Christmas presents:

In keeping with the Christmas tradition of online shopping I used Christmas Eve to order a new Giotto's tripod. I made the mistake of buying a cheap tripod in the past but found it was just too flimsy to hold my Nikon D80 steady. Giotto's are running a special Christmas offer on their GTMTL9251B model complete with a MH5001 head. Normal price would be about £129 for the two but they are doing it at £99 for a limited period. Even better, when I came to order it from http://www.morrisphoto.co.uk it was only £87. We all like a bargain at Christmas. Continuing the savings I took advantage of a heavily reduced annual subscription on my two favourite photography magazines Photography Monthly and Professional Photographer. I'm now looking forward to receiving the new tripod and monthly issues of the magazines. Regards, David

Picture Nation fees:

British image library Picture Nation caused some excitement amongst contributors this week when they announced a new £10 per year membership fee. After a couple of days of heated postings on the Picture Nation forum http://picturenation.co.uk including from myself, PN posted a long explanation explaining their position. They built a well put and convincing case for the new fee and I have paid up. Interestingly, my latest batch of uploaded photographs got reviewed and approved in record time. Still on Picture Nation, I suggested on the forum recently that photos of Woolworths stores would be in demand now. Result? Their images of Woolworths stores has risen from just one to sixteen (including four of mine). Regards, David

Sources of information and news:

Here is a list of sites which aspiring stock photographers may find useful. Apart from Microstockgroup, all the others offer a free regular newsletter by email. They all have lots of interesting news, views and help with problems relating to stock photography. Try them out. Regards, David

http://pdnonline.com/

http://epuk.org/

http://microstockdiaries.com/

http://microstockgroup.com/

http://arcurs.com/