Hello

[Davidj]

Just a quick intro, as I’ve been reading through the forums here and it looks like the sort of place I’ve been looking for. It really is difficult to sift out the wheat from the chaff if you’re looking at attempting to make some money from the Internet - just a penny for every “5 steps to your first million” that I’ve found and I’d be buying Roman Abramovich’s yacht - so it's good to find a site that seems to have so much good info.

A bit of background; from the UK, I work freelance in IT and have done for a long time, mainly in networks and wireless networks, plus more recently reselling and supporting some cloud based services, like online backup and hosted Exchange, and writing the odd web site (I’m OK with HTML and CSS, not so much with Wordpress). I’ve got a decent income from that, and we (that’s my wife and I) are reasonably comfortable (no kids, just cats, that’s the secret). I also sell photos – my own, I mean – through stock sites, and make enough money that way to pay for my camera equipment and the odd photography trip, mainly to the Arctic (it's a strange obsession with very cold places I've had since I was a kid).

The good thing about my primary job is it gives me a guaranteed income while usually leaving me a fair amount of free time, the bad thing is that even if I do have that free time, there’s not a huge amount I can do with it, because when things do hit the fan, I can’t say to my clients “oh, I’m out walking in the hills, I’ll call you back on Tuesday”. I’m at the stage where I’d rather not take on any more IT work, mainly because I’m bored with it and it ties me down, so developing/monetising/flipping websites is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I’ve got the time to do it, and maybe eventually it’ll make me more location independent. To be honest, it’s not passive income or get rich quick I’m looking for – for one thing, I’m not sure they exist; for another, I’d get bored – it’s being able to go walking in the hills on a sunny weekday and not get a phone call from somebody whose MPLS router is playing up.

I’ve got a few ideas, but reading through here, I think I’m going to start with developing a couple of Wordpress sites and see how that goes, and maybe buy one or two lower priced sites where if I screw things up, I don’t lose too much, and learn the ropes there. Does that sound reasonable? I've got some capital, but I'm fairly cautious by nature, so I'm not going to blow 10 grand on one site and find out it's been delisted by Google that same day. At the very least, even if it doesn't work out, I’ll learn how to use Wordpress.

That’s it really, so I'll get back to reading the forum and waiting for that call about the MPLS router. Oh, except to say I saw Justin from AdSenseFlippers on here – his is one of the few sites I found where I did think “yes, that mostly makes sense, and he doesn’t seem to be trying to sell me a $100 ebook”. I like the podcasts too - learn while you're walking, always good.

[Kay]

Hi David,

Welcome! Thanks for a great introduction.

So, you sell photos as a sideline? If you want to jump in at the deep end on EP, roll up your sleeves and dive into a fairly heated debate here:
http://experienced-people.net/forums...ag-%28rant!%29

There are a few of us who also sell photos via stock photo sites. Me too, but mostly I'm there to buy as it's a lot less hassle to buy a photo for a specific purpose than to take the time and effort to create what I want for myself. Are you mostly selling photos of your Arctic trips?

To be honest, it’s not passive income or get rich quick I’m looking for – for one thing, I’m not sure they exist; for another, I’d get bored – it’s being able to go walking in the hills on a sunny weekday and not get a phone call from somebody whose MPLS router is playing up.

This is the kind of attitude that goes down well on EP. It sounds as though you'll fit in really well on here.

Cheers,

Kay

[Davidj]

Thanks Kay. Yes, I do sell via stock sites and some of my Arctic pictures do sell (mainly ones of icebergs and sled dogs, strangely. Look for Ragnar Axelsson's stuff of Iceland and Greenland - that's what I'd love to do), but I make more money by selling prints of the local area (Northumberland/Borders/Newcastle upon Tyne). That's very up and down though - I once sold 40 30"x20" framed prints in one go, but that's unusual, and an outlet I sold most through has now closed. I don't think I'll get involved in that discussion though! It's complicated - I found one of my photos on a local interest website once and I emailed them and asked if they'd just put an attribution on it, and I was happy with that, but somebody also used one on a commercial website and their company brochure without any payment or acknowledgement, which I was less than happy about.

I've been using the Internet far too long (since 1994) to believe that anyone can really get rich quick or earn a fortune without an awful lot of effort, so as I say, my ambitions are really to have a business where I don't have to be sat at this desk if I don't want to be. I mean, take yesterday, we had sun for the first time in 10 years (or that's what it felt like) - I should have been on the Northumbrian coast taking photos, not installing a web filter to stop bored employees download porn.

[akirk]

David,

welcome - you will fit in here well - you seem to have a good sensse of humour - and a realistic view of this world - that puts you several steps along the correct road!
I am also a photographer - and own a stock library as well (hence my involvement in that thread!) I also run a web company - so spend more time at the computer than out taking photos!

I would suggest that if you have the skills you mention you would be best off learning how it all works through your own websites you create - you will find it a a very cheap and fast learning curve - and probably a better route for you than buying other sites... once you have a more comfortable understanding of how you work on the internet (which is different for us all) you will then understand which sites are worth buying...

welcome

Alasdair

[Kay]

David, I'm curious about your great interest in the Arctic. Most people seem to be more interested in the Antarctic these days. At least you don't run the risk of being eaten by a polar bear down there. But isn't there more to see when all the ice is on top of a bit of land rather than being just a great big ice cap? Why did you choose to go north rather than south?

About 100 years ago, I was an active member of a little "mountaineering club". It was mostly hill walkers really, but some of us did do a bit of climbing. We had monthly meetings and sometimes we'd even get a guest speaker from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). What a treat!

Are you a climber as well as a photographer?

PS: Did you ever meet anyone stupid enough to hack themselves in the leg with an ice axe in an attempt to arrest a fall?

You have now.

[Davidj]

When I was a kid, I read Fridtjof Nansen's books, The First Crossing of Greenland and Farthest North, and was amazed these place existed just a few hundred miles away. Then I went to Norway one winter when I was about 10 or 11 and was completely taken by it. There's also something fascinating about the people of the far north - if you go to Greenland, for example, particularly the north and particularly in winter, you realise it takes a special type of person to have endured there for thousands of years. I'd love to head south too, but the cost is prohibitive - to get to Ross Island, where Scott and Shackleton's huts are, would be £10,000 at least. I could have 6 or 7 trips to Greenland, Svalbard, Iceland and Lapland for that.

I do climb, but nothing like I used to. Ice climbing was always my favourite, but as you get older you start to realise just how dangerous it is to be hanging off a frozen waterfall. When you're 20, if you fall off, you just know you're going to bounce harmlessly down and leap up at the end completely unharmed. 20 years later you realise what an idiot the 20 year old you was. Though even the 20 year old me never got himself in the leg with an ice axe.

I know somebody who worked at the BAS (I used to live in Cambridge) - he spent a year in Antarctica and came back a very different person.

[Kay]

I've read loads about the South Pole, as well as heard talks and watched slide shows from the BAS guys. The book "Cherry" by Sara Wheeler is well worth a read. The guys who did these expeditions are all rather odd characters, but in a way representative of the old British tradition of exploration (and conquering). The guy I remember from the BAS was a very keen climber and for him the job was an opportunity to climb and take photos. He seemed fairly normal, but it must take a lot of strength to put up with life such as it is down there with such limited supplies. Not for me, thanks!

Many years later, when Dave and I lived in Delhi, we had the privilege of meeting Doug Allan who's done a lot in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. He was very down to earth and likeable. He gave a talk and slide show to a group of us at the British High Commission. Some amazing stuff.

Anyway, thanks for suggesting Fridtjof Nansen. I'm off to see if I can get a Kindle version.

[Davidj]

I've read The Magnetic North and Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler, but not Cherry, which I'd guess is about Apsley Cherry-Garrard? I read The Worst Journey in the World, which was very Edwardian British - "minus 70 this morning, teeth shattered with the cold and the tent blew away last night. Our toes are black with frostbite and Bowers had to saw off his left hand with a penknife. Still, had a rather splendid cup of tea this morning, so must bash on and mustn't grumble".

Nansen can be quite hard going at times, but he was really the forerunner of them all, he paved the way for Amundsen, Peary (though Nansen actually did do what he said he'd done), Shackleton and the rest by showing what was possible. If you're interested in the far north, Barry Lopez is a good read, particularly Arctic Dreams.

[monty]

This is turning into a Antarctic/Arctic thread but check out Shackletons "South: the story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 expedition", which is also a good read ( and is available at Gutenberg for Kindle etc) .

[Kay]

This is turning into a Antarctic/Arctic thread...

Ah well, I always think of the intro posts as a way of getting to know people, and this has been a particularly enjoyable one.

Thanks for the book, Monty. I love getting free books!

"minus 70 this morning, teeth shattered with the cold and the tent blew away last night. Our toes are black with frostbite and Bowers had to saw off his left hand with a penknife. Still, had a rather splendid cup of tea this morning, so must bash on and mustn't grumble".

I've sent you an invoice for the damage you caused to my keyboard.