The keen-eyed among my fans will have noticed a new link pop up in the footer of this website.  If you haven’t noticed it, you can scroll down there now and take a look for yourself.  This new link is a donate button.  Where did it come from?  How does it work?  Why is it there?  Today, we’re talking about this new arrival for becoming an art patron.

If you’ve been paying attention, you will probably know that I’m a member of Viewbug (a photography website specializing in online photography contests).  A few days ago, I received an email from them notifying me of an exciting new update.  Now, I’ve received these kinds of emails before.  Most of the time, the “new and exciting feature” isn’t that interesting to me.  However, this one was different.  It caught my interest.

The new feature was the option to add a “Donate” button to my profile.  This new “Donate” button will use PayPal to process the payment.  You will have the option to make a one-time payment or to setup recurring payments if you so desire.

I’ve chosen to go with this method (in spite of current PayPal issues for merchants) because of how other patron platforms work.  Patreon takes a cut of all donations and has been very problematic with censorship lately.  Other platforms, such as Subscribe Star, charge me a flat fee to use their services.  This means that it can cost me money overall to accept donations from my fans.  This option works much better for the time being.

So, if any of you fans out there want to support my photography, but can’t buy a print right now, you now have a way to do so.  You can become an art patron supporting me as a photographer.  It’s totally your choice to do so but I’ll be very grateful for your support.