How it all started…
Julia and I, Oliver, started ACMV out of our passion for photography, art and music and we want to continue doing what we love. There is so much beautiful work to be discovered all over the world from passionate people like us and we think this is one of the most compelling aspects of today’s technical possibilities of global communication. It also means there is a need to channel all that information, understand it, pick out the most interesting, put it in relation to other work and spotlight it. As we found out, that is what we like to do for you.
The „analogue days“ had their advantages which were disadvantages at the same time. If you were interested in something, let’s say, a limited japanese photo book, you had to really care about seeing it, you had to buy it in a bookstore, go to an exhibition to see it or mail-order it without even seeing it in whole before purchasing. In short: if your passion for something was big enough, you would invest your time and money to get it. You came in touch with people too, since you had to go somewhere and talk to somebody, and you’d buy a physical product. We would mail-order records in the Mid-Eighties just to hear those, taking the risk of being disappointed, we were nerds. But being a nerd is great – as the world found out by now – because you’re so much into it that you want to be part of it and push it forward with your own interest and your own work. Besides, we believe being strange is good, because it shows that you’re alive, that you’re thinking in your own ways and that you don’t want to make compromises regarding your work. You just put it out into the world even if you’re afraid of being devastated by the public opinion. You wouldn’t believe how much we understand that. Especially for those we’re doing ACMV. We want to connect, talk to those people and make their work known better. We love to show work from all over the world, especially by emerging photographers, artists and musicians, also from places and countries less well known.
Channeling information is a challenging task, you need to be focused and at best your brain has some free space to fill. Right now we are trying to find the right balance between assignments as freelance designers and our work for ACMV.
Additionally, I, Oliver, am the co-founder of earthfaves, a start-up company that allows users to find the favorite places of friends worldwide.
Earthfaves also helps businesses to retain existing costumers, letting them advertise with personal recommendations of their best costumers to find new ones. In a way it was built with a similar state of mind as ACMV – with the goal to connect passionate people from all over the world and to highlight their businesses. Developed in-between jobs and while working on ACMV it took me and my co-founders almost four years to release a working prototype. As you can imagine, balancing all those activities is hard work, especially when you never earned a penny doing it. We have to prove that our service is working and that businesses would pay for using earthfaves. Currently our aim is to find pilot customers and investors. Because I had to focus on earthfaves, trying to make our enterprise successful, Julia was doing most of the work for ACMV these last months. I would love to spend more time working on ACMV, but in order to provide good work I’d have to be focused, and right now, I’m not.
If you are the owner of a local business and you’re interested in helping us to optimize earthfaves, please get in touch with me: oliver.schneider {at} earthfaves.com. Our services („Software as a service“/website & 2 iPhone Apps) are ready for use, but we need to make sure that our customers understand how to use them. Also, earthfaves is not flawless, we have to optimize the usability and get rid of a few remaining bugs, therefore we offer businesses to use it three months for free, no strings attached. For regular users, earthfaves is and always will be free of charge.
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How we would like to go on from here:
Guest contributors
For one we would love to involve interesting guest contributors / local „experts“, who would be interested in featuring their personal favorite photographers or photography events (exhibitions, lectures, workshops etc.) taking place at their gallery/art space from time to time.
Your posts would by no means have to occur on a regular basis – a short note whenever you discover something interesting and feel like sharing it on ACMV would be perfectly fine and fabulous. Posts could for example be about local events and exhibitions, or in a broader context (features of photographers, interviews) as well.
For the time being we regrettably won’t be in the position to offer a financial compensation – what we can offer you however is a highly frequented platform with a wide international audience, plus circulation on our established social media network (Facebook, Twitter and Google+).
Each guest contributor will also receive a profile page on ACMV, presenting their background information / biography, and an (optional) online gallery with their work (or the work of artists they represent).
→ Drop us a line via hello {at} actualcolorsmayvary.com
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Media partnerships / sponsors
We are currently looking for media partnerships and sponsors, preferably from the field of photography, art or music.
Share your event, project or product news with ACMV’s international audience by placing a graphic advertisement on our website. We are flexible regarding terms and ways of display (sidebar banner ads, sponsored posts etc.) – simply tell us your idea and let’s find the best solution for your needs together.
→ Get in touch for details via hello {at} actualcolorsmayvary.com
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Donations
Any amount you consider supporting us with will be helpful and greatly appreciated!
Your donations (via PayPal) will be used for site development & maintenance, website hosting costs, and to form a discretionary fund for ACMV to be used for our guest contributors, the occasional promotional print material, and other expenses regarding ACMV.
→ Support ACMV with a donation!
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Funding
At the moment we are also working on ways to qualify for institutional funding for future projects.
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We are always open to new ideas and collaborations and looking forward to hearing from you!
Drop us a line via hello {at} actualcolorsmayvary.com or send us a message us via ACMV’s Facebook page.
Thank you!
Best regards,
Julia + Oliver
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photograph © Lars Siltberg
