The 2015 Contradance Calendar will happen. I'm just behind, that's all.
I've got lots of communties to show this time: Coos Bay, Louisville, St. Louis, Peterborough, Concord and Clarkdale, to name a few. I've shot over 30,000 dance photos this past year. Documenting the contra dance ecosystem has become the defining personal project of my photographic life, and the calendar is the most visible manifestation of this effort.
By this time last year and the year before, I was in the middle of a Kickstarter for the calendar, and I knew what it was going to look like. This year I've barely begun my edit and I haven't even shot my pitch video. The big project this spring I worked on instead (besides moving my mother-in-law out of her home for the last 12 years) was a self-promo campaign to revive my business, which has slowed down more than I'm comfortable with.
Also, I lost my calendar designer and I need to decide what to do about that. Joanne charged almost nothing to do it, which is a good reason for her not to pick it up again. The budget won't support paying a professional fee--I may have to learn enough InDesign to update last year's files and do it myself. (Updating last year's files is how we got two Passovers in March this year. I definitely need an outside proofreader.) I need a new print broker too.
I'm feeling a little swamped. I tell myself, I don't ship until November. There's plenty of time.
At the weekend I was just at, May Madness in Clarkdale, AZ, I can't tell you the number of people who came up to tell me how much my photos mean to them. I really feel that this work belongs to the community, and that I am indebted to everyone in it. You guys let me work out my creative process by allowing me to photograph your bodies in motion. We're all connected by joy, and it means the world to me that the work I do is appreciated. I owe it to you to produce another calendar, and then what?
I'm on the lookout for a photo editor. There's a book in this project, I think.
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