I can't believe most of July has already passed; since late May we've been in Yellowstone once, Glacier three times, and running around locally in between. I've been photographing in all these locations, accumulating raw files that will keep me busy culling, processing, and printing for months to come. This is wonderful. It's what I live to do. Of course, the 7900 sits idle while all this other fun stuff goes on.

That's about to change. A new client visited this morning, with a flash drive full of Photoshop files for printing. In a first for me, this client also brought a roll of paper. I never calculated prices for printing on client-provided paper; I never had the need. It's not a challenge, of course. Just an hourly rate plus a little for ink and packaging. Because the client is a local photographer I won't even have to ship the prints. He's done most of the work, so this will be a low-value job for me, but a quick one.

Also coming up is the one outdoor show in which I exhibit every summer. I've got about two dozen frames to fill, both from existing inventory and from a frame order due to arrive here tomorrow.

Gallery sales have been slower than has been typical here in this "tourist town", a place where traffic increased dramatically in summer, which seems to start on July 4 and run through Labor Day (in the U.S., that's the first Monday in September). Still, I have my reliable sellers, which include several images I print and offer matted and bagged. Many of the tourists visiting the area fly in and out, or travel in motor homes, campers, vans, etc. They don't have a lot of storage space in their campers or the overhead bins in airplanes; these small images, without frames or glass, make taking home a photo of Montana's scenic and wildlife wonders easy for the traveler.

As I've mentioned in past postings, "Snow Raven" is my most popular image. A few days ago the last copies in both local galleries sold, requiring me to set up to print another batch. I do this on a roll of 24-inch luster, resulting in the prints you see above. Unlike the ugly situation described in my previous posting, I had no trouble with ink delivery (clogs) this time. This print job was fast and painless.

For these small prints I buy the mats and mount board (foam core) in batches of 24 from Redimat.com. The quality has been fine, the service reasonably fast, and the price can't be beat. I suppose you could cut your own mats for less if you put little (say, zero) value on your time. As should be obvious from my first paragraph above, I'd rather be out shooting!

  --Jay