Dreamstime interview

For anyone interested my interview as Featured Contributor is up on Dreamstime. Here is the link: http://blog.dreamstime.com/2012/02/06/capturing-the-moment-on-photojournalism-and-more-with-david-fowler_art37058
I had good fun choosing the images to go with it! Regards, David.

January updates:

A good start to the year in January.

Shutterstock saw a BME for quantity with 95 downloads ($37.87). 36 of these were from my B/W archives including one of the late Phil Lynott (pictured). January also marked my 2000th download at Shutterstock.

Dreamstime produced a healthy 17 downloads ($7.15) though a large number of subscription sales helped keep the actual revenue down.

Istock achieved 7 downloads ($10.01) with a further $1.68 from 6 partner sales. My portfolio continued to climb -now reaching 426 images.

123RF saw 12 downloads ($6.20). Again, subs sales to the fore. Eleven of the sales were Editorial.

Bigstock produced 3 downloads ($4.20). The Bridge connector continued to push my new Shutterstock approvals over without any further effort on my part. I also identified a number of images that got missed in the initial transfer and uploaded those direct.

Yaymicro saw 1 download but paying a very nice 7.5 euros. Enough to earn me another payout.

Fotalia got 2 dowloads (0.45 credits).

Mostphotos saw another subscription sale at just 0.12 euros. As I have said before, previous sub sales have paid out good amounts, so I won't complain about that.

Uploading in January saw the previously posted Rock and Roll pictures as well as a set of a 1992 anti fox hunting demonstration in Tenterden, Kent.

Though these are January updates I have to jump ahead to say I was delighted yesterday to hear from http://www.dreamstime.com/that I am their featured photographer of the week. It commenced today with a selection of my portfolio appearing on their home page. I have also answered some interview questions about my photography which should be published in the next day or so (with some images of my choice). And I even get a T shirt! So thanks to Dreamstime for the great exposure my port will get. Regards, David.

Rock and Roll time

Digging back through my negative archives I recently came across these images from May 15, 1976 when music fans held a fun march through the West End of London as part of the Rock and Roll Radio Campaign. The campaign aimed to get more vintage Rock and roll music played on British radio. At that time there were far fewer radio stations available and, of course, the internet didn't exist. Assembling in Hyde Park the march proceeded along Oxford Street ending at BBC Broadcasting House (home to BBC radio). The whole thing was very colourful (if I can use that word for B/W images) with many dressed in fifties "teddy boy" style, a vintage car on hand and Rockabilly band The Flying Saucers playing on the back of a truck.

From three rolls of 35mm negatives I selected 12 images to work with and uploaded these to all my editorial sites over the last couple of weeks. Pleased to report that they all got accepted 100% so far.

Shutterstock came up trumps when 6 of the images were downloaded within a couple of days of going online (along with 20 or so more varied images from the same era -somebody is obviously working on a 1970's related project!).

It was good to see these images which I took 36 years ago getting a whole new lease of life on the internet. Regards, David.

December updates:

A steady end to 2011 with sales continuing up to the Christmas holidays and, in a first for me, three sales on Christmas Day itself.

Shutterstock, as ever, led the pack with 70 downloads ($30.69) and another payout reached.

123rf carried on in great form with 20 downloads ($21.18) pushed up by two XLTiff sales paying $4.50 and $4.70.

Dreamstime continued to improve with 8 downloads ($9.21) and my third payout from them.

Istock produced 7 downloads ($7.69) with a further 5 PP downloads ($2.32). My portfolio broke through the 400 barrier and now stands at 412 with both Editorial and Commercial images being accepted.

Bigstock had 2 downloads ($4.00) and, as previously posted, a big boost to my portfolio size.

Fotalia produced I download (0.20 credits) and a continuing bunch of rejections of new uploads! (Needless to say these were images accepted elsewhere -this is going to be a long haul to build much of a portfolio there).

New uploads in December included an image of the charming Elizabethan houses at Sinnock Square in the Old Town area of Hastings (pictured).

Well, that's another year over -now onto 2012. Regards, David.

Bridge to Bigstock -Crossed:

Unlike some top flight contributors I didn't receive a Christmas card from Shutterstock or Bigstock this year (unless it is still in the post) but I did receive an excellent Christmas present, literally on Christmas Day, when I had an email from Bigstock confirming that they had transferred my images over from Shutterstock under the Bridge to Bigstock program.

Over 300 images were added taking my Bigstock port to some 1066. As previously posted, most of these were my B/W archive celebrity/politician images which do well on Shutterstock but were originally rejected at Bigstock for being grainy.

The transfer didn't work 100% perfectly as there are still some images missing on Bigstock (which I estimate at around 109 in number). My understanding is that this was mainly a manual rather than fully automated process so I guess there was scope for error on such a large number. Going forward, I'll try and identify the missing images and re-upload directly to Bigstock to fully complete my portfolio there.

Bigstock have been pulling in increased sales of late and this transfer can only help boost that. For the future, the other benefit gained is that all new acceptances at Shutterstock automatically appear in my Bigstock portfolio as well -thus saving uploading time. I have already put this to the test and all worked as it should. Sadly, there isn't a "Shuttle to Shutterstock" option as there are a number of images in my Bigstock port which got rejected at the parent site.

It will be interesting to see how my sales go at Bigstock in 2012. On that note, I'll wish everyone a happy and great selling New Year. Kind regards, David.