Microstock Photographic Theme of the Day: Black Monday

No telling how low we may go. Nearly an 800-pt drop yesterday on the DOW. Jesus Christ. Although I plan to vote for Obama, I don't agree with the Dems and him that about the $700 billion bailout. Like we told the Asians 10 years ago, "Let it fail. Other businesses more deserving will rise up and fill in the spaces." After all, WAMU started off small and then grew to its present size. Perhaps the next WAMU will take a cautionary lesson from what happened this time and operate more wisely.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Monday, September 29, 2008)

Some more buildings from downtown Houston being patched up after Hurricane Ike. CNN says the DOW just fell 700 pts due to failure to pass the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Sunday, September 28, 2008)

Electricity came back on today. Yee-haw~! With the return of light, I saw how much I had to clean up around the house, which is what I did for most of the day. I've only managed to submit 75 photos this month, mainly due to Ike knocking us on our @ss for about 2 weeks.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Saturday, September 27, 2008)

Day 16 of no electricity. I'm currently watching the debate between Obama and McCain from last night, since I wasn't able to watch it last night after getting home, BECAUSE I still have no juice.

It's hard to believe that many Americans--even die-hard Republicans--still want to vote for McCain, who will simply be handing over more tax loopholes and tax cuts to big business. He doesn't seem to understand that if Main Street collapses, Wall Street all the rest of America will go with it. Who knows? If I had 8 houses and 12 sports cars, I might have a hard time understanding what the average American who just had his house foreclosed upon is going through.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Friday, September 26, 2008)

Bush: "Wall street got drunk."
Lloyd Doggett: “Mr. President, you gave them the keys to the liquor cabinet, by failing to enforce our laws.”

Meanwhile, while McCain says that he wants to take politics out of the picture and stop his campaign to deal with the current economic meltdown, he is fully cognizant that he has actually politically polarized the ruckus over the proposed $700 billion bailout for the Fat Cats of Wall Street and their familiars. He's drunk, too. Let's see if he's man enough to show up at the debate with Obama tonight. We had presidential debates during the Civil War and World War II, no reason why the nation can't hear why McCain wants to be president so badly.

Microstock Photography of the Day (Thursday, September 25, 2008)

Day 14 of no power. That's 2 weeks, Centerpoint. In my book, you now officially suck. The Houston Chronicle yesterday said that the Bush administration's efforts to give the Fat Cats of Wall Street $700 billion is expected to overshadow pleas for financial aid from Texas legislators. Awesome. The beach house-owning, Porsche-driving schmucks that ruined our economy will be getting more money to pursue "business as usual" while Texans continue to sit in ruined houses with no electricity and in some cases no water either. Good job, guys. Jolly good job. Your mothers must be very proud of you. I'm actually seeing more boarded up windows around town. I guess more glass must have fallen out.

Microstock Photography of the Day (Wednesday, September 24, 2008)

This is the legacy of Hurricane Ike in Downtown Houston. We've been without power for nearly 2 weeks now. To add insult to injury, Centerpoint Energy has decided to "revise" its original estimates on when we will be getting the juice back. From here on out, people will be tracking every word and action on the part of our elected officials with bated breath. If they don't deliver in the next 4 years, they too will be drawn into the maelstrom.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Tuesday, September 23, 2008)

This construction worker did not look at all happy to be up there.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Monday, September 22, 2008)

That tall structure you see is the Chase Tower. It got seriously gimp-slapped by Ike according to my friend who works there. I went by there last week and something like 100 windows had been blown out. Clean-up is a "rhymes with witch" I'm sure.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Sunday, September 21, 2008)

Someone downloaded all of my pictures of Houston after Ike. This was one of them.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Saturday, September 20, 2008)

Quite of a few of my "Houston after Ike" photographs were just accepted by Shutterstock. Check it out. You'll see more than a few buildings with wooden boards on the broken windows.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Friday, September 19, 2008)

Phew! I'm finally caught up with my "Microstock Photograph of the Day" daily series. I was behind already, and IKE certainly didn't help.

Anyhow, this is a picture of the Enron Building pre-IKE. It may have suffered some damage since, and if it has, you can bet your money that I'll have the damage posted here for you to see soon.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Thursday, September 18, 2008)

Some colorful brick wall patterns in Houston.

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Wednesday, September 17, 2008)

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Tuesday, September 16, 2008)

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Monday, September 15, 2008)

The Chinese character for "grass."

Microstock Photograph of the Day (Sunday, September 14, 2008)

The Chinese Character for "Meaning."

Microstock Photo of the Day (Saturday, September 13, 2008)

This Chinese ideograph means "to become," or "to achieve." It's one my favorite.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Friday, September 12, 2008)

I don't have to shop around for parking downtown anymore since I take Metro. This was the day that Ike struck and we lost power in the early afternoon. Power is still out as of this writing.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Thursday, September 11, 2008)

I took a photograph of the structure just last week. No telling what it looks like now after being ravaged by Ike. I don't even know if HPD is letting people into this part of the city yet.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Wednesday, September 10, 2008)

I'm quite behind of my microstock photo of day postings due to both work and Hurricane Ike. This image was recently accepted by Shutterstock and I thought it very fitting. It means "nothing" in Chinese, which is exactly what meaning survivors of the recent storm have been left with.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Tuesday, September 9, 2008)

This character means "Heaven" in Chinese. I thought it appropriate since the Heavens have been sending us hurricane after hurricane as of late.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Monday, September 8, 2008)

More of Houston.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

A repeating square lattice pattern I found in downtown Houston.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Saturday, September 6, 2008)

The Enron Building, where so many infamous scandals erupted. I don't think anyone's home, even after 1 year. I'm not sure what they're going to do with this beautiful building. Shame for its space to go to waste.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Friday, September 5, 2008)

Downtown Houston.

Microstock Photography Deal: (3) SandiskExtreme III CF CompactFlash 8GB Card Memory Card (200x) for $74.50 (or $24.83 each) after Rebate at 17th St. P

Many of you probably have a pile of Compact Flash and SD Flash cards. The problem is either storage capacity or write speed. Well, now you can have both and you won't have to pay out the nose for it.

Tired of waiting for your card to write data after you shoot JPEG + RAW on your Canon EOS or other DSLR? Go here and get 3 of these babies (make sure you purchase before 9/28/2008):

http://www.17photo.com/product.asp?id=SDCFX3008GR

Damage comes to $234.50 including shipping.

Go here and submit the rebate and get $160 back in pre-paid Visa cards:

http://www.17photo.com/rebates/sandisk_revised_092808.pdf

Voila! That comes to $24.83 per 8GB card. Sure, I've heard of the price fluctuating, but it's only going to make a couple bucks difference. If you're really hard up, you can sell 2 of the cards for $30 on E-bay, and then the cost of 1 card will drop to $14.50. Not too shabby.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Thursday, September 4, 2008)

Microstock Photo of the Day (Wednesday, September 3, 2008)

Another view of the Houston Metro zipping by.

Microstock Photo of the Day (Tuesday, September 2, 2008)

Some kaleidoscopic windows from a skyscraper in South downtown Houston.

Microstock Earnings Schedule for August 2008

Earnings weren't as good as last month, and some of this can be attributed to the "summer slowdown," when buyers of microstock photography go on vacation. However, some other contributors I know actually posted their BME(Best Month Ever) thanks to the subscription model recently adopted by Fotolia and Shutterstock's rolling out of Shutterstock on Demand. I did get a couple buys of SOD, where were quite nice, as each buy was worth about 6~8 normal downloads. My goal for September is to expand my portfolio by another 100~150 photographs and get earnings above $100 again. Happy shooting to the rest of you!

Microstock Photo of the Day (Sunday, August 31, 2008)

This is actually a picture of some church in downtown Houston.