Just one more
narcissistic waffle about me and then I'll try to get onto something a bit more interesting (although I suppose by their
definition most blogs are created as online diaries or include some form of subjective, personal content).
As mentioned in an earlier post the first stock agency that I joined was
iStockPhoto. I had been toying with the idea for a few months but was always
deterred by lack of confidence. Most stock sites have strict registration processes that involve sending in samples of work and I always saw it as a possible kick in the teeth getting all of your pictures rejected and being told that you aren't a good enough photographer for them. I gained some confidence though after registering with an online photography community called
ePhotozine and receiving some good
comments on my pictures from fellow photographers. Fortunately I didn't have any problems getting registered with
iStockPhoto although I did find difficulty in actually making the time to get my images ready for upload (making sure that there are no copyrighted logos visible, cropping so that the composition is good, describing the photo, providing keywords, choosing categories for it to be placed in etc.). This meant that my uploading was extremely slow and the thought of only getting a few cents for each sale didn't help. Shortly afterwards I found a site called
ShutterPoint that offered much more income per sale, no vetting of images beforehand and no lengthy registration...but with a cost each photographer had to pay a yearly subscription for space on the servers
Since this was (and still is) only a hobby to me other commitments meant that over the next year I dipped out of uploading to either of these websites and it was only late in 2005 after getting married and changing jobs that I returned to both sites to find that my
ShutterPoint account was costing far more than it made but sales on
iStockPhoto had increased. This prompted me to try to terminate my
ShutterPoint account, increase my presence on
iStockPhoto and to find other similar
microstock sites to register with.
I am now uploading on an occasional basis to approximately 14 sites and although I haven't made any kind of mark on the stock world I am happy enough knowing that my work could be featured on websites or in publications around the world.
Links to all of my online stock portfolios can be found on my other sites but a selection are also given here below:
iStockPhotoShutterStockBigStockPhotoDreamstimeFotolia123rfMore later,
Shane
