July 07th, 2022

​PHOTOGRAPHY

It is three days after the 4th of July today.  Please excuse my delay but I want to share this photo.  It is the only photograph I have "sold".  It had been juried into the annual Photography Exhibition of the Crooked Tree Art Center in Petoskey in 2012.  Actually the CTAC sold it, providing  me with a 40% commission.  I believe it sold for $125.

The photo was taken at the July 4th celebration in 2011 at Bay Harbor, a resort community just a couple miles west of Petoskey overlooking the Little Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan.  The celebration is always scheduled a couple days prior to Petoskey's own celebration which occurs on the 4th.  I have attended only this one July 4th celebration at Bay Harbor and was with a harpist friend who is now deceased.  It was so late when I returned home from the fireworks that I was bleary eyed and slow to articulate anything.  I was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy at 2:30AM.  He looked at my drivers license and commented, "Why, you live only a couple miles from here!"  I explained that I was "returning from the Charlevoix [not even a little correct] July 4th Fireworks."  That's how clearly I was thinking.  If he realized it was only the night of July 2nd/3rd, he didn't ask me to explain and let me proceed with a gentle warning.  I suppose I could have asked him to explain why he was out driving around at 2:30 in the morning in our little, quiet, peaceful community.

I had little hope that the photo would sell after I examined all the other photos in the exhibition. Many had been submitted by professional photographers.  The exhibit ended at noon on the last day of the exhibition.  I appeared in the early afternoon to pick up my photo.  I walked through the double doors to the exhibit hall and looked to my right since I had seen the photo proudly hanging there on a couple previous visits.  Imagine my shock when it was not where it was supposed to be while all the other photographs appeared to be untouched.  This was about two hours after the exhibit ended!  I hurried out of the hall to tell the receptionist that someone must have already taken the photo by mistake....while not thinking to ask myself how likely THAT would have been!  The receptionist calmly explained that a man had been there around 11AM to buy it.  Unbelievable.  And to this day, it is the only photo I (have had) sold.