The Domain

High level domains are those with the suffix .com. I bought such a domain. It was luck that I could get one with my own name. I also had no other idea. The domain name should be easy, without special signs. This was my condition. The companies where I wanted to publish my website offered me domain names. 

The own name has a huge advantage. If the activities of the own company change, the name can  still stay the same. I know photographers who had the name wedding in the domain name. Then they developed in an other direction and offered portraits. That meant that the owner of the company had to start with another company name, too. Everything else would be misleading. That means to start from scratch again. 

Many companies are named after the owner i.e. Calvin Klein (fashion). Some names are so complicated that it's better to invent another name. An example is Calvin Hollywood (photographer). Many names that have nothing to do with the own name are taken already.  Who knows that Mango sells clothes? The name should be appropriate to use in international context. One can philosophize endlessly. One can agonize about this topic. 

I so understand that one wants to hide behind a company name that has nothing to do with the own name. I had no idea behind which name I could hide myself. So my name became my domain name, and therefore the name of my website. 

Important for me was:

1. to find a name that is simple with no special signs and not too long.

2. It should be appropriate to use also in international context.

3. Of course the name must be available. Whois.com is a website that allows to search if a name is still available or taken already. 

I also bought domain names with my name and different suffix like .de, .org, .info over the last decade. Do I really need these additional domains? I don't know. Nice to have. It costs something every year, but it's affordable. Nevertheless, I don't want to have anything that I don't need. The last word is not yet spoken here. 

During my researches on domain names, I found out that there are people who make money with domain names. They buy and sell them. Domain names are even called online real estate. What a business idea. 

The reason why I had to reflect on my domain names again was, because I moved my website from wordpress to squarespace. I was never happy with wordpress, I found it too complicated. Wordpress is the market leader. The concept is to work with plug-ins, that are produced by other companies but wordpress. This makes this side unsafe, I was told by a web designer. When I moved from wordpress to squarespace I wanted to use my domain name with the suffix .com. This is possible, but it was very difficult to manage this. I contacted the support of wordpress. First they sent me links, but I had read them already. Finally I found someone who helped me to move my domain name to Squarespace. This all took minimum 2 days. Correspondence went back and forth. I wrote to different persons. Each time when I got an Email from them it was someone else. Finally ONE person helped me. The move of my domain name is done now. Halleluja. Where is the next horse to ride.

My first book

The story:

I searched and searched and I got desperate and even more desperate. This cannot be that I have taken more than 50.000 pictures and that I don't find a single picture that I really like to print. I guess it's rather a matter of how I organize my pictures. There must be treasuries, but where. On flickr I usually post the best of..... Going through my work there I had the idea to create a book. 

Printing: 

One must print. This is a very important next step if one wants to develop as a photographer. Pictures that are online have a life period of under one second if they are on Instagram with an often used hashtag i.e.. Printing forces to work precisely.  To live with the own work helps to redefine the own style. It's also the fruit of the work. 

The starting point of my life as a photographer:

How deep should I dive into the past? Today the year 2000 seems like the Middle Age. So I went back till the year 2013. Also in 2013 I have taken a lot of pictures. I decided to connect the year 2013 with my first group project. We met via Facebook. We formed a group of about 15 women, all very passionate about photography. Every week another women gave a topic. This was the strength and the weakness of this group. The interests and therefore also the topics were so differently, that I cannot find a read thread in my 52 pictures. On the other hand to get out of the comfort zone can be a good experience, too. Why not taking pictures of landscapes as an exercise? An other example: One week we had the topic to take a picture with a mobile phone. I had no mobile phone and was very reluctant to get another gadget. But I wanted to finish this project and a few months later I had a mobile phone. It allowed me to complete the series of 52 pictures. It#s one of my best pictures in this series.

It's always amazing how much knowledge a group of 15 people have if they share it. I learned from another photo shop in Munich. Wee had a lot of fun and praised each other a lot. 

The first book:

One evening I sat here and thought that I should do something more profound with that project. Just to have it in a folder in Flickr shouldn't be enough. It took me another month till I decided to make a book out of it. Flickr works together with blurb.com. So I created a book with these software tools. I spent organizing the pictures, I wrote the contents in the last pages of the book and I clicked on sent. 

A few days later the book was in my mailbox. I ripped the package and couldn't wait to have this book in my hands. It's of very high quality. It became a true art book. I only wanted to have a picture on one page, the other page should be untouched. This looks very generous and precious. I went for a grey background. Wow, I loved the result. 

In the evening of that day we went out for dinner. Before the Miso soup arrived, I showed  the book to my husband. He looked at every picture. He turned one page after the other without being in a hurry. To show a book is something else than to show pictures on a mobile phone. 

To go through the process of creating a book gave me a lot of insights. It became rather simple to create it and even to publish a book is no more that difficult. It's fun. 

For me my photographic life of the year 2013 is connected with this project. With this book I hold a piece of reality in my hands. It's motivating. I celebrate this event. 

There are still a few pictures in that book that I still love. Most pictures I wouldn't even publish anymore. But this is not that important. In 2013 life was different. I loved to see how much I had learned within 4 years. Each picture was an important tiny step. 

A new beginning

After a while the past is over. One must invent onself again. My website gets a renovation.