

Thank you for all for the input on my last name. It was one of those things where I said to Rob, “I don’t really know if I should hit publish on this thing.” I’m glad I did.

Happy weekend!

I looked into buying a full-frame DSLR camera. Holy mother of dog! They are expensive! Even the prices on refurbished ones had me reaching for a paper bag to breathe into. I had no idea. This is what I really want, a Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

Last week I was asked to take photos of dogs for an organization called Stray from the Heart. They place dogs in foster care and try to find them “forever homes”. Most folks don’t have good, clear photos of the dogs they’re fostering and don’t know how to take them. But good photos go a long way to make a good first impression on potential adoptive owners, so they’re pretty important, and since I take pretty good photos of my own dogs they reached out to me for help, and I was thrilled that they did.

My first session was Sunday in a dimly lit apartment. I did the best I could and managed to get some good shots, but I got frustrated at the noise in the photos and the lack of rapid-focusing I needed. The experience hammered home the point that I’ve maxed out what I can do and learn on my Rebel Xti, and I’m ready to take on something beefier. The research begins.

In other pet photography news, Sarah from Things are Better with a Parrot exchanged some of her printed note cards for a photography session with pet photographer Li of Fat Orange Cat Studio. I spent an hour today pouring over Li’s website. She’s just started her business a year ago, and my favorite parts of her site were reading the “learning” parts of her blog. It’s so inspiring!

Yesterday we went to Connecticut to continue dealing with the basement of my grandma’s house. The second it was legally ours we emptied our storage space and deposited half our earthly possessions down there. A lot of my things were already there from when I lived with her before, from ’02 to ’04, and now it’s all a mix of stuff that we don’t really need but can’t quite throw away. What’s the word for that? There has to be one.

Junk, probably.

We took the dogs with us. Every time we go they are absolutely thrilled with the huge grassy backyard full of new smells to roll in. We found a partially deflated ball in the woods, probably from a neighbor, and Tino played with that. Grandma found Matty an old tennis ball in the garage and threw it for him.

The cool thing about my dogs is that they know better than to poop on the nice grass. They all politely trotted to the wooded area to hide themselves, and pooped in the piles of decaying leaves. They don’t know not to roll in animal pee, though.

Needless to say we didn’t get as much work done as we could have, but that was fine. It’s been ages since I “went out to play”, and it seemed much more important to goof off in the fresh air.

Rob found the handle of a paint roller in the garage, and we played a round of stickball. Matty was both infield and outfield, trying to get his tennis ball back. We tried to make Leeloo and Tino in on the game, too, but they just blinked at us when we called them, and then went back to zoning out in the sunshine.

It was a really good day.

If you would like to advertise on my page, now is the the time to set it up for May 1st!  See here for more information, and email me (theambershow at gmail dot com) for details.  We’ll have your ad up first thing Friday morning.

Every time I say “Bakerella” I want to finish it up with “Bakerella cut it up one time!” I can’t be alone in this, can I?

Anyway, this woman is a wonderful baker with a delightful blog, and her signature “dish” are these cake pops. She’s made them for every occasion, and she even made them with Martha Stewart once.

These are her Easter pops. Follow this link to get the basic recipe and make some of your own (and for me!)

Happy weekend!

This month MAC is launching a new product line called the Sugar Sweet collection, and this photo from their ad campaign is just so perfect.  I haven’t bought new fun makeup since 2007 when Carissa convinced me to buy “sumptious olive” eye shadow for my wedding. I might be overdue.

If you’re even a tiny bit interested in photography, and ESPECIALLY if you like to do funky photography stuff, you should be signed up for Photojojo’s newsletter. Every time I get an email from them I’m delighted at the guerrilla photography tips they feature and the interesting things they highlight.

Check out their list of 20 Photographers Whose Work You Can Actually Afford. Some of my absolute favorites are on there, and I found out about a few new ones, too.

The above photo is from Sharon Montrose. Her photos make me smile.

I hope you get to do all of your very favorite things this weekend.

These photos by artist Christoph Niemann have been all over the internet after being in the NYTimes. They’re so fun! (See them all here.)

This taxi one is my favorite. I can never tell what the lights on top of the taxi mean, so I usually just end up flailing at any cab I see and hope it will stop for me. Yes, I realize this makes me uncool. This is one of many things, really, that make me uncool. It’s ok. It’s part of my charm.

Happy weekend.