S p r a t t i c u s: iron ore

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Start of a new career?

Got an email the other day via Flickr (that's where all my pictures are, you know the dancing images on the right of the screen, click on the badge...actually do it later). It was from a lass, Brigit, who was interested in one of my pictures, oddly enough it was the one of a 2.8km iron ore train in Western Australia. Here it is:

Epic stuff huh?

Whatever floats your boat, love. Apparently she was doing an annual report for a mining company and thought it would look perfect as an illustration. Errr...yeah...sure. In our email conversation, the subject of money came up and I suggested 55 wholesome golden pounds. She thought this a very fair price indeed (which made me wish I'd asked for a touch more like...2500GBP...but hey). Then the How to pay you? bit. She suggested I send her my bank details and she'd forward the cash directly. Hmmm. I got that uneasy feeling that a scam was coming on: random stranger, an offer that seemed to good to be true, no work needed on my behalf etc. etc.

In a parry to her thrust I suggested that it is far more safe and secure to use Paypal and she could pay into my account by credit card. How simple is that? I even raised an online Paypal invoice for her and thought 'Well, that's probably the last I'll hear from Brigit.'

It was.

Until about four days afterwards and sure enough Paypal notify me I have been credited with 55 livres. Genius! Emailed the image off to the darling Brigit et voila, she's as giddy as a schoolgirl on acid with her locomotive portrait and I'm digging the first bit of earned (hech hem) readies in over seven months.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Western Australia - feast your peepers

Rather than wittering on about going up the western side of Australia, here is a kind of visual diary. I will say that WA is bloody remote. The Badger would hate it as it's HUGE. I have never before seen a sign saying 175km to a destination and thought, 'Blimey, we're almost there'.

Shark Bay - 13 Feb, 2007