Back in the Seventies and Eighties I founded and ran several Fleet Street photo agencies specialising in stock images of celebrities from pop stars to politicians. These were syndicated to the National and International press and Television. These days I am active in the Microstock world and this blog charts my journey as well as, hopefully, providing inspiration and ideas to others. Image buyers should also find this blog useful with links to my portfolios and regular updates on new uploads. Unless otherwise stated all images are my copyright and may not be reproduced or copied. Comments are very welcome but will be reviewed before publication. Enjoy your visit. Regards, David.

Sunday 20 June 2010

May Updates:

A steady, rather than exciting, month in May. Shutterstock, as ever, led the way with 42 downloads ($12.69). Dreamstime produced 11 dls ($7.87). Istock achieved 2 partner programme sales ($0.50) and 1 regular sale ($1.56). 2 dls on Bigstock ($1.00) and as previously posted 1 regular sale at Yaymicro (1 euro) and a further 9.70 euro from their 3rd party seller. Nothing this month at Picturenation, VeerMarketplace and Mostphotos.

123RF went live with their Editorial collection at the start of May. I have around 470 live there with a further 40 pending review (in fact, some have been pending since April -which seems a bit slow by anyones standards!). Sadly, no sales there yet but they are only now just starting to market and promote the Editorial collection. I am also hoping that some editorial might also be added to their parent company site Inmagine.com in time. A note in the FAQ there says that they are considering taking Editorial. Certainly some 123RF commercial images already appear in the Inmagine "value images" section.

May also saw a new bit of photo kit. A Giottos aluminum monopod (Model: MML 3270B). Light enough to carry around easily it provides a really sturdy shooting platform (after a bit of practise). I did look at some cheaper options but decided the £40 price (from Jessops in the UK) was a worthwhile investment. I can also combine it with the pan & tilt head from my Giottos tripod for greater flexibility -for example shooting portrait format images.

Regular readers will notice a new image of the late footballer George Best on the left. This has had a flurry of sales in the last few weeks. I believe there is some sort of football competition going on which may explain that!

Meanwhile the Veer "Dash For Cash" payment for uploads continues. To date I have about 30 accepted (the same low acceptance rate that I have always had at Veer!). The promotion goes on until the end of June so I'll see where I am then. What is interesting (and encouraging) is that my views there have shot up in the past few weeks. Will update further on that later. Regards, David.

4 comments:

Luis Santos said...

Hi David! :)

I am also uploading hard to Veer, we need to get bucks from there :) I am with 115 approved, got 300 pending.. I am with 50% approval, now I have 1200 in my portfolio there

keep up

David Fowler said...

Good going Luis! I think my approval rate is probaly nearer 20%
Still, as I have said before, I was always going to upload the rest of my portfolio to Veer at some point so I'm happy to be making some money by doing it now. Due to being on holiday in Greece for two weeks, I am not going to get everything uploaded by the deadline. Yet alone the 500 or so new images I shot there! Regards, David.

Unknown said...

Well done for you sales. Really with the type of images you have you should do well with Alamy. The upsizing you spoke about is really quick in photoshop its: Image - Image size and then at 300ppi width 42,6cm Height 28,4cm - this should give you a file of 48mb which you would then save in jpeg. Age is without resizing and most images are accepted, my sales there have been very good.

David Fowler said...

Thanks for that info Kevin. I haven't got around to buying Photoshop yet -but will soon. I use the Microsoft Paint programme for minor stuff like removing logos etc. I have a good look at Age. They appear like a good photographer friendly business. But no upsizing? I'm sure in their "requirements" they talk about a min of 12mp for submissions. My D80 is only 10mp. I'll have to have another look! Regards, David.