Featured Shop - Sunset Shutterbug

One of my loves is photography. I enjoy taking photos just as much as I enjoy seeing work from other artists. Today I want to introduce you to my Etsy friend Imelda from Sunset Shutterbug, who just happens to be a fabulous photographer. One of the reasons why I love her work is because of its originality. So many photographers try to emulate popular styles, but Imelda stays true to her own style.  I also love that she turns her beautiful photos into greeting cards-- an affordable piece of art to either keep as your own or to share art with others. So here's a little Q & A with Imelda.

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your shop.

My name is Imelda and I'm the person behind Sunset Shutterbug. I live in the Sunset District of San Francisco and work full-time apart from my shop at a non-profit organization in the Financial District. I'm a sassy woman who loves penguins, bad reality TV, loves cooking new recipes and baking tasty cookies and looking at the Golden Gate Bridge from my living room window on clear days.

As for my shop, Sunset Shutterbug focuses on my photography. I have some images there I took when I was taking my photography class in college (bathroom images) to more current photos. I currently sell greeting cards and have done some magnets and postcards in the past, however right now I'm focusing on continuing to build on my greeting cards and hope to continue doing other products with my photos in the near future.

2. How and why did you start sunset shutterbug?

Sunset Shutterbug came about in 2006 when I was going through old photos from my photography class from college. I got busy with work and stopped doing photography for a couple years. Going through my old prints, my aunt told me I should make my photos into greeting cards and try to sell them with the help of some local shops here in San Francisco. Like any business, I had to come up with a cool name so I figured since I'm a photographer and live in the Sunset District, why not call it Sunset Shutterbug? I made some cards and sold some to my aunt, but life just got busy and I didn't know really where to start when it came to selling my cards so it went on the back burner.

I didn't revisit "Sunset Shutterbug" until winter of 2010 when I came across my old photos and greeting cards again. I wanted to get back into doing photography again because I really missed that creative outlet. Instead of going the route of going to local shops, I decided to try selling on Etsy. I opened up my shop on Etsy on New Year's Eve of 2010 while watching Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve and it's been a learning process ever since.

3. Aside from the projects you're working on for your shop, what other projects do you like to spend time on?

At the moment I'm trying to get my apartment in working order and getting it organized. It's way too easy to forget to pick up this or put away that and the next thing you know you're spending 20 minutes looking for scissors! I love organization ideas and tips, but it's another thing actually applying them.

Apart from the usual daily life stuff, I started getting into inspirational/motivational quotes. A few months ago when I was going through a rough time, I was thinking about how I looked at myself and the type of person I'd like to be. I was coming across quotes and they were really interesting so I'm hoping that somewhere down the line I could possibly make a greeting card line on quotes.

4. If you had a free day with nothing planned and time on your own, what would you do?

Sometimes I'll go out and do fun stuff I've been putting off, but normally I just end up watching Sex and the City episodes, cooking/baking something up, or doing errands like grocery shopping or doing laundry. I'll also try to work on my Etsy shop and read blogs to see what other Etsians are up to.

5. What are your hopes for sunset shutterbug in the future?

My ultimate goal would to make Sunset Shutterbug a successful Etsy shop. I'm not sure I'm looking for "quit my day job" type of success yet, but I'd love for it to be a shop that would appeal to an audience who is looking for not your typical photography, but for more of a unique perspective. They can look at my shop and think, "Wow, I've never seen that before" or "I would have never thought that would make a cool photo." If anything, hopefully it gives them a chuckle because I'm pretty sure you won't see many photos of empty toilet paper rolls or a card with the street sign Uranus in most Etsy shops, right?

 Stop by and say hi to Imelda elsewhere on the web.

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