Microstock Photo of the Day (August 20, 2008)

The lighting at the park was perfect on this day last week. Unfortunately, it has been raining this entire week.

Microstock Photo of the Day (August 19, 2008)

I like the windows on this building.

Microstock Photo of the Day (August 17, 2008)

How many of you have an old but very nice bridge camera or digicam lying around? I shot this picture with a Nikon 5400, which was the second camera I ever owned. Sure, my Canon 30D blows the Nikon out of the water on almost every count (noise, sharpness, ISO range, dynamic range, etc.), but the Nikon is nicely pocketable and allows me to get shots I would have missed while getting my DSLR out of my bag.

I took this picture before a cloudburst several months ago and it has already sold several times since I uploaded it to Shutterstock. So keep shooting with that DSLR, but be sure to keep your digicam in a pocket or purse for the unexpected.

Microstock Photo of the Day (August 16, 2008)

In Asia, people have such appreciation for the colors of spring that they even have a name for beautiful burnt colors of the foliage during this season. In Korean, it is t'anp'ung, and in Japanese, koyou. I was lucky to get this backlit photo of these leaves this spring, and evoke what I saw a few years ago in Asia in spring.

Microstock Photo of the Day (August 15, 2008)

This photo I did of a Red Cardinal fledgling is still one of my favorite. This little bird was trying to fly. I kept following it around and shooting exposures, while its 2 parents chirped both encouragement and panic to the little bird.

Microstock Photo of the day (August 14, 2008)

Just a simple picture of a building. It just got downloaded at Shutterstock.

Microstock Photo of the Day (August 13, 2008)

As you can see, all the buildings seem to lean inward in this photo. Some photographers don't like this effect, and try to straighten the buildings with Photoshop. I actually prefer it--as long as its not overdone--and intentionally perspective distortion in mind when composing my shots.

Microstock Photo of the Day (August 12, 2008): Making $1.88 from $1

This image sold under the "Shutterstock On Demand" License for $1.88 last night, so I'm real happy about that.

Shutterstock Earnings Update for 20080811: Yesterday was BDE (Best Day Ever) with 27 downloads.

Microstock Image of the Day (August 11, 2008)

One of the first images I took with my 30D and 18-55mm lense a year and a half ago. Just goes to show you that you don't always need to bring out the "L artillery" to shoot microstock if the lighting is right.

Microstock Image of the Day (August 10, 2008)

I love long lenses. This was taken at 300mm in downtown Houston. When you go to this length, all kinds of compositions start popping up that you wouldn't have even considered before.

Microstock Image of the Day (August 8, 2008)

Flowers.

Shoot video... with your Canon DSLR

See this really cool story about Roman Kuhn and who he stitches together JPEG captures from EOS 1D series DSLRs to make commercial videos.

I've never dabbled in footage, and I doubt microstock companies like Shutterstock would accept stitched-together DSLR JPEG capture sequences, but it'd still be fun just to do.

Press here for the link.

Microstock Image of the Day (August 7, 2008)

The paintings from this Buddhist temple were incredible.

Shutterstock adds new subscription type: "Shutterstock on Demand"

Shutterstock announced a new kind of subscription today: Shutterstock On Demand. Up until now, buyers had to purchase a subscription plan under which they could download up to 25 images per day. However, if a buyer only downloaded 18 images on a certain day, then he or she would have lost out on 7 images. Shutterstock On Demand allows buyers to download images anytime during a one-year period after paying a fee of $49 or $229. The earnings schedule for contributors has been modified to reflect this new subscription type:

http://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings_schedule.mhtml

I’m quite interested in seeing what Shutterstock can do with this. I used to be a contributor at Lucky Oliver, which targeted the blogger crowd and offered subscription packages starting at a low $20. While there seemed to be great potential for masses of people wanting cheap, legal images, it never took off and Lucky Oliver floundered and went bust. Part of the reason may have been due to faulty marketing and lack of brand recognition.

Microstock Image of the Day (August 6, 2008)

"Caught"

Earnings update for Shutterstock: 17 DLs for both 20080804 and 20080905. Not bad.

Image of the Day (August 5, 2008)

If you live in Texas, April 26 of every year is a great way to get a load of free editorial photos for your microstock portfolio. That's when a bunch of clubs and organizations put together the re-enactment of the Battle of San Jacinto, when the Texas militia went medieval on Santa Anna.

Image of the Day (August 4, 2008)

I shot this swatch of primary colors in Houston's Chinatown.

Image of the Day (August 3, 2008)

The George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas.

Shutterstock earnings update for 20080801: 18 downloads. Average for Fridays.
Shutterstock earnings update for 20080802: 5 downloads, 2 CD back-ups. Saturdays are usually slow.
Shutterstock earnings update for 20080802: 6 downloads, 1 CD back-up. Sundays are usually pretty sluggish, too.

Well, things haven't been too bad for August, considering that this is a traditional slow period for the microstock industry. If I maintain this rate of earnings, I should probably see payout at the end of this month as well.

Earnings Schedule for July 2008

Earnings kicked booty for July 2008. Whereas, I had been unable to meet the minimum payout threshold of $75.00 at Shutterstock in June 2008 (reaching only $68.57), I easily topped it with $107.88 in earnings for July 2008. If I am able to sustain this rate of earnings, I’ll be seeing payout from Shutterstock every single month here on out, and hopefully that EF 100-400 L that I’ve been eyeing will come within striking range after a year or so. I expanded my portfolio on Shutterstock from 207 to 326 photos, a growth of 57% m-m. Currently, my goal is to add 100 new images to my Shutterstock portfolio per month. Even though the number of images in my portfolio increased, that did not dilute my earnings. In fact, average return per image grew from $.25/image to $.32/image.

I haven’t done anything with Fotolia, and the earnings have been minimal. Sales were certainly better when I had images accepted by Fotolia on a daily basis half a year ago, but I don’t feel that I’m getting a good ROI from this agency. As I had mentioned before, FTP often botches up when I try uploading to Fotolia, resulting in hundreds of duplicate images. I got tired to trying to delete them one by one, and asked the Fotolia support team to mass delete them. They simply said they couldn’t and didn’t try to resolve the problem.

Check back after August 5, 2008, for a first look at the “Shutterstock 500 Derby,” a competition sponsored by Mastering Microstock for the Lost Boys and Gals of Lucky Oliver to see who can reach $500 in earnings on Shutterstock first!

Well, that’s all for today, folks. I wish you a Happy Friday and speedy downloads at all of your microstock sites.