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Enhanced License Sale! Paydirt!

The elusive "Enhanced License Sale" are the sweetest words for any shutterstock.com user. This means a single photograph has been downloaded for $20.00. As far as I understand it, this means that a photograph will be used in print. Such as a magazine or book. From my experience, I am lucky if I get one enhanced license sale (els) per month. Last month, in November, my total sales were $143. Thank the l*** for that els!

Technorati

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Digg your images. Digg.com

The popular website digg is not just for promoting blog post and written text. If you are a photographer and want more exposure for your images, try submitting them to digg. It's a great way to get a lot of people to see your images fast! Brilliant!

http://www.freefoto.com

Check out Freefoto.com
http://www.freefoto.com
They have an Alexa rank of 17,705. Not to bad, but their traffic ranking has been taking a dive for the last year or so. I would guess that this doesn't bode well for them in the long term. With the flood of sub standard photographs, who would want to download from this site when they can go out, and just shoot their own photo.
The website lets you use the pictures for free if it is non commercial use, but you have to pay if it goes on a commercial website.
I often see this website advertised on the G4 tech TV channel.
It appears they make all their money from google ads, and the one home harware ad on their site.

http://heuteblog.de/

Cool, one of my pictures showed up on this website. I think it is in German. A lot of my pictures turn up in Germany for some reason.
http://heuteblog.de/2007/11/19/britin-zu-fett-fuer-neuseeland/
And here is a German site about Hip Hop street wear. My picture is of the guy on the right side.
http://www.portalxxl.de/demos/streetwear/impressum.php

Product Photography lighting.

Here is a great spa theme/aroma therapy image that has gathered over 1084 downloads in about a year. The artist is Lisa Gagne, and the image is from istockphoto.com



Here is a great tutorial for do it yourself product photography.
http://www.jyoseph.com/blog/detail.cfm/post/18
Here is another one worth checking out.
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/product_photo_training.html
Tip:
One thing I have noticed, if you have white ceilings, think about pointing a light towards the ceiling to reflect light of the ceiling to light the top of the object being photographed.
Continuous Lighting:
Continuous lighting refers to lighting that is on all the time. I have some opus lighting units, so I can replace them with normal light bulbs that stay on continuously. Try this technique if you can. Of course, you will need to use a longer shutter speeds and a tripod because the light produced is far less than with flash units.
Still Life Themes:
If you are looking for themes that sell well, think about spa. Images of candles, flower peddles, herb bottles, etc, etc, are always great sellers. Keyword some of these in istockphoto.com and you will see what I mean.

photosights.net

It appears shutterstock also runs a site called "photosights.net". I wonder why they do this. Maybe to earn extra revenue? Any answers to this question anybody?

Also, it appears in Europe that Fotolia runs a sight called "http://snaparazzi.eu/" I guess they do this because the name is more catchy in Europe. One can only guess.

New York City search.

Cool, one of my photo's showed up here. The Asian guy in a suit holding a fan. It's times like this it all seems worth while. Thanks for using it. Check it out at. Thanks for crediting my name! Article by Kara Zuaro
http://newyork.citysearch.com/roundup/42336

It also appears on of my photos was used in the book called "Brannigan's Building Construction for the Fire Service By Francis L. Brannigan, Glenn P. Corbett 4th edition". Not all that exciting, but my name was in the credits. Hey, I can't complain.

Another link to my work. http://www.pressrelations.de/
http://www.pressrelations.de/new/standard/result_main.cfm?r=255926&aktion=jour_pm
Thanks for the credit guys.

Gettyimages.com VS Istockphoto.com

The changing of the guard. This graph shows the cross-over of Gettyimages and Istockphoto. As you can see, it was a good idea for Getty to buy Istock. This is significant, because as many know, Getty images are very expensive, and this graph shows people are not willing to pay more when they can find a good image on istock. Corbis is the line at the bottom, and they have stayed very consistent over the years.

5 big players

Here is a breakdown of the 5 major players in Stock photography. Istock is well ahead of the pack, white the others are slowly growing too, with the exception of Bigstockphoto.com.

Where do I look for photography jobs?

Where do I look for photography jobs?

Well, this is something I am always doing, so I have some very valid advice. The first place to look would be craiglist.org. They have a very informal environment in which to look for jobs. I find that most of the jobs on this website are of a very temporary nature. I have found one steady gig, a couple hours every week, but for the most part, I have just found models who want to work on a TFP (time for photo) basis. And this does not pay the bills, because as many photographers know, it is a long climb up before you can make enough to live off from stock photography sales.

Also look at http://toronto.kijiji.ca/, or simply kijiji.ca. They are set up a lot like craigslist, but they are only for Canada. The have a more sophisticated looking website with more features than craigslist, but many may prefer craigslist's low tech design. Anyway, Kijiji is well worth a look.

If you want to look for more career oriented photography jobs, take a look at http://www.workopolis.com, or http://www.monster.ca/. These seem to be the big two with a wide range of jobs. Also, http://jobbank.gc.ca is a great place to look. It is run by the government of Canada, so they wouldn't steer you wrong.
I have just discovered http://www.specialeventphotography.ca/. You can sign up, as I just did and see what happens. As most places the specialize in event photography, they seem to be very wedding centric.

The future for Photographers looks bleak.

The future for Photographers looks bleak.

I can't speak for everybody, but I have been working hard for over a year and a half as a photographer, and still good work is next to impossible to find. Unless you know somebody important, or have great connections, finding work on the Internet is a damn hard game. And what work I have found, for me anyway, it is very dull and uninspired. The job that least appeals to me is working as a wedding photographer, and there are a couple of those gigs kicking around. When people ask me to do a wedding, I quote them a standard, fair rate, and they still think it is too expensive!! Why is everybody so cheap. How do they expect a photographer to make a living.

Anyway, I would far rather work as a product, event, travel or fashion photographer. The number of people with good equipment doesn't help either. The cost keeps coming down and down. I would guess that in the future, Photography may become a basic skill like hand writing, or operating a computer.

Well, my search for decent work continues........Maybe I should become a writer, lol.

perezhilton.com? Genius or Criminal?

I am amazed at the success of Perezhilton, but I wonder if he will win his case. He is being sued for 7.5 million by a large photography agency. As a photographer myself, I understand how angry I would be if my photos were stolen, but on the other hand, without interesting photos, it is hard to have a popular blog. Not everybody has the time to be an expert blogger and photographer. Does anybody have any thoughts on the perezhilton situation?

shareapic.net? Make money with photos.

This new kid on the block has been gaining ground fast. They claim to pay 22 cents for every 1000 impressions. Nice idea, however I tried signing up, but I am still waiting to see if my photos are approved. I would be keen to hear if anybody has had any success with this website? I wonder if I should bother with them.

Bigstockphoto in Trouble?

I have noticed that bigstockphoto.com has been having trouble. Their Alexa rank has been shrinking. When I logged into my account, I noticed that they will be paying the photographers more. I think they said a dollar. If they don't get more photographers with better photos, surely they will loose the battle against the other agencies. Can they do it? Wait and see.

More stats on Shutterstock

Every month I make over $100 but well under $200. My best month ever, I made $190. Over time, if you don't add to you portfolio, the monthly earnings will slowly decrease. I haven't added photos in so long, soon I will slip under the $100 a month bracket. I guess I have become too addicted to blogging. I will have to start adding more photos soon.

Dreamstime now has blogs!

Dreamstime.com has now added blogs. It seems blogs have a place on every website these days.

Some of my Stock Photography

I have had the most success with shutterstock.com, number two is istockphoto.com then dreamstime.com, Fotolia and finally bigstockphoto.com.

Stock Photography

How much I made with Stock Photography. By Peter Albrektsen.

The world of stock photography is exciting, yet a bit scary. I guess my biggest worry is that with the over saturation of good photos, will the price be driven down even more. Every week on my favourite site, around 40,000 new photos are added! The total is now well over two million! Surely this will drive the price down even more.
I have worked hard as a photographer in the past year, but for all my hard work, it has only added up to hundreds of dollars. I guess the root to greater earnings is to take only the type of shots that sell, and stay away from more "artistic" photography.

Here is my summary of the various stock photography companies I have worked with.

1. shutterstock.com: My favourite website due to the simple uploading structure, and the fact that it can store model releases. However, I have noticed lately that they have become a lot more strict in the photos they accept. I have earned about $2000 on this website.

2. istockphoto.com: Everything is wonderful about this site, but....I am not crazy about the time consuming keyword structure, and the fact that you can not store model releases. I have earned about $1000 on this site.

3. dreamstime.com: Wonderful site, but I don't like the fact that adding information to the photo is such a time consuming process. I don't understand why the description line must have five or more words for example. I have earned about $350 here.

4. fotolia.com: Great and simple site with a fast key wording system. But lower traffic has resulted in much lower sales. I have only earned about $200 on this site.

5. bigstockphoto.com: An ok site, but for sure, the weakest of the bunch. A very poor, complicated and time consuming key wording and description process. Sometimes I wonder why I continue to send my pictures here, but I guess it is just barely worth it. My tiny earnings here have only come to about $150.

So there you have it. I will keep on plugging away because overall, I like the idea and the system of Royalty free microstock site. But if only all my hard work could earn me just a bit more $$$,......sigh.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that this was all in the span of a year, give or take a couple months.

Stock Photography