March Sales Updates:

Vintage tram in Lisbon

 A line up of nine agents to report on for March. Only Picfair and Pond5 fail to feature.

Redbubble took first place with 5 product sales including T shirts, poster and baby clothes.

Second place went to Shutterstock. An uplift in On Demand sales over February helped pull up the earnings here. Now closing in on Level Three which while it doesn't help much with many of the subscription sales will help increase the value of On Demand and Single sales.

Alamy came in third place with 7 downloads. Four of these were from my b/w archives with Sarah Owen MP and a Lidl supermarket making up the rest.

Fourth place went to Istock with 33 downloads. A low RPD this month dragged them down the rankings.

Fifth place was taken by an improved Dreamstime with 8 downloads. Two of these were the better $2 subscriptions. These were both from my WW2 rationing book series which I am pleased to say are starting to gain some traction across most sites. It's nice to see sales from something my parents used to keep tucked away in a drawer (perhaps they thought rationing might come back?).

Sixth place went to FineArtAmerica for another baby clothes product. Good to hear from them again after a bit of a gap.

Adobe slowed with 3 downloads. One of these was an editorial of a Monsoon fashion store sign.

Tenterden supporting Ukraine

Eighth place went to Bigstock with just a single download. Could be interesting to see how long Shutterstock keep this going as a separate agency. Still, with my SS uploads just automatically transferring over the odd sale or two here is just a bonus for no extra effort.

Finally, in ninth place we had a rare appearance from Mostphotos with a single subscription sale. I did opt out of subs for quite a long time but as my sales dropped to zero I thought I may as well get something out of them.

WW2 rationing books -gaining sales

At last I got back to travelling in March with an eight day trip to Lisbon. After over two years staying at home it felt strange to be getting on a plane again. Lisbon is certainly as charming as I expected and the vintage trams were my personal highlight. All very photogenic except for the fact that, though warm, the sun spent most of my time there behind clouds - making all the buildings and trams look dull and grey. It required a lot of patience and time just waiting for the odd moments the clouds cleared. Still, even if I didn't get nearly as many images as I had hoped for, at least I've actually been somewhere and seen a new place.

Other recent shooting (much nearer home) was more images of my home town of Tenterden including some more store signs and topically the historic Town Hall with a Ukraine flag draped over the balcony as a sign of support.

I'm already starting to think about my next trip but I think it is very likely to be a Greek island (either an old favourite or maybe somewhere new). I just hope all the easing of travel restrictions remains in place. We'll see. Regards, David.

March Sales Updates:

Tesco: largest supermarket in the UK

 As Spring starts to arrive (though we saw a bit of snow here this week!), vaccines continue to roll out and outdoor events and travel start to seem more possible, I'm hoping to see an upturn in the stock photograph market - especially for my kind of travel/editorial portfolio. March wasn't it, however :(

Back in their old first place were Shutterstock. A good number of On Demand and Single sales made up most of the income here and with the plethora of 10c subscription sales I expect this to be the pattern for the future. Months where it is mainly subs will be poor and months where the non subs prevail will do better. The new normal.

Redbubble took second place with 4 product sales from a T shirt, a mug and two greeting cards featuring the Greek island of Tilos.

Pleasingly, Adobe moved up to third place with 5 downloads. It was good to see that four of these came

Donkey track on Symi island, Greece

from my recent Illustrative Editorial uploads. My port here may be tiny but these editorials seem to be gaining a bit of traction.

Fourth place went to Alamy with 2 modest fee downloads. On the plus side I did spot a couple of uses in Daily newspapers which have yet to be officially reported as sales.

Istock made a disappointing fifth place with 14 (poor RPD) downloads. Still awaiting a return to form here.

Sixth place went to Bigstock with an improved 9 downloads. Interesting that five of these were of the RAF aerobatic team The Red Arrows. This was just the start as throughout the early days of April I have had a further 46 (yes 46!) downloads of the Reds. Multiple downloads every day (even Sunday). No idea why the buyer wants all these but unless they all get refunded for some reason April promises to be a BME on  Bigstock. The phrase Too Good To Be True comes to mind. We'll see.

Red Arrows flying high at Bigstock

Dreamstime completes the line up in seventh place with 6 downloads. All subs.

Lack of travel opportunity meant Staying Local (as per Government guidance) so I took the chance to get shots of rows of Tesco supermarket trolleys (good for financial reports) and a closed down branch of fashion chain Monsoon (decline of the High Street). Delving back into my older files I found a few to upload of my 2011 trip to the Greek island of Symi including the steep Kataraktis donkey track which leads from the harbour up to the village of Chorio above.

More on April results (including Red Arrows updates) next month. Regards, David. 

March Sales Updates:

Church of Santos Juanes in Valencia

A mixed month for March with my three top agencies continuing to hold up despite the horrors of the Coronavirus pandemic which is bringing so much tragedy and hardship to so many lives around the World. It goes without saying, I hope, that sales of stock photos are irrelevant in importance compared to everything else that is happening. That said, my results went like this.

First place was held by Shutterstock with a strong number of downloads. Nearly half of my monthly income came from an uplift in On Demand sales aided by a couple of modest Single sales.

Alamy took second place with 3 downloads. A substantial $$ sales of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell and 2 very small sales of two Members of Parliament. All three were from my B/W archive collection which seems to have scored a hit at Alamy.

Istock came in third place with 37 downloads and a respectable RPD. As usual my music festival

Colonnades in the Turia river park, Valencia

images came tops here with Greek and Spanish travel images also doing well.

In the runners up section Adobe took fourth place with a single download at well above usual

subscription rate payment. I assume this is their equivalent of the On Demand sales that Shutterstock have.

Fifth place went to Bigstock with 4 downloads.

Redbubble disappointed with just a single sticker sale to give them sixth place. With everything else to worry about I guess people are not ordering art products.

In bottom eighth place were Dreamstime with just 2 subscription downloads. There is nothing more I can say about Dreamstime that I haven't already said before and I just hope they can find their way back again.

Turia river park in the heart of Valencia

Shooting in March was to have centred on a six day trip to Barcelona. I haven't been for a couple of years and had a lot planned including a day trip out by train to the mountain top monastery at Montserrat. Sadly, the night before I was due to go I took the decision to stay at home as the situation was clearly escalating. My early morning Easyjet flight did still go but by mid morning Jet 2 had cancelled all flights to Spain (even turning flights back mid air) and soon after the Government advised against all travel to the country. It was the best decision I could have made as Spain shortly went onto lockdown and my return flight was cancelled. Again, my lost trip (and money) is nothing to the losses Spain is suffering. I look forward to the time in the future when this is over and normal life can resume.

With time on my hands I turned to editing and uploading more of my Valencia images from 2019. A series of images of the Turia river park (the 9km long park was created after the River Turia was diverted away from the City following severe flooding in the fifties). I also uploaded some images of the 13th century church of Santos Juanes in central Valencia.

In the coming weeks please follow all official advice and do not put yourself or others in danger in order to take photographs. Stay safe. Regards, David.

March Sales Updates:

Plaza de Espana -spectacular building in Seville

Far from a stellar month in March as even my usual number one agency failed to hit payout and several others produced no sales at all.

In first place were Shutterstock with a good number of downloads - but few On demand sales and no Single downloads conspired to drag down the earnings to just a few cents short of payout level. It's not often this happens but at least I can look forward to a bumper payout next month.

Istock took second place with 21 downloads but a low RPD (rate per download) dragged down the earnings.

Third place was for Dreamstime with just 4 downloads. All subscription sales but with two of them at the higher $2 sub level. In a normal month DT would have been lucky to get third ranking on those sales.

Fourth place went to Bigstock with 6 downloads.

Fifth and final place went to Redbubble with just a single sale - a sticker of the Greek flag keeping

Fishing at Piraeus port in Athens

them in the rankings.

Notable absentees in March with no sales at all were Alamy, Adobe and FineArtAmerica (my recent revival of sales hitting the buffers there). Alamy was, of course, the especial disappointment.

No disguising this was a poor month but stock is a long game and needs to be viewed over a much longer period than just a few weeks. My portfolios continue to grow and new subjects added so one bad month needn't be of concern.

New uploads in March saw a return to my 2016 trip to Athens with a series of temples at the World famous Acropolis as well images from Piraeus port (the biggest passenger port in Europe and the second biggest in the World so my research turned up - a useful fact for editorial captions).

Historic Acropolis site in Athens

New shooting saw my first ever visit to the Spanish city of Seville at the end of March. Lots to photograph here in this old, traditional City. Highlights of my visit included the Plaza de Espana (built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929). A spectacular semi circular building with huge public space in front. A moat with rowing boats just added to the photographic interest.  More modern, but equally impressive was the Metropol Parasol (Las Setas de Sevilla) - a 2011 wooden construction resembling giant mushrooms. A walkway on the top affords fantastic views over the City. I'm looking forward to working on my Seville images in the coming months so expect to see more in future posts. Hopefully, April results will see some good improvements. Regards, David.

March Sales Updates:

Professor Stephen Hawking 

March was never going to be a normal month because, as regular readers will know, my archives include an  image of British physicist Professor Stephen Hawking who sadly died on the 14th of March. It is in the very nature of shooting editorial images that sometimes they will sell to illustrate a good news story and sometimes the complete opposite....

Way out in front in first place were Shutterstock with something not far off my BME there. My Hawking image was downloaded 58 times alone on the 14th with many more downloads through to the end of the month. That said, image sales at SS were strong all round this month.

Second place went to Dreamstime with 9 downloads. Again the obvious sales including an extended license which pushed up the revenue.

Redbubble took third place with 5 product sales ranging from prints to T Shirts.

Fourth place fell to Istock with 25 downloads. No Hawking effect there as they do not accept celebrity type images (arguing that they would compete with their own Getty Images coverage). I don't get it, but there it is.

Bigstock made fifth place with 21 downloads (obvious sales again).

The Serra de Tramuntana mountains in Majorca

In sixth place were 123rf with 17 downloads (yes, again). In some ways this was unwelcome as I had been poised to walk away from them once I had heard their "good news for contributors" announcement they had promised for the end of March. The announcement never came but I am now so close to payout amount that I may as well hang on now. They've had no new uploads from me for several months now and I plan to keep it that way.

Fotolia took seventh place with 5 downloads (still no editorial from ordinary contributors allowed).

Mostphotos came in eighth place with 4 downloads of Stephen Hawking.

The road down to Sa Calobra in Majorca

Nothing from Alamy again in March so now making two months of no reported sales. Of course, as previously discussed, sales might have taken place but not been reported yet. I'm continuing to build my portfolio there although I'm now starting to run out of back catalogue to upload to them. Obviously, new images go to them in my regular workflow.


Recent uploading had me working on my Majorca images from last year including a cloudy scene on the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range and a series of the famous hairpin bend road down to Sa Calobra - a popular challenge for the thousands of cyclists that visit and train in Majorca each year. Regards, David.

March Sales Updates:

Amber Rudd, constantly in the news

A late posting (again!) for my March stats. I have the excuse that I have just returned from a week in the vibrant Greek capital of Athens and everything has been on hold because of that.

In first place a strong performance from Shutterstock with a good crop of On Demand sales and four Single downloads -including a pleasing one for just under $20.

Istock were in second place with 21 downloads. Again their was a spread of earnings from paltry to well above the 28cents previously earned for subscription sales. A few more months and I should have some meaningful figures to go on to decide if Istock are worth continuing with. For clarity, these figures are for downloads from February-March. As they now only report sales once a month my Istock figures are going to lag behind my other real time figures. Not ideal but no way round that at present. ETA This Istock ranking has been revised upwards due to my looking at the wrong report initially (nothing if not confusing!).

Dreamstime were in third place with 8 downloads. Some credit sales helping to push up the total here.

The White Cats, seventies image still selling today

Fourth place went to 123rf with 12 downloads. Better than some months recently but still a poor return on over 2000 images.

Fifth place saw Redbubble have two merchandise sales -a sticker and a poster. There is certainly a slower
rate of sales than I was seeing a while back but good margins on the products make it worthwhile.

Bigstock took sixth place with 7 downloads - pretty much all subs.

At the bottom were Fotolia in eighth place with just one download. Still no news of them opening the doors to editorial images yet.

No sales on Alamy in March but I continued to heavily upload my back catalogue to them and, in fact, didn't upload to any other sites in March. I'm alternating batches of my regular (mainly travel) images with batches of my old archive politicians/celebrities. My portfolio there has grown rapidly from below 100 images in February to approaching 1400 images now. Trust me that's a lot of work and time invested but I believe it is worth it (or will be long term).  

Livadia onTilos island, selling well recently

Normally I would highlight some recent uploads but as there haven't been any (other than back catalogue to Alamy) I thought I'd pick out some recent good sellers. Livadia harbour on the Greek island of Tilos has been doing well recently across a number of sites. It's a very small island with not that many stock images available. Also doing well is the British Home Secretary Amber Rudd (my local Member of Parliament). With the forthcoming General Election I would expect sales of her to continue. Finally New Wave rock group The White Cats from back around 1978. Sales of them keep coming even though they never had any real commercial success. Whether they sell as pictures of the band specifically or as generic images of seventies bands I do not know but long may they continue. More on my Athens trip next month :) Regards, David.

March Sales Updates:

Tony Blair -notebook sale on Redbubble

March proved a mixed month with strong sales from one agency (guess) and a slow performance elsewhere.

As always, in first place were Shutterstock with above average subscription sales. An Enhanced Download (this time down to just $16 compared to the old $28 rate) and a couple of Single Downloads added to the mix. The month saw a big fall in On Demand Downloads which often make up to 50% or more of my monthly totals. Hopefully, April will see a come back for these. Uploading continued to be a pleasure here with quick review times and high acceptance rates (what happened to all those poor lighting/wrong colour balance/out of focus rejections?) Obviously, I must suddenly have become a brilliant photographer in the last few weeks :)

Stunning volcano crater on Nisyros island, Greece

Second place went to Istock with (sadly) just 2 credit sales but 35 sub/pp downloads.

Dreamstime was in third place with 6 downloads. Back to business as usual then with no repeat of my
record month in February.

123rf took fourth place with 14 downloads. There are still some issues with slow reviews but I have, at least, had some looked at without having to send them a begging email -so some improvement there.

Fifth place went to Bigstock with 10 downloads.

Redbubble were in sixth place with 3 products sales. Two stickers of a Greek goat and a notebook with my 1991 image of Tony Blair (former Prime Minister) on the cover.

Tarpon Springs Boulevard, Halki island

Bringing up the rear in seventh place were Fotolia with just one small sale. That Adobe effect really is slow in kicking in for me though others have reported a big jump in sales this year.

Uploading of new images was concentrated on my trip to the Greek island of Halki last year. Among my favourites were an image of the surprisingly named Tarpon Springs Boulevard. So named because it was funded by the Greek community of Tarpon Springs in Florida -which has close ties with the island (when the sponge fishing industry died out on Halki many citizens moved to Florida). I also uploaded the first image of one of my favourite places - the still active volcano on the island of Nisyros. It truly is a spectacular place and not to be missed if you are ever in the Dodecanese region of Greece. Regards, David.

March Sales Updates:

Poll Tax Riots, London -top Micro sale

March proved to be not only my Best Month Ever (BME) on my Number One agency Shutterstock but also my BME in Microstock.

So beginning with star performer Shutterstock the start of the month saw not only an Enhanced Download of the Tentertainment music festival (at $28) but on the very same day my highest ever sale with a Single Download of the Poll Tax Riots in London. Shutterstock Terms of Service do not allow me to give the exact amount -let's just say it wasn't a million miles away from $100 in commission. After that great start the rest of the month saw a bumper crop of On Demand downloads and above average subscription downloads. Images sold were a good mix of the usual suspects -Margaret Thatcher (the anniversary of her death is in April), Professor Stephen Hawking (new biopic film winning awards), Tentertainment music festival (the season of outdoor events and festivals approaches) and a host of Greek Island images (time to book that holiday). A few more months like that on SS would be very welcome.

Istock took second place with a strong 10 credit downloads and a further 22 Sub/PP sales.

Margaret Thatcher -a timeless selling image

In third place were Dreamstime with 12 downloads and unusually $0.49 in referral earnings when one of my very few referred photographers got some sales. A diversion here on Referrals -this is when an agency gives you a "thank you" for sending a new contributor (or buyer) their way in the form of a few cents when the contributor makes a sale or a buyer purchases an image. Some of my portfolio links on the right here contain a code that tells the agency the referral came via me. Not all agencies do this and most limit the time for which you receive these. Way back in 2008, when I started this blog, I had hopes that hordes of grateful readers would sign up with my links and generate some additional income. Sadly, I think my grand total amounts to around four contributors and somewhat less than $1.00 in earnings! Oh well.......

Tentertainment - music festivals and Summer image

123rf came in fourth place with a slightly perkier 11 downloads. Mainly subs.

Bigstock were fifth with 12 downloads. These were all subs with not a credit sale to be seen.

Finally, Fotolia produced 3 downloads to come in sixth and final place for my selling agencies this month.

Obviously, March was an exceptional month due to that one big exceptional sale and isn't really an indicator of anything. That said, April looked to be starting well until it all crashed to a near halt for this Easter weekend. I'll see how things pick up after the holidays. Regards, David.

March sales updates:

A rather late March sales update -you can blame that on too much wine. No, not what you are probaly thinking. I have been completing a course on wine knowledge and needed to get it finished! If you want to know what wine to drink with spicy prawns I'm your man......**

March proved fairly average for sales with the usual exception of Shutterstock which had a very strong month. I only wish I was allowed to give out the actual figures.

Dreamstime ticked over with 11 downloads ($11.70) with a good number of subscription sales dragging down the earnings.

Istock proved dissapointing on the main site with just 6 downloads ($4.18) but pulled in a pleasing 20 PP sales ($7.15). The start of the new subscription sales at Istock has now begun. Of course, in time honoured fashion, they are not going to report these as they happen (as every other site manages to do) but will add them on en masse the following month (as they currently do with Partner Programme sales). I understood with the PP sales because they are happening on a different site, but these are directly on Istock itself so I have no idea why they can't log them as they occur. As I said before, I am quite optimistic that subs sales are going to add not detract to my income here. In another good move Editorial images are now also being sent to Thinkstock -greatly increasing my portfolio there. Again I am expecting a jump in sales because of this.

Bigstock saw a positive 17 sales ($8.09) quite possibly a BME there (It's not such a large amount that I'm going to spend time checking that!) with many of the new subs sales making up the total. Bigstock illustrates why I am optimistic about the Istock subs scheme.

123rf produced 12 downloads ($6.81) with mainly $0.25 sub sales. On the plus side my outstanding non editorial images got reviewed after 2-3 months of Pending and all were accepted. Perhaps they didn't have the heart to reject after making me wait that long....

Fotolia saw 5 downloads (1.20 credits) with a variety of subjects from my small portfolio there being sold.

Nothing from the rest in March I'm afraid.

New shoots in March included the 30th annual Hastings Half Marathon and, even more exciting, I spent four days in Paris capturing loads of images -some of which have already got sales. It was around eight years since I last went to Paris (one of my favourite Cities) and great to be back again. I really should go more often as I can easily get the Eurostar train from nearby Ashford International station and be in the heart of Paris in a couple of hours. Four days was certainly not long enough to cover all the sights I wanted to. I'm planning a seperate post on photographing stock in Paris so stay tuned! Regards, David.

**Try a Gewurztraminer from Alsace, France

March sales updates:

An excellent month overall in March, with the usual suspects doing well and some surprise sales elsewhere.
Way out in front was Shutterstock producing a BME (without any Enhanced Downloads) of 143 downloads      totalling $100.27 in income. Two big factors here: I had a single download of an archive photo of former Prime Minister Edward Heath paying $13.19 and, virtually every day, multiple On Demand downloads which totalled some $46.44 of my overall sales. Especially pleasing was the wide variety of images downloaded -both editorial and commercial. If there was any sort of theme, certainly the Greek islands of Meganissi and Halki sold especially well.
Dreamstime also had a good month of 19 downloads ($31.92) with their levels system working well with three of those downloads paying over $6 each in commission.
Picturenation bounced up the league in March with two medium resolution sales paying £4.00 (GBP) each in commission. Both sales were 1990s b/w images of British politician Eric Ollerenshaw (now Member of Parliament for Lancaster and Fleetwood).
Istockphoto had another dissapointing month with just 7 downloads ($5.59) plus a further $1.12 from 4 PP sales. Not sure where all their increasing editorial sales vanished to.
123rf produced 12 downloads ($5.26).
Bigstock managed 8 downloads ($3.52) with four of those being $0.38 sub sales.
Fotolia saw four downloads producing 1.70 in credits.
Mostphotos produced one sale of Margaret Thatcher - a sub sale paying Euro 0.22. Of significance here is that was my first ever celebrity image sale on Mostphotos.
Finally, Cutcaster produced my fourth ever sale - a large archive image of  British Airways chief Sir Colin Marshall making $1.84 in commission.
Uploading in March saw my returning to my 2008 images of Croatia - complete with a re-edit on a number of images. It was really interesting, some five years on, to see the improved results I was getting from the images. Pictured are the Church of St.Mark at Makarska and boats in the harbour at Brela. We'll see what April can bring. Regards, David.

March sales updates:

A variable month in March underpinned by one basic fact: Shutterstock sells! Month after month this agency just keeps performing well. I still have a few zero sales days there (usually weekends) but these have become the exception.

So, starting there, Shutterstock pulled in 108 downloads ($51.43) with $18.43 coming from the increasing number of On Demand sales.

Dreamstime produced 16 downloads ($10.92).

Istock bounced back from February with 17 downloads ($17.21) with a further $1.68 from 6 PP sales. Most of these were editorial images. My portfolio now stands at 443 but I must admit to not uploading in the last few weeks - the process is just so tedious that I need to take a break now and again. No other agency makes you upload images one by one and then makes you disambiguate virtually every keyword. Please -just give us batch upload, batch editing and let us put the keywords we want! There were hints some while back with talk of an easier "upload process" so I live in hope.

123rf dropped a bit in March with just 11 downloads ($5.51) which was dissapointing given their strong performance recently.

Bigstock also dissapointed with 4 downloads ($2.50) and just to make things worse the "bridge" connector from Shutterstock seems to have stopped working. I keep checking but none of my SS accepted images over the last couple of weeks have crossed over. Time to email support!

Fotalia produced one download (0.20 credits). I still need to push my back portfolio to them but the high rejection rate isn't much of an incentive.

Recent uploading saw me concentrating on my archive political images which I am still working through. I especially liked my images of Nina Temple, Secretary of the Democratic Left party (pictured) at their manifesto launch. This party (more of a campaign group in truth) grew out of the old Communist Party of Great Britain. She is holding up an issue of their New Times newspaper which clearly shows their opposition to the then Conservative government of John Major. A little slice of political history there. Regards, David.

March Updates:

March saw a good month on Shutterstock with a total of 71 downloads ($23.81). This took me over the payout threshold for the second time resulting in an $82 payment. I also had my BDE in March with 24 downloads (23 from my 70's pop music archives and 1 of the Hastings "Jack In The Green" festival).
Dreamstime slowed a bit with 10 downloads ($5.56). Yaymicro finally paid out the Third Party royalties from the last quarter 0f 2009 (Euro 10.68). This took me tantalisingly close to their E30 payout level. Just E1.60 to go. One sale could do it!
As posted earlier Picturenation produced 3 sales (£4.80). Since the announcement of the forthcoming General Election (May 6) PN have been using a number of my archive politician shots on their homepage, which I'm hoping might generate further sales.
Bigstock bring up the rear in sales with just 1 (50cents). Mostphotos/Istock/Veer all produced zero sales in March.
Meanwhile at 123RF I continued to upload Editorial images ahead of the launch of their Editorial section. I emailed them about this and they say they are looking at May for launch, though I think that will depend on them having enough images to make a worthwhile offer. My first attempt at getting some non-editorial online there resulted in all 20 being rejected (poor lighting/composition). They'd pretty much all been approved elsewhere.
Finally, still nothing back from Britishimages in response to my letter and the site still has my old contact details (and no way to change them). I'll just leave that one well alone for now. Regards, David.