Celebrating

Richard Charpentier Photography, Prints Leave a Comment

You know, I actually have a lot to celebrate. This week I haven’t felt like there was reason to be enthused (moving websites, etc), but yesterday I realized that there are many reasons to be excited.

  1. The new site has come along well! Really, I had wanted to create a more consolidated space beyond Hikenbike.net & DigitalRV.net. Plus it’s really easy to tell people what my new site is. My name. Pretty straightforward.
  2. Photo sales continue to move forward at the gallery. That’s just pretty exciting stuff!
  3. The new business plan continues to push forward. Tomorrow I’ll be sitting down reviewing everything, dotting I’s and making T’s (well, something like that). I’m a little nervous about the whole thing, but it is also exciting.
  4. I’ve been putting together some new collections of photos that are not in the gallery yet, but they will be. I’m holding off for a little while, and I’ll explain below.
  5. Life’s pretty good in general. I should be celebrating about it more. Right town, right people, fun things to do, exciting prospects around the corner.

See, that’s all stuff worth celebrating!

Yesterday I was thinking about how to commemorate the launch of this new web site. You know, a “Grand Opening” type of a deal. It’s not like you can cut a ribbon in front of a web site’s door or something. They don’t have doors, which I’m sure you’re aware of (I hope you are). What to do, what to do?

Thursday night I sat up late into the evening packaging some new prints that haven’t made it to the gallery yet. Ian has been asking about them. I show him new stuff, he says things like “Wow” and “Cool”, then asks if the prints I’ve brought him are for the gallery. I usually say no and then I run away with the prints in hand.

So, Thursday evening I was prepping a bunch of small prints to drop off at the gallery. That would make Mr. Ian a happy guy since he’s been asking about them. On the 5×7’s I now put them in a cute little protective wrap, pop a little mat board on back, and sign the mat with the name of the print as well. Pretty professional stuff if you ask me.

I finally realized yesterday morning on my way to work what I could do to celebrate the launch of the new site and the new prints. I decided to offer a few here, skip the gallery for the time being, and make sure that my regular web visitors actually had access to some of this stuff.

I’m still figuring out how to offer prints at a decent rate on the web, and not having much success. The ImageKind website, while cool, really marks stuff up fast if you want anything beyond the print, and I don’t like that much. Just too pricey!

This morning I sat down and picked 5 of the more recent favorites. Not just my favorites mind you. I’ve been posting my new photos to several photo web sites. People comment on shots, rate them, and sometimes offer different awards on the photos. I factored all of that into the photos you’re seeing here today.

Ah, I was wondering what the deal was with the random images here today. So, these are the ones that you’re talking about? I was hoping for some different ones…..

Yes, the pictures seen here are the prints I’m offering to my blog community. They are some of my favorites, and some that had such a large response on other sites that I thought I should include them.

So, what are these photos? I’ll give you the quick list.

The first (top of the page) is titled, “The Hitchhiker.” While traveling Route 66 I stopped often to photograph the Burma Shave signs. At one stop I couldn’t resist this flower, and I’m glad I didn’t!

The second photo is titled, “After the Rain.” It was shot after a monsoon broke up over the Granite Dells. You wouldn’t believe the response to this photo on the Flickr site. And the response that people have given me in person when they see it as a print has been amazing (one person insisted on buying it on the spot).

The third photo is, “Monsoon Crossing the Grand Canyon.” Yeah, not a creative title. Ah well, it was an amazing scene, and I’m glad it came through so well in print.

The fourth photo will appeal to Airstreamers everywhere. It’s, “Lone Airstream.” Another photo from Route 66. This Airstream sits outside of Seligman and greets tourists following Route 66 West. At one time it was used as a billboard to advertise some coffee house or other. Definitely a restoration project in my mind!

The final photo is simply, “Hometown.” Given how much I enjoy Prescott I had to include a photo from town in this series. The print of this photo is amazing, and computer monitors don’t do it justice, even an Apple Cinema display falls short on this one.

So, there you have it. A series of 5 photos that have not yet hit the gallery, and won’t for a little while. I thought I’d toss them out here into the vast Web before they get “gallery priced” and see if readers would have an interest in a unique collection of shots I’ve done recently.

Normally each 5×7 lists for $20 in the gallery. That’s just a standard thing apparently (Ian is the expert, so I let him handle that stuff). But in this case I’ll be packaging them together and sending the series out for only $50, plus $6 for shipping and handling. Each print’s mat is signed and labeled, and will be numbered as to which web set it is.

Ah, it’s a 50% off sale! Don’t you hear the voice of a TV announcer saying things like, “Limited time offer….act now…..operators are standing by?” I do. Sorry about that, but it is worth a giggle.

And yes, this is a limited time and limited run. The maximum I’ll do from the site is 50 sets as I think I’ll get sick of shipping at about that time. If I don’t run that many sets that’s ok. I’ll be getting these to the gallery as individual prints at the start of October and be done with the web set.

If you’d like to round a set up for yourself, the link below will get you on your way.


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