Two Black Dogs Art & Photography

So, I finally decided on a business name and some of you have probably already guess what it is after seeing the title of my blog post. Thank you for all of the feedback I received after my earlier post ‘What’s in a name?’ it helped me develop more concrete thoughts about the next steps to take. The name I settled on is ‘Two Black Dogs Art & Photography’ which seemed logical because it has meaning to me, and it builds on my existing ‘brand’ (if you can call it that). I hope that the words ‘art’ and ‘photography’ provide enough information about me and people will explore my website or contact me through social media to get more detail about me and the type of work I do. For those of you reading this post my business focuses on creating pet portraits using the medium of pastels and/or photography. You may be wondering why the word ‘pet’ doesn’t feature in the business name, it is because I also paint landscapes and wildlife, photograph shelter dogs, and on the odd occasion I photograph people.

My website is currently a portfolio, created using the Adobe Portfolio which is free to Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers. At the moment I have no pricing available and no way of booking online, my work comes through requests via email or direct from friends and family. Whilst I have years of management experience, having my own business is new to me and there is a lot to learn so I am taking things slowly while I find my feet. If you would like to see examples of my work, please take a look at my portfolio: https://www.twoblackdogsartandphotography.com.au and let me know what you think.

The logo for Two Black Dogs Art and Photography was partly developed by a graphic designer and I then tweaked the typeface and layout a little to suit the various formats. Thankfully the designer is a friend who accepts gift cards as payment and he was happy for me to adapt the logo to suit, providing me with the source files that made it possible.

 

This is going to be a steep learning curve for me, I will be trying to find more regular work in the interim as art and photography supplies don’t come cheap plus we have a senior dog to support 😉 If you want to follow my work you can find me on instagram @twoblackdoggiesartandphoto and I will try to share more on this blog, my posts have been rather infrequent these past 12-18 months. On that note I’d like to thank you all for your patience and your support, this blog has been going for about 8 years and I’ve (virtually) met some wonderful people as a result.

Cheers
Sam

 

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The holiday is over

Frangipani flower

Well, that is it then, holiday over and back to work. Can’t complain too loudly though, with temperatures over 40 degrees celsius in some parts of Australia it is great to be able to work in air conditioned comfort. My poor doggies are melting, throughout the day they move from one cool, shaded spot to another and you can see the relief on their faces when I come home and they can finally lie on the nice, cool tiles.

Bundy napping on the cool tiles

 

Australian themed Christmas decoration

Christmas and New Years Eve was spent south of the border in New South Wales. My parents live in the country, surrounded by cows, horses and alpacas, it is a very peaceful place to stay and the nights are so dark that you can easily see the stars. The dogs love it there although they’d be much happier inside with us, but their Nan and Pop don’t allow dogs in the house so Maxi claimed the deck and Bundy decided that sitting on the outdoor table was the place to be. Every morning I took Bundy for a walk down to the river while Maxi got to have a walk through the paddock (her legs won’t carry her very far anymore), on the first morning everything was shrouded in fog, it was magnificent to see especially when the sun’s rays started to burn through the fog and throw a little more colour and light onto the picture.

Christmas day was a hot one, after the traditional early morning opening of presents I joined my husband’s family for brunch, watching our nephews playing with their presents reminds me of the excitement I felt when I got my first record player and the soundtrack for the movie Xanadu – I loved Olivia Newton John :-). The heat and the boys desire to try out their new boogie boards drove us to the beach, it was cloudy and windy, the water freezing but we still got sunburned and soon it was time for us to head off to my cousin’s house for a late Christmas lunch. Christmas with my family usually means five types of meat, a tonne of baked vegetables and more desserts than anyone could possibly need, not to mention lots of bubbles and beer. At some stage water is involved, often swimming in a pool however this year it was a water fight using the latest in water pistols (they look more like cannons) and buckets, this is when holding a camera has its advantages.

Christmas day at the beach

Flynn’s Beach, Port Macquarie

The 2013 National Beach Volleyball tour kicks off in Cronulla, my husband is part of the operations team that organise the event and work started on Boxing Day, December 26 so that is where we spent New Years Eve. Cronulla is heaven for surfers and beach goers, alot of effort has gone into tidying up the foreshore but this Sydney suburb still feels as though it is made for locals and on New Years Eve it was surprisingly quiet. New Years Eve is also our wedding anniversary, this year we celebrated our 5th anniversary and although in Sydney we celebrated quietly with bubbles and delicious nibbles on our hotel balcony, avoiding the crush of two million people on the harbour’s foreshore. New Years Day was spectacular weather wise, the beach was packed and the temperature soared, the lifeguards were going to have a busy day.

View from Rydges Hotel, Cronulla

Cronulla beach

New Years Day at the beach, Cronulla

Where did the time go?

Only yesterday (or so it seems) my husband, Bundy and I were at the beach admiring the creative works of others and making the most of the opportunity to get our feet wet. If you’re wondering where Maxi, our other black dog is, she didn’t join us at the beach because her arthritis doesn’t allow her to spend a couple of hours walking up and down the beach and as she gets older, she is getting less patient (friendly) with other dogs. Since the Swell sculpture exhibition life has gotten pretty busy, both socially and at work, but mainly at work and it has my head spinning. I generally don’t write about work, preferring to spend my spare time focusing on the loves in my life because that is what is most important to me and I think that when you write about work it can be easy to get bogged down in the negative.

The weeks are flying by, soon it will be Christmas but in the meantime my boss will have moved on and we’ll be looking down the barrel at a restructure of our entire division. Restructures aren’t always a bad thing, I don’t mind the change and I’m trying to remain optimistic, hoping that it won’t mean a major loss of jobs however I’m not naive and realise that some loss is inevitable especially for those staff on short term contracts. The scary thing is that I’ll probably be stepping into my boss’ shoes for the short term, why? Because I’ve been around for a while and our senior executives are hoping that I can maintain a level of stability for the team while they determine what our structure will look like. Can I do it? Who knows, my boss seems to think so which is really nice but I can’t help feeling like a fraud.

The likelihood of something going wrong, really wrong, is minimal for the short period of time that I’ll be acting in that role, still, it makes me quite nervous and I hope that the pressure doesn’t turn me into a complete stress bucket. Coming home to our two black doggies and spending Sundays at the shelter will help keep me grounded, when working with the dogs I don’t think about work, it is all about them and I’m usually so tired of an evening that I easily fall asleep.

I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that I am working to live and make myself take time to enjoy moments such as those in my photos.