A difficult decision

It has been a tough but inspiring week for me. First I received an invoice again for PictureNature's library website. Over the last few months, everytime I received one my stomach turned around. How can I afford this when there is not enough sales? How long can I sustain this situation?
Then I had a one-on-one workshop about intellectual assets and how to exploit these. After a full day of being confronted with new ideas my head was buzzing; " I could this and then that", "I haven't tried that yet so maybe that could make a difference and turn my situation" etc. Luckily, I had a good chat with my mum (as always) and she advised me to first think about it all before I go ahead with full speed as I'm used to. The next morning I got an eye-opening insight and symbolic comparison with my current situation by viewing a news item on television. It was about a building site in one of the English cities , that couldn't continue because of lack of funds. Many cities are currently coping with same due to the recession. The site was complete bare, hardly any work had been started yet. Inhabitants of the city were unhappy with the sight of it. A big wall separated them from this place. They thought something useful could be done with it, maybe planting some trees and plants. One of the cities had found a way; allotments. People loved it! Gardening on a small scale, back to nature and simplicity. Don't ask me how, but I got quite emotional at this point. later I realised that it a sign to make my final decision; ceasing the library. And so I did on Thursday the 12th of February.

The next day was physically very difficult. I had a splitting headache, probably the stress coming out. In the meantime, I had informed the contributors and received wonderful replies. That felt really good!
It's unsure yet what will happen with the collaboration with the Spanish agency. Hopefully it will be possible to keep the 12,000 images there so that we have some chance to sell our photos.

Whatever is going to happen, I will continue to work with Clifton who is running the photography workshops for PictureNature. Now I will have much more spare time and I'm sure something else will come my way. I've learned so much over the last years, so it hasn't been for nothing. I'm already thinking of combining my love for photography with my new hobby watercolours. I'm already looking forward to having more time to experiment with that and create more paintings!