Backyard Silver Latest Posts

Questions asked about stock photography – and answered!

After posting my results for August, I had three good questions posted in the comments section: “I have 2 questions could you help to share your thought? – Do you think spreading photos on wide spectrum of agencies is slowing down your sale on Shutter, or it’s just the nature of summertime? – How about your sales on Deposit photo, is this a right vehicle to park your photos?” “From your experience, is it ok to sell an image as...

Earnings from selling photos online in August 2018

Another day another dollar as an old American song goes! August may be a slow time of the year with vacations and holidays, but the stock world keeps on turning. I’m going to split the post this month and talk about earnings today and then come back on some of the notable sales  – ie those images that earned more than $10, of which there were 14 in the month. As it turned out, August continued my record breaking run...

Fine Art America Print – again…

Looks like this is going to be a good month – at least on the print on demand sites. After my sale of a print of Hanalei Pier in Kauai last week, I received another notification yesterday for a second sale! This one was for a stitched panorama of the town of Avalon on the little island of Catalina off the coast of California. I always liked the image – with a nice contrast between the lights and the sunset...

Questions about stock photography – and some answers!

Jason F recently commented on my Master Class in Stock Photography and added in a series of questions that he would have asked if he had been there! By the way, I screwed up on the “Pay what you want” price – I had intended the minimum price to be $0.49. I’ve fixed it now. But back to the questions. I’ve split them up to allow me to put my thoughts against each one. 1. What are some more examples of reworking...

New sale on Fine Art America

After a long, long drought, I got an email last night about a new sale on Fine Art America, and what a sale! But before I go onto that, I rethought my plan on charging for the video I created of my Master Class in Stock Photography. It is now “Pay what you want”. I do recognize there is a conflict between me talking about big earnings on the one hand and asking people with much lower earnings to pay...

Video of my presentation on Stock Photography

Earlier this week, I gave a talk to the Winchester Photographic Society on Stock Photography. Originally planned for 40 minutes, the depth of interest as shown by the questions asked throughout the session made it overrun to almost 60 minutes! Through the course of 70 slides, I explain what stock photography is all about, what the legal issues are, in particular with regard to releases and the appropriate marking of images as commercial or editorial, what you can earn, what...

Sensor cleaning on the Sony A7 series

One of the things I don’t like about the Sony (perhaps the only thing?) is that it seems to attract dust on the sensor. I try very hard to avoid dust – putting the lenses face down on a hard surface and keeping the camera body facing down as I unscrew one lens and move across to the new one – but somehow dust just gets on that sensor! Dust is more visible when you have stopped down to a...

A chance to hear me speak!

Ever wished for the chance to see me speak about stock photography? No, well move onto the next post! I’m giving a talk to the Shenandoah Photographic Society in Winchester, Virginia, on Monday 20th August. I know that will be out of reach for almost all my readers, but if you happen to be in the area, feel free to come along and listen! It will be at Bethel Lutheran Church, 2077 North Frederick Pike, Winchester, Virginia at 7pm. Everyone is...

Dreamstime Blog Contest – help, please!

I’ve entered the Dreamstime Blog Contest on Locations with an entry that hopefully gives some ideas about how to be a success at travel stock photography. If you are a Dreamstime member (either as a buyer or contributor) you can vote on the entries to determine who wins their prize! You can find my blog post here, and you vote on it by clicking on the “Useful” tag under my name: You don’t see this box unless you are logged...

Earnings from Stock Photography in July 2018

I think this is the 83rd posting on earnings – I hope you still find them interesting! July (and August) tend to be the lowest period of the year for sales and this year was no different. Watching the earnings in Microstockr Pro was pretty painful and the more agencies they add, the less the surprise when I finally put all the results into my spreadsheets. However, I just managed to maintain my steady progress of beating the previous year’s...