Rick’s Rants and Raves

Cindy and Dennie, originally uploaded by rick020200.

I’m not a very generous person.

That is painful for me to admit, but I struggle with generosity. I want to be generous, but it doesn’t tend to be my first instinct. I’ll illustrate with a picture and a story.

The picture above was taken at the Creekside Festival while I shot Sanhedrin Move, one of the bands that paid me to shoot their performance. This couple started dancing during one of the songs, and I took a few pictures of them in front of the band. Typically I would hand a business card to someone like this and tell them to send me an e-mail so I could send them a picture. I was very low on business cards, so I didn’t say anything to the couple.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to Comfest, and who did I see sitting on the grass almost right next to me? And what did I have in my wallet? If you guessed “this couple” and “more business cards” respectively, congratulations! I introduced myself, they remembered me from Creekside, and I handed them a card. My standard business card doesn’t have the address to this blog or my flickr account, but instead has my portfolio address. Since I knew the pictures weren’t on my portfolio, I told them to send me an e-mail so that I could send a pic to them.

A couple of weeks went by, and I got a phone call from Cindy. My card had been washed in Dennie’s jeans and all that was visible was my phone number. She really wanted my website address, but I explained the picture wasn’t on it and she should just send me an e-mail so I could send the photo to her. She seemed a little hesitant but agreed to take down my e-mail.

Another week or so went by, and I got an e-mail from someone else asking me to mail the picture to Cindy and Dennie, and provided the snail-mail address. Hrm, I thought, that’s kinda odd, and not really what I had intended. And now I can get to my point.

Rather than printing and mailing the picture, my first inclination was to try to have them pay for the print. I struggled a bit with the idea, and wondered how much I should charge. At my $1 cost, it would seem really petty to ask them to pay me. Could I get away with $5? Not likely. Was it worth trying to negotiate anything at all?

I related the story of my meeting the couple and the subsequent e-mail to my wife. Before I could even mention my struggles with mailing the picture, she asks “So what’s the problem? Just mail them a picture. It’ll cost, what 70 cents?”

Then I realized just how generous I’m not. And I really dislike that about myself. I wanted them to have the picture. What difference does it make if I have to spend a dollar (or less) to get it to them? I’m guessing they don’t have e-mail, which likely means they don’t have internet access like 50% of the rest of the state they live in (Alabama was the only state worse in terms of household internet access in 2007). Here I am in the “digital haves” side of the world wondering if I could squeeze a few bucks from someone on the “digital have-nots” side. Petty in deed.

It took a bit of time to get to it (procrastination!), but tonight I finally printed a picture and put it in an envelope for them. I hope it ends up in a frame on an end-table as a reminder of the fun they had.