New Photography Web Site

On Dec 12, 2014 my Jim Plaxco Photography web site officially went live. I have amassed quite an archive of photography over the years but never sought to profit from it. Visually my primary interest was in digital art and the creation of a variety of painting programs and generative art programs.

Prior to this my photography fulfilled three purposes. The first was documentary in nature: taking photographs of places I had visited, sights I had seen, and events I had been involved in. This is the purpose that most people pursue when engaged in photography.

My second purpose was to capture scenes for either artistic inspiration or to use as an image source for my digital art. One example of the latter is Digital Self Portrait which is an algorithmic self-portrait created by taking a photograph of myself and using that image as input into a generative art program that I had written.

My third purpose was to experiment with the creation of abstract photographs. This was the only truly "in-camera" experimental photographic work I performed. It was a quest to see what sort of unique imagery I could create by manipulating the factors of time, zoom, focus, motion, and lighting. Many of these experiments in abstract phtography were an aesthetic flop – but enough of them were successful to keep me going.

So what brought about this sudden decision to market my photography? As with many things it began slowly. I had created an Instagram account out of curiosity as to how the platform functioned. I took several photos and left it at that. It then occurred to me that I could use Instagram as an alternative marketing venue for my art. I deleted most of the photographs I had taken and began uploading my artwork.

About the same time as I had decided to start using Instagram to market my art, I discovered Twenty20 (formerly InstaCanvas) – a service for printing your Instagram photographs. So I set up a gallery on Twenty20. I wound up making available a mixture of art and photography. However I pulled most all of my work off the site when, earlier this year, they decided to offer digital downloads of all art and photography. Unfortunately Twenty20 adopted an all or nothing approach leaving artists and photographers with no ability to specify which of their works should be available for download. Not only did I remove most of my work but I have not uploaded any new art or photography since that time. In defence of Twenty20, they do offer excellent commissions on the digital downloads – better than several of the stock photography web sites I checked.

The combination of having used Instagram and Twenty20 to market my photography led me to create my own photography web site. While I could have gone with one of the many portfolio hosting services or stock photography sites, I opted for my own site on my own domain as I prefer the degree of control that provides me with. Conveniently, some years ago I had purchased the domain name jimplaxco.com but had not done anything with it. It seemed logical to use that domain as the home for my photography. I then spent the month of November and the start of December building the site and populating it with an initial set of photographs.

I completed work on the site last week and as a part of the rollout I'm offering a 20 percent discount on all available photography products. The coupon code to use during checkout is 508BD0, which will expire at the end of this year. So please visit Jim Plaxco Photography and let me know what you think.

| Return to the Blog Index | This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2014 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Digital Photography.