To Brand Or Not To Brand

At one time if you wanted to set up a website to sell your photography, jewelry or pottery online you would go to a webmaster and tell them what you wanted it to look like. Hopefully, he or she would listen to you and soon they would upload a website to sell your artwork on. But it can be a nightmare too, as I found out. Besides being very expensive.

Venues like Etsy, 1000 Markets and other selling sites were a blip on the horizon at that time. Wonderful places that would make our lives so much easier. In some cases you still had to have someone do the banner and avatar. But after working with Photoshop or other editing software for a while most artists caught on how to do them.

It is so much fun making an avatar. In fact many artists change their avatar every few months. I know I fell into that practice. I had a leopard, jaguar, pronghorn and baby, black cat and a black kitten. Every one of my sites, from my website to my Flickr page had a different animal on it. Everyone of them a wonderful creation. Not one of them had brand recognition.

I never gave brand recognition a minute of thought until on day while watching the Martha Stewart show. Everything changed. I can't remember the woman's name, but I won't forget what she said about brand recognition. You want your brand logo, avatar, stationary, and banner to be uniform.

Out went all the animals and I settled on one avatar. One of my most popular card photographs, my Birthday Cat Hamlet. My banner was standardized as well. Now no matter which of my online sites someone comes to they know they are in a Celtic Cat Photos shop.

We Come Here To Remember

Oklahoma City Memorial 4/19/95





















We Come Here To Remember

Those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever.
May all who leave here know the impact of violence.
May this Memorial offer Comfort, Strength, Peace, Hope and Serenity.

Cathy 4/ 19/ 09

Lemonade Award!

I was nominated for a "Lemonade Award"!!!!! Awarded for great attitude, I guess it goes along with that whole "given lemons, make lemonade" saying. :) And Beholden to Nature graciously bestowed upon me a "Lemonade Award"!

Thank You!

The rules are quite simple...

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 5 - 10 blogs that show great Gratitude and/or Attitude.
3. Be sure to list and link your nominees within your post.
4. Tell them they have received this award by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Nominate your favorites and link to your post.

Here are my lovely nominees:

365byjoanna

Gypsy Moon Designs

Amy Long Berry Photography

Judi FitzPatrick Studio

Rare Image Photos


Cathy @ Celtic Cat Photos

Woke Up This Morning!

Well, I woke to a wonderful surprise this morning, I have been awarded the Kreativ Blogger Award! Thanks to my friend Julie, from Gypsy Moon Designs for the wonderful award. I am honored you would think of me!

Here are the rules:List 7 things that you love and then pass the award on to 7 people...tagging them and letting them know they won! You can copy the picture of the award and put it on your sideboard letting the whole wide world know you are KReATIV!

1 - DH, I love DH!

2- My two older sister! Both my parents are dead, so my oldest sister has become our mother.

3- Cats, especially my cats Osisin, Oscar, and Finn Mc Cool!

4-Reading, I love to read! There is nothing better than going to a book sale! I always have a
a dozen or more books hanging around.

5-Online shops, I love online shops and shopping! Etsy, Artfire, Redbubble, 1000Markets, I love
them all.

6-Sunsets and Sunrises, I love to see a beautiful ones. Even better I love to photograph them.


7-Photoshop, I could sit and work on photographs all day! Unfortunately, DH and duty calls!

I tag:

Julie Magers Soulen

Rare Image Photos

Amy Long Berry Photography

Allie Art 4 Children

Beholden-To-Nature

Judis Jems

Urban Junkies Artist Lounge

The Big Easy!

Born on the Buyou


Night Parade


At my age you would think I would have had enough of night parades! But it is Mardi Gra and the invitation was too good to pass up. DH's relative has a shop on the main street that we could park behind and use the bathroom. So off we went, we were the last car into the lot. We stayed in the shop until it was time for the parade to start.

It is getting dark, and feels like rain. A helicopter keeps flying over head with a spotlight on the crowd. It is beginning to drizzle. You wonder if it starts to rain, will they cancel the parade and reschedule it for a day we won't be in town. No, here come the police cars to make sure the street is clear. They are followed by tow trucks to collect anyone who disobeyed the law.

Here comes the first float!

It is raining now, who cares, this is fun. "Come on Mister, throw me something!"


Causeway across Lake Ponchartrain

Tagged

I've been tagged. Cool! So here goes!

1 - I 'm an accountant by profession, a bean counter. About as far as you can get from Photography. I found being an accountant for a big chain department store very interesting.
I love working with figures. I love all the stats and analytics, views, hearts to sales ratio, if there is one related to online shops.

2 - I became a widow at a young age. And was single until I met Ken about 15 years ago. We found we had a lot of the same interests, photography, travel and having a good time. Looking forward to the adventure of a trip. He also had 3 cats!

3 - Music, I love music. I would rather have music on than the TV. As soon as I received my Apple G5 I enrolled in iTunes and downloaded a lot of songs, and have ripped many others too! Whenever I am working in my studio I have music on, either through my computer or my 3 disk changer.

4 - I love chocolate, but chocolate doesn't love me. So I have to be careful how much I eat. I think all the vitamins should have been put into chocolate.

5 - I am the youngest of three girls. My father's brother had 3 boys. I love my sisters and enjoy when we can get together.

6 - I grew up in Detroit, on 25th street. Moved to Martindale street, then out to Dearborn Heights, then to Livonia where I owned my first house. Now I live in Shelby Township with Ken and our three cats.

7 - Given a choice, I always pick blue. Next would be green.

I am on the road so I can't post any photographs.

Cathy 2 /22/ 09

The Chocolate Garden - Notes From the Road

I have passed this sign on the road many times. Exit 39, turn left to The Chocolate Garden. Sounds wonderful! Unfortunately it is winter here in Michigan and there is snow everywhere and not a garden in sight, a few forlorn looking leafless vineyards, but no gardens with lovely chocolate truffles standing in delightful rows. It was early, so we pulled off of I-94 at exit 39 and headed for the garden. Those of you who follow the Food Channel might have caught the show showing how they make their truffles.

It is a small shop in a rural setting. Not anything like what you would expect from a famous truffle maker. The truffles looked wonderful and we each picked out our favorites. I had noticed a wonderful weathered barn along the drive and I asked if I could take a few photos of it. I also took several photographs of some feathers in the snow. We decided to save our truffles for later on our trip.

It is very cold to be out photographing lighthouses. The coldest was at Point Betsie Lighthouse which is just above the beach at Point Betsie, north of Frankfort. The wind was brutal. I put on my yaktracks to keep from falling on the frozen snow, my ear covers, hat and gloves. It was still extremely cold and dangerous along the waters edge which is frozen and slick. The cold seemed to drain the life out of my battery in record time. So back to the car.

This was our 6th lighthouse on this trip. One more to go and then back home.


Update: 2/05/09

Just a note: The truffles were wonderful! The Chocolate Garden will be a stop whenever I am in the area.