I’m struggling lately to just… accept the way things are. I’ve done a lot to try and make money to make it through the month each month, and now I think I will at least be able to do that and put a tiny bit into savings. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful and relieved and really really grateful to the things that have fallen into place and the people who have helped me to be here instead of completely destitute.
This just isn’t what I wanted my life to be like.
I was up until midnight last night because I was bubbling with excitement. I’m still bouncing off the walls at all that happened yesterday.
I had a riding lesson today and rode Walker, a 16.2 hand tall former bucking horse. I’ve ridden him sporadically in the past six months, and usually have a pretty good time. He’s a lot different than Missy… much more difficult to get to do anything and a real work out for your legs. It’s been fun riding him simply because I’ve been helping to teach him some things, as well as schooling him out of some pretty bad habits that he’s learned from his beginner riders.
Today we were working on canter transitions the bulk of the lesson. In one direction we had no troubles. In the other it was terribly difficult. We finally got it after picking up the wrong lead about 20,000 times. After we’d finally gotten it we started working on jumping.
Walker is a pretty amateur jumper. Most of the other kids who ride him are doing crossrails, an dhe’s pretty funny going over those. He always is hesitant and doesn’t really know where to put his legs or anything. I’ve jumped him quite a few times and had OK results. Today we started with a cross rail and he jumped it well. After two times over that Elizabeth put up the cross rail so it was bigger and h went over that well too. Elizabeth put up a low straight rail (about 1′) and we went over that twice. He was doing so well that she added another rail on top. I didn’t ask how big it was, because I knew that it would psyche me out. I would just end up thinking that Walker couldn’t jump it, and then he’d fulfill that expectation. So instead, I got him moving in a nice forward trot and went toward the jump. He soared over it! Elizabeth and I were both screaming and saying, “Holy crap! He jumped it!” So I decided to try again. As I asked him to trot he picked it up and then picked up a canter without even being asked!! We went over it two more times with the same enthusiasm. Elizabeth and I were both blown away.
Before I left I said that I felt like I knew what I was doing today. Elizabeth told me that he jumped the fences and took care of me because of my awesome attitude, that I had gone into every jump believing that he would jump it… so he did. She said that I took care of him, supported him as he jumped and stayed out of his face so he could do what he needed to do… and that I rode him confidently.
Lessons like this feel good. It’s the biggest jump I’ve gone over since I started back and I know I jumped it well. Very awesome.
Yesterday I received a comment from a friend on another blogging site that I am a member of. I’ve been blogging there since 1999, and this girl has been reading for nearly that long. She’s someone that I’ve always kept up with, always kept in contact with via comments, and always truly admired for her tenacity. In any case, she left me a comment telling me that she wanted to send me the money so I could upgrade my SmugMug account. I was absolutely astonished, because while we have known one another on line for years, it’s not like we’ve been friends in “real life”. If that makes sense. I sent her a comment telling her how touched I was that she would even consider that, and that I wanted her to know I thought it was too extravagant, and not at all necessary. She sent back a comment saying, “Kate I really want to do this for you. Please let me.” So I sent her a comment back and told her I would agree if it was something she truly felt she wanted to do.
So I will soon have an upgraded account, something that will enable me to really take creative control of that site. It will allow me to disable right-click on the photos there. It will allow me to sell photos directly from the site, which will eliminate the hassle of dealing with shipping. It’s just a really big deal.
Then last night when I was telling Jake about it, he said that he’d gotten me something as well. I was kind of surprised because my birthday isn’t for a few weeks, and I knew he’d had to spend quite a lot of money recently on tires for the jeep. He told me he’d purchased the domain name ‘katemoynihanphotography.com’ for me. This is also a huge deal. With the upgraded Smugmug account I will be able to use that as the URL. It’s just so cool that I will have my own URL for my photography.
I don’t know if I’ll sell enough pictures to even be able to afford the pro account on SmugMug next year, but I’m going to try to make something of this. I feel so proud of the images I’ve captured recently, and I feel so positive about the work I’m doing. When I’m out shooting, I feel confident and excited.
These two amazing gifts will definitely help me to pursue a dream I’ve had for a very long time.
It occurred to me Monday evening that I was going to have to make some changes to how I was going about this freelancing business. I’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of support from Elizabeth, her husband, and several other amazing friends. I started a page on FB for it, and have been working to drum up some business. Elizabeth invited me to go and photograph riding lessons on Sunday all afternoon, and I jumped at the opportunity. I got some great shots and immediately went home and got the best ones up on FB, and all of them were uploaded to password protected albums on my smugmug account.
I noticed that one of the girls from lessons had become a fan of my photo page on FB, which was awesome. Then I noticed that she had made one of the pictures her profile picture. This wasn’t a problem in and of itself… however it made me think that I needed to come up with a name to ensure my name was at least getting out there and that the pictures weren’t going to be able to be right clicked on and printed. That defeats my whole purpose. So I started thinking.
Thanks to the help of my good friend Monica, along with Jake, this is what I’ve been working on:
(That’s Pac Man… he belongs to Carol, who owns the farm that I ride at. I have a horse crush on him and want nothing more than to ride him just once).
It’s taken me literally hours to go back through and put watermarks on all of the photos I wanted to share on FB… and I’m still not completely done yet. I’m incredibly pleased with how it has turned out though. Now my name is on my images, so even if someone loves one so much they want it to be their profile picture, my name will be getting out there.
I went back through and resized my smugmug images to a point where they are at a resolution too low to be printed from. Until I can afford a professional account, there’s no way for me to prevent right-clicking on my photos… and it would take me 10 years to put watermarks on all of the photos I share there. This was the best way.
Hopefully I start seeing some good response.
Something else that’s exciting? Google ‘Kate Moynihan Photography.’ Go ahead, I’ll wait.
*waits patiently*
Did you notice whose FB page pops up as the first hit on that search? Mine! Super cool, isn’t it?
