I tend to be a photographer who learns by seeing a neat idea, researches how to do it, and then incorporates that technique into my workflow. I’m not good a watching online videos, and have never been on a training course. So, what I am doing spending $695 on a two day creative photography workshop with Bryan Peterson? I saw Bryan speak at last years Nature Visions Expo in Northern Virginia and really enjoyed the day. He is full of...
It is relatively rare for me to get annoyed with the antics of stock agencies, but Fotolia has gone too far, and, like a lot more stock contributors, I have decided to boycott them and remove my images from their library. Why, you may ask! Fotolia was always one of those annoying sites that I stuck with because the earnings – $50 to $80 a month for me – were pretty regular. They were annoying because the upload process required...
A recent reader of my eBook, Getting Started in Stock emailed me recently to ask if it was too late to make a start now with Stock Photography. If you read the microstock forums (and sometimes that is interesting but be aware of a lot of angry and negative people on some of the forums), you will often see references to the good old days in the mid 2000’s when it was easy to get images online and they sold...
We are always looking for something to move our images out of the ordinary to really capture the interest of the buyer (and hopefully the general public) to our stock photo images. Building up expertise in exposure, composition and processing in Lightroom (or Photoshop) helps tremendously, but what tools can give our photographs the edge? I’ve been experimenting with the Singh-Ray Gold-n-Blue polarizing filter which can make some spectacular changes to the scene in front of you – the sort...
I miss being able to present the complex graphs I used to do, but the edict from Shutterstock that you should not provide detailed information on your earnings has put a damper on that for me. I think the line they are taking is not necessary (I’m sure it is to do with analysts trying to estimate their earnings), but they are the ones with the power and I can’t afford to annoy them! Anyway, my Shutterstock earnings are continuing...
Sometimes, on a dark winters night, it is fun to just see what can be created from little bits of photos that are already sitting on your hard drive. Here is one such effort, that I think nicely illustrates the concept of “being adrift” and can be used as a stock image for many leadership (or lack of) illustrations. This could have been a beautifully seen shot with a boat floating on a calm sea, or it could have started...
The Symbiostock network has reached a new milestone – 250,000 images now available to license directly from the artist in a simple straightforward process! My own efforts are slowly paying off as well – since I started my own stock photo agency, BackyardStockPhotos.com, I have now sold 12 images for a total of $120. Things appear to be picking up a bit with two full size sales in March for $20 each. This month I’ve sold the following: It is...
As photographers (dropping the “stock” word for a moment) we all like to create artistic masterpieces that truly capture the grandeur of a place or landscape – especially if the sun is rising or setting at the same time. There is just something about the conjunction of colors that automatically attracts us to sunsets! Often such sites are simply to let friends and family see the best shots we have taken – pointing someone to a stock agency and saying...
I’ve been very slow in posting new information in the past couple of months – but there has been a reason! I was lucky enough to go on a cruise around Australia and New Zealand in late November/December and then a trip to Hawaii in January. As a result, I have thousands of images to process – some of which were completed and uploaded, but the majority are still being worked on. I’m now back at home again and so...
I did a guest post over on Amos Struck’s website Stock Photo Secrets about the life of a stock photographer – a bit hard to cover that topic in a short blog, but I wanted to highlight some of the issues that we face – low commissions – and some of the potential solutions – our own linked Symbiostock sites. The Stock Photo Secrets site is aimed mainly at buyers of images, so perhaps that will strike a chord with...
