Exhausted on a Monday night

The weekend finally caught up with me and I am exhausted tonight. The races got over at a fairly reasonable hour both nights but I had to do several hours of work when I got home from the races both nights and four more hours Sunday morning. I did manage to get outside yesterday afternoon for a few hours and cut the lawn for the first time. I was thinking about going out there with the bag on the mower to pick up some mulch left over from last fall but I ran out of steam thinking about it.

I'm going to take the night off tonight and get busy with interviews and getting the camera ready for the weekend starting tomorrow night. I have to check my camera sensor to see if it needs cleaning and I should get my solution out and clean all of the lenses. I've got a sensor scope kit with a lighted magnifying scope and some special swabs and solution for sensor cleaning. The kit comes with a little battery or USB operated mini vacuum that works great for cleaning the dust out of the little impossible to reach places. So far it has been a dusty season which makes cleaning on a regular basis very important.

I'm going to comment on some of the feedback I have been getting recently.

Email: "Is it really true that you haven't sold any pictures this season? I don't get it, your pictures are awesome."

Stan: Yes, it is true, I haven't sold anything. I had three requests for drivers cards that I deferred to another photographer because I don't have time to do the artwork. I had one inquiry about an 8x10 and another about a couple 4x6's and a 5x7. 8x10's cost me $3 each for processing and the going rate is $10 so I make $7 each so I might make $7 this weekend for my first sale. I say "might" because sometimes people ask me to have pics made up and never hear back from them so I don't count any sales in advance. The person that inquired about the 4x6's and 5x7 never replied back to me so they must have gone to somebody else. So the answer to your question is that I haven't made a cent this year but I might make $7. One photo is hardly worth the trouble of having to drive over and pick it up. At this time last season I was already getting multiple orders so I am not doing well at all. Matter of fact, every photographer I have talked to is doing well so far this spring so I don't know what has gone wrong. The publications have been contacting me and requesting more of my photos each week, they love my work and are keeping me very busy after the races.

I have a theory on my lack of sales. The other photographers that put their emphasis on selling take mostly single car standard shots whereas I do a lot of multi car stuff at a variety of non-standard angles specifically intended for the publications. That and the fact that I decided to forgo the post race celebrating and get online as soon as possible after the races to send to a rapidly growing distribution list. Whatever the reason for my lack of success at sales it is what it is so I had to make some adjustments. I convened an emergency MDTR chairman of the board meeting and made some budget cuts just like the big companies have had to do. I cut out the motel and all but possibly one of the camping weekends and will be coming home after all the events to save on expenses. Of course I will hang onto the old truck for another year and I shuffled things around to free up some more money out of my savings. I'm not complaining but just telling it like it is and saying that money appears to be tight for everyone compared to last year. Bottom line, the racers need to spend every last cent on their cars and I can understand what it's like to have to do that. No complaints here, we'll keep plugging away and do our best.

Here's a few samples from Saturday night.









Someone else asked this question:

Email: Why do you only do your interviews at ##### #### and how come you don't interview at some of the ####### tracks?

Answer: See above, it takes gas money to travel around to other tracks that are a further distance from home. Also, I don't have one of those ####### passes so I can't get into most of their tracks. The interviews take time and preparation during the week to do properly. I do my best to give back to the sport and make a contribution but I'm maxed out in both time and budget so I'm forced to stay close to home most of the time. Also, as I mentioned above, I can't afford motel rooms and even if I could the wife is attached to her laptop computer and has all her work on it so I can't take it with me to do my work in the motel after the races even if I could afford to travel. I'm giving 110% of what I have back to the sport but it's never enough for some people. If they don't like what I'm doing and think they can do a better job by all means go ahead. This kind of feedback is discouraging but I have to pick my chin up and let it roll off my back.

On the up side I have been getting some positive feedback from the interviews that I have done. That is encouraging and makes it worth while to take on this new task. I'm doing it to give the racers around our local area some exposure and not for my own personal interests. It's time consuming and nerve wracking to do the cold calls and approach people about this so it's a work in progress for me. I'll just keep going by the feedback and I do accept constructive criticism but I won't take a beating for things that I am not able to do.

I hope this helps to answer these two most asked questions.

Well, that's going to about do it for tonight.

Later!

I am kinda wore out for no apparent reason other than that it's Tuesday...

I was thinking about doing an interview tonight but I kinda' hit my wall and lost my ambition about an hour after dinner. I'll have to double up tomorrow night and see if I can do a couple of them. I'm still getting used to the more intense routine and have been brushing up on speech training, writing notes and gathering information. Been doing quite a bit of photo editing and working on the next MRC column so this has been an intense first few weeks of the season. I'm sure that when it warms up and I don't have to fight this lousy weather I'll have more energy because the cold takes some of the wind out of my sails. I should have asked Doug Wolfgang how he deals with the aches and pains after his injuries but I think I already know the answer to that. Anybody that followed his career knows that he was always into conditioning probably more than most of the other Outlaw drivers. I think he still gets out and does as much as he can to this day but I didn't get an opportunity to talk to him about it. My window of opportunity for keeping myself in that kind of condition have probably passed but I'm getting out and walking and trying to eat better so that helps. Some guys like Doug had enough insight to do that when they were younger and that sure has to help a lot. Anyways, I see where Saturday will be another 60/40 (around 60 for a high and a low of 40)so it's kind of hangin' in there just a little cooler than I'd like to see it.

I got a call tonight about my photos and that made me feel pretty good. I already knew that my work is good and that I'm doing some unique stuff but I don't try to compete for sales and I don't post an announcement on the message boards everytime I upload photos. You can pretty much count on me uploading anywhere from 1-3 galleries every week, usually the day after the race.



I don't think there's a need to announce that I posted to my gallery. People know where it is, they know my work and they'll let me know if they like something.

My typical race weekend goes something like this. Go to work all day Friday, stop home and pickup my camera bag, change shoes, grab a hat and sweatshirt and head to the track. I go around talking to people, maybe take a few portraits in the pit area and whatever other special assignment I've got. Take photos all night until the final Feature has been run and get out of the track and on the road as soon as possible. When I get home I'll upload the photos to my computer, go through them and pick out the victory lane shots. Send the victory lane and maybe a couple action shots to several publications and the tracks, burn two CD's, one for myself and one for the track. By the time this is done it's usually 2am and I'm ready for bed. I'll get up in the morning, finish up any photo work for the publications that I was too tired to do the upload to my gallery. Then I'll go out and try to do a few hours of yard work until around 2 or 3 on Saturday. take a shower, organize the camera bag, load up the batteries and head out to the track. The Friday routine is repeated again on Saturday night except if the Features are done early enough I'll stop at one of the convenience stores in Osceola and get a 12 pack. Go home, repeat the photo routine (if it's early enough I'll down a couple beers) and go to bed.

Sunday I get up, repeat that same routine of uploading the gallery and finishing up any photo work. Burn CD's and put one in the truck for the track, do laundry, clean out the litter box, grille for the wife or go out to dinner and DVR the NASCAR race if I remember. If I'm done early enough I'll buzz through the race on fast forward to see who won so I can give the wife the TV before her Sunday night shows start. Maybe I'll hang on the computer for a little while checking out results, load up my MP3 player with fresh podcasts and take a break. If the deadline for my column falls on that weekend then I'll put the photo work off and finish/send my column.

This season I'm doing the interviews so I'm getting into the routine of organizing my materials and writing an outline during lunch and breaks at work and doing the actual interviews Tuesday thought Thursdays. That piece is kind of flexible but I'm trying to do two per week to start and will add more as I get used to the routine and doing the actual interviewing. You wouldn't think that it would be very intense to sit and talk to somebody on the phone but there's a certain protocol to follow and in spite of reciting the introduction and conclusion whenever I'm driving anywhere I still can't rattle it off. I have been listening to some public speaking podcasts and practicing so that come around. I get the same panic feeling at the start of an interview that I used to get when I'd speak in front of a couple hundred people. That feeling eventually subsided before public speaking as I'm sure it will with a little more podcasting experience. I think that trying to direct the conversation with another person involved is what makes it more intense because you never know what they're going to say. You can't stay too close to your notes or you're going to panic when the subject of your interview goes in a different direction than you expect. It's structured to some degree but in another sense it's very much by the seat of my pants because I have to adjust. For example, if my notes so to ask a certain question and the interview subject volunteers that information before I get around to asking the question I have to strike that question on the fly. In some cases they may only partially cover the subject so then I might still revisit it later in the interview with a slightly different twist.

And, uh, ummm, I'm uh, ya know, I'm uh, still working on eliminating those bad patterns that we all fall into in our everyday conversation without even knowing that we did it. That is a big challenge for me, ya know? LOL

It has been busy lately and I'm still trying to figure out how to break it to the wife that she's going to have to take over the yard work. On second thought it would probably be better for my health and well being to continue to do that myself. ;-)