it was supposed to be the summer of george!

well, my sabbitical was rejected two days before it was due to start, so I am stuck where I was for the time being. nonetheless there has been progress.

I bought a number of prints in the hope of selling them; something of a risk as I have to guess which photos people will want prints of. oh and i've hardly ever sold any prints up until now.

anyway I bought a number of prints, some of which my sister then lugged to Barra to be sold in the hotel there.

you can (sort of) see a canvas wrap adorning the walls of the hotel in the picture on the right.

The majority of the shipment was made up of calendars. you can see the proofs here:


Some of the other prints were to be displayed in Austin Lafferty's offices, though currently they are in my flat.

all in all, I spent £386.61 of my own money on prints, plus £50 (so far) on frames. We'll see how much of that I can make back.

I've also arranged to do two more weddings, both next year. one is a guy from my work, who is going to pay for me to have a holiday in cyprus in exchange for taking photos of his wedding while I'm there. The other came as a result of the Orla pictures, the bride being a friend of her mother.

VAT

I don't have to register for VAT, until I make a certain amount of money, but I could voluntarily register for it if I wanted. I thought this would be a good idea because it would cost me less to get things printed. However, I now think I was wrong.

let's say it costs £10+VAT for me to get my calendars printed. that would be £12.50 at the moment, I think. If sell them for £20, then I would have to pay the VAT on profit. it wouldn't lead to the printing being any cheaper. therefore there's no advantage in volunteering for it.

all of this makes my calendars seem AWFULLY expensive.

registered

I've officially registered as self-employed, and applied for a separate bank account with smile. I haven't applied for any special status wrt to VAT and National Insurance yet; that may require some more thought

also, the powerleague might be interested in me taking some photos of their games after I sent them these photos of my game:

and I finished reading "Contemporary Wedding Photography" by Julie Oswin, which gave me a few ideas, some of which I'll ignore

sabbatical

I've officially applied for a sabbatical from the 1st of august until the 12th of october. we'll see if it's accepted.

a glut of updates.

things have been on a bit of a hiatus while I looked into the pension ramifications of taking a sabbatical. this took a ridiculously long time. it would seem that for most of my pension it wouldn't matter too much, and so I'm probably going to apply tomorrow.

one thing I forgot to mention the last time was that i sent my facebook/macbeth thing to a publisher in wales (they published a book in email format which i read a couple of years ago) who said to finish it and submit it. i sent them the existing bit because I don't want to spend ages finishing it if they don't like the idea. i haven't heard anything since.

i took photos of my friend Sonia's niece, Orla . I had great fun doing it (including saving the baby when it dived head-first off the couch). Her mum took a pile of business cards, and I've already had one approach about a wedding, and heard rumours about another (in Peterhead of all places).

I also met up with Colm and Catriona, who's wedding I'm doing in September, which made me feel awfully professional. And they were very easy to get on with, so I'm not worried about the wedding photos at all.

Today, I discussed selling prints in the windows of TV lawyer Austin Lafferty's offices. Which wasn't something I saw coming.

too many decisions to be made.

in the meantime....
I got some business cards made up, which have now arrived. in retrospect they are a bit too IT-focussed, but I have updated http://www.paddimir.com to make it more photoey.

I also got a cheque for £200 for photos used on http://www.visitrenfrewshire.com/

I got a surprisingly big bonus, which makes a sabbatical seem more possible. it also makes me think that leaving BT might be cutting off my nose to spite my face. it was 5 times what I'm getting for a doing a wedding. a sabbatical can seriously damage your pension though. and I should really be leaving in principle. and coming back from a sabbatical to find hugh has taken VR would be a nightmare.

A complication

I was literally about to apply for Voluntary Redundancy, when someone said "have you seen that email that just came out?". it said the company was offering new flexible ways of working including taking a sabbatical of up to a year on 1/4 pay. after a year things might be a bit less insane, and they might miss genius so much they would treat me reasonably. in the meantime I would be free to make money from photos, but without the security of having that big pay-off sitting in my bank account.

decisions... decisions...

Things I have done thus far

Ordered business cards!
phoned my financial advisor but not phoned him back
created a barra calendar for sale at the hotel - who haven't emailed me back
arranged to take photos of sonia's niece for free. hopefully it will be good advertising
taken photos of eileen's baby. see above.
i've already arranged to do a wedding in september for a relatively modest fee.
i've looked into self-employed status, which I had better apply for sharpish

Ways I might make money

Okay, largely I hope to make money from photography, and IT.

more specifically, here are some detailed options that I have considered:

1. I write JMS bridge checker website, which is free at the point of use, but sponsored by Oracle as it will reduce their support costs.
2. I could also perhaps work as a consultant on JMS bridge work. the previously mentioned website would be a good way of advertising my skills.
3. wedding photography. I have one wedding lined up in September, but would need more
4. Barra calendar. this doesn't seem as though it will ever be particularly profitable, but I am trying to arrange for the hotel to sell them anyway. If that proves doable, I could get them to sell prints too perhaps.
5. I could maybe try an Elderslie Golf Club calendar too, selling them through the pro shop.
6. I could talk to nurseries about doing baby photos, as suggested by Julie Hynes. I could try out my "just send me what you think it's worth" approach here, which I am for some reason more comfortable with
7. Doing websites. I'm doing one for St Mirin's Cathedral for free, which might help to get me more.
8. Advertising. Most of the meagre money that I have made from photography thus far has been from people approaching me through flickr, mostly to use my photos in adverts.
9. Ad hoc portait work, like I did for Julia and Jen
10. Making money from getting my macbeth/facebook thing published. this seems unlikely, but it's worth trying. actually finishing it would be painful though.
11. Local papers etc.
12. Selling prints
13. General IT contracting. Probably for perl skills.
    

Why I'm starting this

Currently, I work for a telecommunications company doing IT. I am planning to apply for voluntary redundancy at the end of the month, and try and make money from other things.

This blog is to document that attempt.