Summer is always a busy time for me photographically, but this year has been the busiest yet. Photo shoots almost every single weekend, from May 1st through October 5th! Sure, a few of them are for me, but mostly there are a lot of horse shows, and the usual stock dog trials.
There are a few new events however, the annual Pet Run at the Big Sky Horse Park, which ended up not being very lucrative, but it was fun and I did make a few sales. There was also an unexpected but serendipitous event at the annual AKC dog show in June. Initially I was going to set up a booth to do dog portraits, but then found out that there was going to be a Fast Cat test, and asked my contact at the kennel club if I could do that instead. Her response was that she would have to check with the show committee. Ok, if not I had to photo booth as a backup.
There were several emails back and forth between members of the committee, of which I was included in, but not a single confirmation or denial for photos at Fast Cat. In the meantime, I was contacted by a woman, who I am assuming was also on the show committee, who emailed me privately and said there would be dock diving dogs too, and they really needed a photographer. Say whaaat?? Dock diving?? I am SO in!
Then she called me a few days later and said she was told that the dock diving folks contract the photographers and that they require ownership of all of the photos. Ok, that would be a deal breaker. We discussed it for a bit and then I said I would call them and check it out. She gave me their number and I called.
The woman who ran the dock diving said I was misinformed. They do not contract photographers, they use local photographers, I own all rights to the photos and I can sell them as I want. They only ask photos to use for promotional flyers and advertising. I told her I would be there.
