People who need people

I am one of those people who needs people. As a landscape/nature photographer, I often work alone. When I shoot portraits, I enjoy my time working with my subject, their friends, and families. But then after a shoot, I often spend far too much time alone again working at my computer.

Our current economic recession seems to have caused a lot of people to pull away. To retreat into their shell for comfort and safety. Like a turtle. I decided to do the opposite. First I joined a co-op art gallery so I could be around other artists to exhibit (and hopefully) sell my work. As happens with many ventures associated with the arts, the gallery was already in hard times when I joined, and ceased operations at the end of 2010.

Now I've decided to start my own co-op project. Is that an oxymoron? The truth is, it was my idea, I organized things, but it does not belong to me. We're still in very early stages of deciding what we are and what we're going to do, but I decided to use this space to declare publicly that we exist. We don't have a name yet. But after our third meeting, next week, we will know our purpose. I'll let you know more later -- including the name.