Yes, I am ready to start working on my goal for 2025.
I love the outdoors and being in nature. I also like taking photos while being out and about. Until recently, the main purpose of my photos (besides the joy of capturing the images) was to share my memories with family and friends.
I have now decided to take a leap of faith and take it to the next level...
Our youngest daughter is already into photography and runs a business doing photoshoots of people and events.
We recently discussed the possibility of marketing my photos too. We decided to start working together. My daughter will assist me with marketing and handling social media.
At the same time, she also wants to start spending more time in nature with me and taking photos of nature scenes.
How it Started for Me.
As mentioned before, until recently, I enjoyed taking photos to share with family and friends.
But then I got active on Hive which introduced me to various communities where I found like-minded people where we can all share our memories through our photos. This is from amateur photographers taking photos with their mobile phones as a hobby to professional photographers sharing spectacular images using expensive equipment.
I found this inspiring and started paying more attention to my photography. I started watching tutorials on YouTube, educating myself more about techniques, settings, angles, etc.
My daughter and her husband also sponsored me for a photography course which I am currently still busy with.
To my surprise, I discovered that other people also enjoyed my photos and I started earning some money by sharing my images on Hive.
Recently, a young family member spent some time with us while visiting. She saw this image in one of my posts and her immediate response was that she would pay money to get this image on canvas.
Yes, I love cars too...lol.
I started getting similar remarks and decided to do something about it.
The Goal.
The goal is to add value.
As we spend time in different areas, we visit nice coffee shops and little restaurants for a light meal. I normally mention and share some images of such places in my posts.
The aim is to bring these areas and venues to my readers and hopefully have a positive impact on the economy in that area.
Some places have entrance fees, such as the bigger nature reserves and game reserves. But most places we visit are free to visit, although you might end up buying some snacks or something to drink in the area.
How Will I Benefit?
Firstly, I will be doing what I love doing.
Secondly, we will start marketing my photos and various products (locally and online) using my photos as a theme.
We plan to start with a free website to test the waters and see if a website will be viable in the long run. We already started creating the website and we are busy populating it.
We have also started various social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for this purpose.
Should this venture be successful, we can utilize the income to enable us to start going outside the Greater Durban area and cover larger areas, sharing and showing you more of South Africa.
I will keep using Hive as my blogging platform. I will not be doing any marketing on Hive though, besides keeping you up to date with our activities and maybe sharing the link to the website when needed. When needed, I will announce new projects, as we plan to focus on engagement and plan to have some occasional challenges and/or competitions to make it more interesting.
What Can You Expect?
I love nature and I love traveling. So my focus will remain pretty much the same. My focus will be on nature and traveling-related topics.
During the time I have been sharing my photos here in Hive, we have visited many interesting places.
One such place is in Umhlanga at the end of the boardwalk in the forest just north of Umhlanga Beach. It's the Forest Cafe, which is part of the Bike and Bean Group.
On our way there, we normally have many opportunities to capture nice images of the area and surroundings. In this case, it would normally be the boardwalk, taking you through the forest.
Another place we love to visit is the Clear Waters SPUR in Amanzimtoti.
At the same time, I can capture some great moments while walking on the beach.
Then we have places like Paradise Valley. It is a nature reserve right under everybody's nose, but I wonder how many people stop to visit this gem. It is in Pinetown, on the main route between Durban and Johannesburg, and normally everybody is rushing past this area at high speed.
If you take the time to turn off and go for a nice hike, you'll find scenes such as this.
Or would you prefer a peaceful late afternoon watching the sunset over the ocean in Ballito?
In the past year, we have also been to venues such as the Tala Game Reserve...
...and the Cumberland Nature Reserve, enjoying this beautiful sunrise early in the morning. What can beat starting a new day in the calmness of nature?
Conclusion.
I am excited about this new journey. This is my goal for 2025 and I am determined to achieve this goal. We hope to have the first line of products available by December 2024 but officially launch the project in January 2025.
Thank you for reading my post.
I do appreciate it!