A little backstory leading up to this entry here. About 2 weeks ago, I checked out a really nice lens, and took it with the rest of photo kit to a waterski tournament where I shot a little over 1500 photos. All this with the hopes of selling a few prints to people. Now on with the research….

The first place I looked at was ExpressDigital’s PhotoReflect (I’m not providing a link, they’re not worth it, keep reading), because it’s where the 2008 AWSA Western Regionals photos were posted. I looked around the site, looked a little clunky but usable. Their rates sounded high at first glance (I’ve since found out they are indeed relatively low). For low-sales-volume accounts, they scrape 18% off the top, but don’t charge any bandwidth or storage fees.

The second place I looked at was PhotoWorks which also has free upload and storage, but their pricing markup is severely limited. The only options are a solid $ increase (ex. adding $10 to the cost of the print, regardless of size), or a solid % increase (ex. add 400% to the cost of the print, $1.14 4×6 and $209.70 for 20×30)

I kept on looking, asking a few photographers I know for recommendations. Unfortunately most people I know don’t sell their work online. Enter Zac. He suggested a few sites to check out. The first, PhotoShelter, is what he’s used in the past, and they have a “free” account to try, cool. The others DigitalRailRoad and RedBubble seemed to be capable, but targeted at other audiences.

Now for comparison, PhotoShelter seems the best option, as they handle all the printing and shipping stuff, and they scrape 30% off the top. But there is a $50 setup fee, and I would soon need more storage for $7-10/month (so $50 setup + $120/yr). DigitalRailRoad does not have a free account option, starts at $50 setup + $50/month, and they scrape 40% off the top. Most expensive, lowest margins, not a good combo. RedBubble seems to be targeted more towards art stuff.

These all seemed a litle overpriced now, and I remembered that PhotoReflect was free except for the 18% scraping. So I signed up for an account to try it out, excited to try their plugin for Apple’s Aperture. Low and behold, the plugin crashes Aperture every single time I try to connect to the website with it. Doing some research, other than providing the crappy plugin, they provide ABSOLUTELY NO MAC SUPPORT. Bullox.

Another option is using SmugMug Pro account which costs $150/year and they scrape 15% off your markup. The biggest selling point for SmugMug is also it’s biggest downside, the website is really Ajax-heavy. While it is a SWEET looking site, I’d worry that the glam of the site might be offputting/intimidating to some customers.

Ultimately I don’t think I’m ready to throw myself into the world of pro-photography, which is what it would require to justify the investment of joining most of these sites. I do want to start making some money from my work so I can justify spending more money on equipment, and more time in the field. So for now I’m still stuck thinking about what I want to do.

EDIT: I just realized with PhotoWorks, you can use the % markup with a minimum $ markup. For example, I can say 300% markup, but a minimum of $5. This seems to create a nicer price scale, though I wish I could markup the larger items less, since I don’t think I’d be selling many.

Tiny bit of back-story. General Tso’s Chicken is one of my favorite Chinese dishes, especially at Maple Garden near campus. I’ve never seen any other resteraunt make it anywhere near close to the way they do, and I have no idea what it’s supposed to be like, but it’s damn good. So it’s been a goal of mine for the past 3 years or so to figure out how to make a decent batch of it. I’m getting closer… I’m guessing another 2 attempts and I’ll have a recipe worthy of sharing.

That’s what Toni asked me about 2hrs ago. Followed by:

Me: getting my calendars set up to sync through google
Toni: sounds exciting there
Me: you have no idea
Toni: lol
Toni: you are an odd one

Anyways this is fairly brilliant. Google Calendar is the brains of the operation, where the data is stored and whatnot. Sure I exported most of my calendars straight from iCal, but then I set up the calendars to utilize Google Calendar’s new calDAV service (Google’s instructions). So now I can edit events on my iMac at home, the iMac at work, even on my iPod Touch, and it’ll sync up to the gCloud, and back down to my computers/iPod, and essentially be the same everywhere.

Caveat here is regarding the iPod Touch. I only see the “live” calendars when using Google’s mobile interface, the Apple Calendar interface needs to get plugged in at home to sync. Same with posting, it if i post to Apple Calendar, nothing goes live until I plug & sync at home. And obviously Google Calendar needs to be within earshot of wi-fi access.

This is all acceptable though, wi-fi seems ubiquitous enough for when I’m hopping between computers, and when I’m not (say, when I visit the family cabin in Minnesota), the iPod Touch will be the only device I have for keeping schedules, so it’ll “just work”.

The one thing I don’t understand, is why do each of my Google Calendars need seperate CalDAV accounts in iCal? This is makes it a pain the ass to set up, but after the fact is mainly cosmetic (see image above, and click to enlarge).

Hmm.. ramblomatic blogger? I’m going to bed.

I’ve skied at Mint a few times, but only at the Emerald Valley’s Northwest Championships tournament. This was the first one where our club wasn’t as required to do the work. I still helped out with scoring and judging, it helps to practice at a variety of locations, learn the quirks of the computers and whatnot.

22nd ANNUAL MINT LAKE OPEN
TourID: 08W133C
Yacolt, WA
7/12/2008 to 7/13/2008

Slalom Rd 1: 4 @ 58k, 23m
Tricks: 810 pts (personal best!)
Jump: 64 ft (personal best!)
Slalom Rd 2: 2H @ 58k, 16m (personal best!)

I also took some photos from the site (click image above for gallery):