summer. green and red

After the non-event that was my ebay auction for my art -- which I ended early, so as to avoid any winning bidders of £1 -- I have taken DelightfulJen's advice and listed it on Etsy instead. The advantages of Etsy being that it's not an auction, and the item will be listed until someone sees fit to buy it. Naturally, there hasn't been any interest yet and I'm not optimistic that anyone will stumble onto it and decide they want it -- any more than they did on Ebay.

I have also returned to the Britart to try and promote my art. I ran into some confusion first of all trying to make sure my selected images for submission were all 72dpi and 400 pixels. I don't know if that's meant to be 400pixels in height or width, I'm still not convinced I have it right, either. I also spoke some time ago of having to write a brief biography for the site. They require a short paragraph about [my] art practice along with a brief CV or biography. Considering I work in marketing and enjoy few things more than being left alone to write, I've found it quite difficult to write some kind of bio about myself. I include what I have so far, but am troubled that what I have written to date might just be considered as the "short paragraph". There's not much you can write about my photography "practice".

[Jay] is a fiercely independent photographer whose work spans from the Essex coast to the Moab desert.
Having studied photography at the University of Utah, [Jay] later trained as a journalist, before moving into public relations. Contrastingly, [Jay]'s work commonly features people as incidental to the places, if at all.
Often shot on quite basic equipment, the pictures approach scenes simply, and are remarkable for features like light, contrast or just a captured moment.

Clearly it needs more to it -- but at this point, I don't know what -- so feedback/suggestions are encouraged. There isn't really anything else to say by way of biography. I'm not expecting anything to come from this either, they will be overrun by real artists wanting to promote their work, but all I can do is try. I never expect to make a living out of this -- I was considering for a moment saying I wouldn't want to, but on second thoughts if I could make a living just by travelling and taking pictures, I think I'd take that over commuting into the city.

Thinking about promoting myself -- in a vaguely related way -- it occurred to me the other day that I haven't had a date in so long. I'm trying to think of the last one, and I think it might have been taking Luisa the mullet-haired Italian hottie to the ski&snowboard show in London. Last October. Has that really been it? Even that I don't think was really a date. I almost went on a date with Electro Girl, but I think I had a lucky escape with that one. Fairly recently, I was vaguely corresponding with a young lady who told me she was an artist -- but something didn't sit right with me about her. She claimed to be away in Benin, in Africa, at the time -- I didn't ever clarify whether she was talking about the Benin region of Nigeria or the Republic of Benin. Her emails always seemed very stunted, and hardly conversational however hard I tried -- I wondered if English might not be her first language, but in the end I decided I didn't like her attitude. She seemed to demand I be on instant messenger at a certain time each day, and didn't seem to get that I had to work. In the end, I set up gmail to automatically trash her messages unread. Maybe I was too hasty, but I was expecting any day some story about how she needed someone to look after her parents' fortune...

I repeatedly assert that I don't think online is going to be any kind of constructive way to meet someone -- placing personal ads is going to have very limited success when there's a thousand others just like it. I guess my freelance work is a good way to meet people -- I meet lots of new people, but aren't necessarily tied down to staying at one workplace so there's no worry about constantly having to see each other at work every day. Volunteering is also good, although I am wondering if it might not be a deliberate action on the part of the group not to put girls alone in cars with men they don't know.

It's not keeping me awake nights, but it would be nice to have someone to take to the open air theatre in Regent's Park on a summer's night or to talk on the phone to or show her my favourite bars and any number of other things. It would probably come easier if I was getting to just travel and take pictures...