Oh, what a year it’s been!
Looking back over the past year, I am amazed at what I've accomplished due to help from people who have become lifelong friends and mentors. Due to my GoFundMe, not only have I raised $12,600 just as important, I have made lifelong friends from people who but people have made lifelong friends from Folks who contacted me who cannot financially help but instead help me in all manner of other ways. Here are some of the accomplishments I've managed over the past year due to the community's financial generosity and by those who have helped me learn the business skills I lacked. Due to their advice and guidance, I started the year with zero credit, and I now have what is considered to be a very good credit score. Now, I need to refinance my car. Does anyone out there know anything about refinancing automobiles? Seriously. Here are some of the accomplishments I've managed over the past year due to the community's financial generosity and by those who have helped me learn the business skills I lacked.
Since three pillars hold up my business, this is my third and final plea about my GoFundMe. Reaching my goal would be a dream come true and allow me to accomplish much more! I could hire somebody to help me a few hours every week with everything from filming content to adding classes to my website, freeing me up to be creative again. It would also give me funding to target online marketing to spread the word about my work. Here are some of the accomplishments I've managed over the past year due to the community's financial generosity and by those who have helped me learn the business skills I lacked. Most importantly, it will speed my recovery from my major Lymes disease flare-up! Now onto the good stuff!
Achievements include:
I have run classes everywhere, from my backyard to the far northern Alaskan wilderness! I have also run Many online courses and will continue to expand the depth and breadth of my classes by making them as exciting as possible!
I started creating designs of my photos on clothing. Several can be found in the School store section of this website!
I am about to separate into two websites. this website will be all about education, and my new site, T3 – Photo.com (Under Construction) Will be the home of everything photography-related, from my clothing to prints for sale, and even a space to book me for photo shoots!
Treasuring the advice and feedback from several sustainable business owners, several of them daily. Always be a student. Most of them have become some of my closest friends.
A friend, a grant writer, got me a grant to teach photography to a group of high school kids in Michigan. She's also teaching me how to seek out other grants to do similar programming, as public schools are allocated a certain amount of money to spend yearly on special instructors. I am reaching out to teach. I am reaching out to teacher friends to try to find more!
Cementing connections between FutureNature and other organizations working for the same thing: healthy humans and a healthy planet.
I continue booking photography jobs. My main one that has been going on for almost a year is finishing! , I've also taken photographs of everything from people with their cars to people with their horses and even rural real estate. My primary passion is and always will be Mecro Nature photography; I have enjoyed branching out into other areas of the art form and learning new things, especially video. I enjoy making short films on my iPhone and full-on cinematic art films. I will record a series of mini master classes on each of the eight webinars I run regularly. Anyone who has ever taken a webinar with me will get a free copy as soon as I am done, but it's just me here!
I have been growing my YouTube channel and Instagram, and yes, I even have a TikTok. Speaking of social media, after a year and a half of emailing dozens of different email addresses and sending out hundreds of emails, I finally had an actual person contact me back, and I now can do paid marketing again. Another reason I want to try and finish filling out my GoFundMe! I finally had an actual person contact me back, and I can now do paid marketing again!
I am designing 2-4 month-long online classes. One will be about nature, photography, and awareness and movement. If you attend either of these classes, we will meet for one hour per week live on Zoom, and in the spaces in between, I will give you homework assignments and send out a pre-recorded video. I don't have a price yet or when the first one will start, but all will be revealed as soon as I send this out. I will work hard over the coming days to populate my schedule page from now until July.
If you are interested in a private class, please get in touch with me. We can discuss the details and develop something to fit your budget!
Last but not least, I am planning a nature photography retreat on ST Croix in the US Virgin Islands. I am seeking a talented nature photographer who would like to be my co-instructor. If this sounds like you, don't hesitate to contact me!
There's so much more, but I don't wanna bore you to death, so if you want to keep up with my daily happenings, I suggest subscribing to my YouTube channel or my Instagram.
In closing, I want to say thank you all so much for your generosity, kindness, truth, honesty, loyalty, and magic.
Much love, thanks, and praises,
T3