Just Show Up

Sometimes I have trouble motivating to get out and shoot. It is especially hard to get up at sunrise in winter. This past weekend, we got a light snow on Friday night and I planned to get up and shoot at a lake near Boulder, knowing that it had been warm all week so the lake would not be frozen. In this situation, the lake will have steam coming off it at sunrise, which increases the potential for dramatic sunrise shots.

All of this worked out as predicted, the fog was rising off the lake at sunrise and there were some geese on the lake. However, my favorite shot of the morning had nothing to do with the lake. And that is the point of this post. If you JUST SHOW UP, you could get a completely unexpected shot!! If I had stayed in bed, my body's preference that morning, I would not have gotten this shot:



(can be seen larger on my website under new images)

Ever wonder what it's like to live in NYC??!?!?

Sara's sister and brother-in-law, two new york artists who are way cooler than I will ever come close to being, got their living and working spaces showcased on a blog today.... pretty fun stuff!!

Beautiful Snowy Sunrise

I woke up at 6 am this morning in anticipation of a beautiful sunrise after a pretty heavy snowfall. It didn't disappoint. I have displayed many of them on my website.

www.klausphotos.com

Change in America

The only change Frisco wants is MORE FRISBEE!!

Found a fun website where you can create Obamicons with your own pictures...

Microstock and Taxes

I just finished my taxes and I am relieved that I am getting a nice refund. It was a crazy year, in that I worked for 2 companies, was unemployed for a while and also made more money than I could have ever imagined selling photography on iStockphoto.com.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Paying taxes on my stock income was a little tricky, since iStock doesn't give us any 1099's or any other record of our income. I use TurboTax for my taxes every year, partially because they were my best employer to date and partly because I love the ease of use. For my stock earnings, I followed their instructions for a Schedule C which is for Profit and Loss from Business(Sole Propietorship).

I was very conservative about what I deducted as business expenses. I claimed depreciation on my equipment and hotels/mileage on my car for two trips I took last year that were 100% photography. These trips had only one purpose, to get more images into my portfolio. I had the mileage and the hotel receipts so I felt confident in using these expenses.

I'm sure there were many other deductions i could have taken throughout the year but I didn't keep detailed records of everything, so I didn't want to create any red flags in my return.

I'm wondering what other stock contributors do for taxes? Sole propietorships? Other Deductions? Do you use accountants? I'd love to hear!!