Christmas 2020

At the end of a strange and unexpected year, wishing everyone the best Christmas possible and a much better 2021. Stay safe.
Regards, David.

November Sales Updates:

Tenterden town hall -editorial sale at Adobe

A fairly strong month in November with a nice boost at one agency.

Down to business we had Shutterstock taking a strong first place. A reasonable Single sale and a slew of On Demand sales (making up circa 50% of earnings) pushing things up here.

Second place went to Redbubble with 5 product sales. The usual range from prints to T.shirts here. As last month, I would expect some of these are destined to be Christmas gifts.

Dreamstime gave a pleasant surprise by coming in third place with no less than 31 downloads. This was another of those unusual events where the same buyer bought a whole load of semi related images (Hastings pier fire, Eastbourne pier fire etc). This is not the first time DT has produced something like this.

Istock managed fourth place with 21 downloads. Again, a disappointing RPD this month.

Fifth place went to FineArtAmerica with a single T.Shirt sale. 2020 has certainly seen some steady results at FAA.

Alamy disappointed with just a single Personal Use sale of Professor Stephen Hawking to give them sixth place.

Seventh place was interesting as Adobe produced 3 downloads. Interesting because all three were from

Hastings pier fire - surge at Dreamstime

my newly submitted Illustrative Editorial range. We had a Barclays Bank, Laura Ashley store front and my own local Tenterden town hall. What they seem to like and accept is branded stuff - store fronts, petrol stations, a Boeing airliner. What failed were just travel type shots which had an editorial element in them. These were all rejected. They also stipulate No Recognisable People. People in the distance or people you can't really make out seem to be ok here. Truth is I'm not sure I have that many in my portfolio that will qualify but I've added about forty so far on Adobe. I'll update on how these do in coming posts.

Finishing off in eighth place were Bigstock with just a single download. As previously posted this was my first sale there since August! I still have no idea why they just stopped.

Rt.Hon. John Smith - archives to Pond 5

Also stopped (briefly) were my uploads to Picfair. This is because they now only offer unlimited uploads if you upgrade to their Picfair Plus store. I probaly did well to get to over 2000 images before the upload button grayed out. With a 20% discount code I upgraded for circa £55 (normally £69 p/a). It certainly looks nice though I am yet to make the most of the customising features available. The key thing is will they actually sell anything now that I have forked out my money? I do have a rather uneasy feeling that they are concentrating their efforts on selling nice websites and not on selling images. I'll see in the coming year and then make a decision.

Not much photography shooting since last time but I get out to do a few store fronts and the like (all accepted at Adobe!). I also continued to get my back portfolio up to Pond 5 - well over 1000 images now including some of the late John Smith (former Labour party Leader). We shall see what happens there as well but if they are not uploaded they certainly cannot sell them. More updates next time, Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:

Dreamstime sale: George Best

 An overall OK month in October but with some moving around in the rakings.

Alamy took first place with 2 downloads (both from my political archive files). On these alone they would have made second place but a worthwhile DACS payment pushed them to the top. Personally I think it correct to include this as it comes under the "income from stock photogaphy" category.

Second place went to Redbubble with a pleasing 9 product sales. Christmas is certainly coming (and I know what some people are getting!).

Shutterstock slipped down to third place with not even a rise to Level 4 commission keeping them at the top. A distinct shortage of On Demand and good Single sales dragging them down.

Dreamstime perked up to take fourth place with 10 downloads. Certainly signs of improvement there.

Istock had another poor month with just 19 downloads and an unexciting RPD to make fifth place.

John Major - archive upload to Pond 5

  Easy to spot the problem here as my music festival images normally do well here but, sadly, life has been anything but normal this year.

Bringing up the rear in sixth place were Adobe with 3 downloads. Adobe have now opened the Illustrative Editorial category to Bronze level contributors (that's me). More on that next time.

Bigstock managed a second month with totally zero downloads. Not sure what is happening with them as despite never being a big seller I usually get a few sales each month.

Over at Pond 5, i am still awaiting my first sale but continued to upload my portfolio. I'm alternating between my old archive editorials and modern day travel images. I now have just short of 1000 images with them. At Set your own Price and 50% commission I'm happy to take a long view on this site.

Lidl - Illustrative Editorial now open at Abobe

I didn't upload anything much too my regular sites during October as I concentrated on uploading to Pond 5 though I continued to use this to fill gaps in at Picfair and, where suitable, to my POD sites.

More next month which I hope and expect to get posted earlier as I am upping the time allocated to photography...... Regards, David.

 

September Sales Updates:

Neil and Glenys Kinnock. Archives to Pond5

Another varied month in September from high to low (to non existent in one case). In these far from normal times I suppose we shouldn't expect photo agencies to be producing normal results.

In first place (and I didn't expect to be writing this again) were Shutterstock with my best month there in ages. This, it has to be said, was down to several good paying Single downloads which pushed the results right up. Indications for October suggest they are going to plunge in my next results rankings so do not put too much weight on their top score for September.

Only just behind in second place were Redbubble with a record score of 11 product sales running the whole gamut from prints, t shirts, stickers and even a pair of socks (with a motorbike photo on them). Previous years experience is that Redbubble sales build up towards Christmas and this was certainly a good early start towards that.

Third place went to another POD site FineArtAmerica with 2 sales. A T shirt with a Greek ferry on it

Wine lovers Christmas gift?

and a framed print of a Monarch airliner descending into the Greek island of Skiathos. Actually the same image was also one of my sales on Redbubble - this time as a cushion.

Alamy took fourth place with 2 downloads -both from my b/w archives.

Istock were in fifth place with just 17 downloads. Only an improved RPD saved the day here. What I am missing on Istock (and everywhere else) are the multiple sales of my music festival images which in other years would be selling on a daily basis to illustrate upcoming outdoor events.

In the also rans at the bottom were Dreamstime with just 2 sub sales to make sixth place and Adobe with just a single sale to make seventh. In the non existent category mentioned at the top were Bigstock where I haven't had a single sale since mid August. Nothing. At all.

Monarch flight to Skiathos. Print sale on FAA

Also nothing yet at Pond 5 but I continued my drive to put my full portfolio on there to give them a chance to do something with photo sales (rather than the footage they are best known for). I'm currently somewhere just over 600 images so plenty to go yet. I've been uploading a mix of my current travel type images and my archive political/celebrity ones. It's also been an opportunity to fill in some gaps in my Picfair portfolio and the POD sites while I'm at it.

Also on the POD sites I continued my experiment of adding text to some images such as the Time for Wine! on a picture of grapes. I am hoping someone might see these as Christmas present ideas for the wine lover in their life. It'll either work or it won't! 

Half way through October and things are looking far from stellar, but we'll see in my next updates. Regards, David.

August Sales Updates:

The Flying Saucers, sold and unsold on Alamy

Apologies for the late posting. Regular readers will know this is often because nothing especially exciting happened and, yes, here we are in the Summer Slowdown with a Pandemic thrown in for good measure. 

That said there were a few highlights in a rather turgid month. 

 Straight to first place we had Redbubble with 4 product sales ranging from stickers to mug and best of all a framed print of the Greek island of Agistri. 

 Shutterstock took second place in what was my first full month back with them since re-activating my portfolio after a seven week protest shutdown. Still plenty of the pathetic 10-17 cent subscription sales but a number at higher rates such as 44, 59, 66 76 cents (all of which obviously better than my old fixed 36cent rate. On Demand sales have varied from lower to higher than my former $2.70 rate (from $2.25 up to $3.25). Note that this is for level 3 at 25% commission. I anticipate reaching level 4 (30% commission) in October before, of course, being plunged along with everyone else to level 1 on January 1st. 

 Third place went to Istock with 23 downloads. A low RPD dragged them down this month. 

 In fourth place were Alamy, not with sales but an unexpected small amount from ASCRL (American

El Salvador church, Seville

Society for Collecting Rights Licensing). It's the US version of a DACS payment and not one I had seen before. There should have been sales at Alamy as I had two personal use sales of the 1976 Rock and Roll Radio campaign march in London. Guess what's coming next! Both refunded the following day presumably once the "buyer" had downloaded the unwatermarked image. Pretty annoying but not a lot to be done about it as RF (Royalty Free) images on Alamy do not have an opt out for personal use sales. Rights Managed images do but as my images are RF on other sites they have to be RF on Alamy too.

 Moving to the lower end we had Dreamstime in fifth place with 4 downloads. These included a couple of my archive b/w images of actors Jeremy Sinden and Michael Gough.

 Bigstock only managed sixth place with just 2 downloads. Never a big seller but they have really slowed in recent months. 

Agistri island, framed print sale on Redbubble

 Seventh place went to Adobe with just a single small subsciption sale. As mentioned many many times before I will never make much at Adobe unless they start taking regular Editorial. 

 No sales as yet at Pond 5, but I am continuing to upload to them and now have several hundred images online. They have said publicly that they intend to give more of a marketing push on images if we supply the content. Well, who knows but I am certainly willing to give them a chance. 

 Recent uploads have been curtailed whilst I put my effort into Pond 5 uploading but I did add one of the El Salvador church in central Seville. September is showing signs of improvement so more to come next month. Regards, David.

July Sales Updates:

Plaza Virgen de Los Reyes, Seville

 An overall unexciting month in July with one main highlight sales wise. First off, though, I need to address the Shutterstock issue. Having deactivated my images on June 6 to support the boycott against their commission cuts it became clear to me that not nearly enough contributors were joining in with this to make an effective protest. It was with no great sense of joy that I decided to reactivate my portfolio on July 22. I held out for over six weeks which is a lot more than some that just deactivated for a week or so. I had really hoped that enough people would join in to force a reversal of the cuts. I had also hoped that I would see an increase in sales at other sites (especially on editorial images which were no longer available at SS). That didn't happen so, for now, I'm back. I'll make a longer term decision once I get a few months actual sales figures in. Difficult, but everyone has to make their own decision on this.

So to the actual monthly sales: First up were Redbubble with 5 product sales. Several T shirts and other merchandise were topped by a framed print sale of the Greek island of Skiathos pushing RB into a well deserved first place.

Alamy took second place with 4 downloads. A couple of low paying distributor sales from Russia and a

MetroCentro tram, Seville

couple of reasonable $$ direct sales. Three of these were from my b/w archives but the best selling one was a modern image of the St.Leonards Festival.

Third place went to Istock with a disappointing 15 downloads. Only a reasonable RPD pulled them up a bit.

Despite not been switched on till near the end of the month, Shutterstock still managed to make fourth place. Varied amounts - rubbish 10-17 cent subscription sales but then one paying $0.73. Overall, I still expect to make less but, as I said above, I want to see some actual results for this.

Dreamstime made fifth place with 4 subscription sales. DT were one of my big hopes for an uptick in sales whilst not on SS but, sadly, it wasn't to be.

Sixth place saw Bigstock with just 2 downloads.

New products for my art sites with added text

And, finally, we had Adobe with just a single sale during July.

One good thing to come out of the Shutterstock debacle was that it pushed me to finally start uploading to Pond 5. No sales yet but I now have over 200 images online (and rising). The contributor interface takes a bit of getting used to but once you find your way around it gets easier. Just a reminder - they pay 50% royalties (for images) and you can set your own pricing so they are certainly worth a try. They are known as a footage agency but recently said (roughly) give us your image content and we'll do our best to build up sales. I'm happy to support them on that.

Recent uploading saw some more of my 2019 Seville trip going up. For my art product sites I have been mucking around with adding captions to a bored looking (yawning) cat image. I hope they might appeal to someone as a T shirt or whatever. Adding the text was done in Photoshop and doesn't take long -so worth a try I thought. More next month. Regards, David.

June Sales Updates:

Symi island - sold on Fine Art America

A strong month in June with a few exceptionally good sales and a marked changing in my results line up.

Alamy took a commanding lead in first place with 3 downloads (all from my b/w archives). A couple of very modest sales of politicians Richard Tracey and Ken Clarke were topped off on the last day of the month by an excellent $$$ sale of Seventies band The Fabulous Poodles (specifically violinist Bobby Valentino playing live on stage in 1978). A great end to the month!

Second place went to FineArtAmerica with a substantial canvas print sale of Yialos harbour on the Greek island of Symi. I am certainly seeing an upturn at FAA in recent months.

Third place place was taken by another print site Redbubble with 3 product sales. Two posters of Majorca and a sticker of Tony Blair.

Istock made fourth place with a disappointing 18 downloads. Only a reasonable RPD held things up

Fabulous Poodles - sold on Alamy

here.

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with 5 downloads. Three of these paid out the 10% bonus commission offered from new sales after June 1. Thus a $0.35 sub sale rises to $0.38 and the $2.00 sales are now $2.20. Note, the bonus does not apply to plans purchased before that date. It's a nice touch in these times.

Making their final appearance (for now at least) in Sixth place were Shutterstock with 11 downloads. As previously posted, I deactivated my port on June 6 in protest at the new commission structure so this just represents sales for the first week of June - many of which were for paltry $0.10 amounts. My withheld portfolio may be small (compared to some) at 2600 files but I am certainly leaving them some gaps in their coverage. Margaret Thatcher anyone? I even had an email from them saying a buyer wanted to purchase one of my archive images and the fee would be $5.00. Would I consider re-activating to allow this sale? Politely declined with my reasons. The #boycottshutterstock goes on. Check out the newly formed https://stockcoalition.org/ for news of action here.

Bigstock made seventh place with 4 downloads. As mentioned before, my portfolio here will not get bigger as my SS uploads were mirrored to them. Cannot see it would be worth uploading directly for those sort of sales. That said, they did get another sale of my Coronavirus letter image -the only place to have sold it so far.

Plaza de Espana in Seville

Bringing up the rear in eighth place were Adobe with just a single small sub sale. If I had hoped they would be announcing a full editorial image offering to capitalise on the Shutterstock carnage I was to be disappointed (so far).

Recent uploading saw me returning to my 2019 trip to Seville for a number of images including one of the rowing boats you can hire at the stunning Plaza de Espana. I look forward to the day when I can actually return for real.

Looking for other outlets for my images I decided to sign up to Pond5 My portfolio page . They are mainly known as a video agency but do take other media including stock photographs. They quite often supply archive footage for television documentaries and the like so I thought my archive images (at least) might make a good fit. I wasn't at all sure if my b/w scans would get accepted but my initial test batch of 11 images all passed. You can set your own prices or let them do it and they pay 50% commission on photo sales. I've set my own for now but really have no idea how Pond5 will work out for me. Obviously, I will report any sales if they happen.

Stay safe. Regards, David.

May Sales Updates:

Tom Robinson Band in 1978 -Sold on Alamy

Putting aside the shock Shutterstock announcement at the end of May it was overall a steady month with some good results from Print On Demand sites.

In first place were the excellent Redbubble with 6 product sales. A framed print sale led the way here with the rest a mix of T shirts, posters, stickers. I am also pleased, that in the light of recent events, I didn't have to give Shutterstock their usual top place :)

Shutterstock did manage second place with 60 downloads. A fair number of On Demand and three modest Single sales boosting up the income here. How good all those 36c subscription and $2.70 On demand sales look now.

Third place went to Alamy with 3 downloads. These were all from my B/W archives. We had the Tom Robinson Band and Steel Pulse - both performing at the Rock Against Racism festival held in Hackney, London in 1978. Also sold was the former Conservative Minister Richard Tracey (I spotted this one in the obituary page of the Daily Telegraph newspaper -complete with credit line to myself). I am hoping I might see more of these uses now my images are not available at Shutterstock.

Fourth place went to my other POD site FineArtAmerica with 3 product sales. The same customer

St. Mildred's church in Tenterden

purchased a Tote bag and two carry pouches all featuring the same image. I was a bit surprised that they chose a portrait format image which didn't really work on the products when there was a similar landscape version available. However, as long as they are happy that's fine by me.

Istock made fifth place with a less than stellar 24 downloads. A lower RPD than recently made this a disappointing month from them. Acceptance rate continues to be high with lightening fast approvals of editorials and a few days wait for the rest.

Sixth place went to Dreamstime with 3 downloads. They also announced that from June 1 they were increasing commission by 10%  on new image sales for a time during the pandemic as a help to contributors. Clearly intended as a poke against Shutterstock who slashed their commission on the same date but a very welcome gesture all the same.

Tourists in London before Coronavirus

Bigstock took seventh place with 4 downloads. Not sure what to do about them as my portfolio there is mirrored (via the closed Bridge to Bigstock program) from my Shutterstock uploads (now halted) so there will be no new images on Bigstock either.  Sales at BS certainly wouldn't warrant the time to upload directly. Wait and see on that one.

Finally in eighth place were Adobe with just a single download. A lot of angry Shutterstock contributors are talking of directing buyers towards Adobe but until they open up to general editorial uploads this is not any help to me.

Not much shooting recently due to Coronavirus restrictions ( I should have been on a Greek island as I write this) but I have been out capturing a few images where I live in Tenterden including the 12th century St.Mildred's church. I also uploaded an old image of women tourists in London which I thought might be useful for articles on travel/tourism restrictions.

Stay safe. Regards, David.

Stepping Away From Shutterstock:

Lech Walesa #nolongeronshutterstock

Back in June 2009 I was delighted and proud to be accepted as a contributor to Shutterstock. Then you had to submit a batch of ten sample images of which seven had to pass their stringent quality tests before you were cleared to start submitting. My first attempt failed (mainly on poor lighting issues if I recall correctly). For my second attempt I took a different approach. Nothing in the application rules said you couldn't include editorial images and as my archive B/W scans were getting some sales on the (now defunct) British agency Picture Nation I decided to make those the bulk of my second attempt. A day or two later I received a personal email from Anthony Correia (Head of Editorial Content or something along those lines). Obviously he wanted to say do not bother sending these old grainy B/W images again. Well, not exactly - he actually complimented me on my submission, described them as historically relevant and asked me to please keep them coming! What I had got wrong was the format of the Editorial caption. Not only did he edit my submitted images into the correct format but took the time to write out the captions I had sent along with the version they wanted. I was in!

The one thing nobody can say about Shutterstock is that they don't get sales. Even today in my

Phil Lynott #nolongeronshutterstock

regular monthly updates they come out top of my sales rankings time and time again -for both dollar value earned and quantity of downloads and usually by a big margin at that. As time went by it was great to see my tally of downloads building up through each month, sometimes with the added excitement of an Enhanced Download or a high paying Single sale. And as my lifetime earnings grew I passed the levels barriers eventually reaching the second highest 36c point and pushing towards the top 38c mark. Each of these points served to not only increase the value of subscription downloads but also boosted the higher paying On Demand sales.

Another thing I always liked about Shutterstock was their prompt and friendly communications from that initial email from Anthony through to when I had a problem with airshow images. I suddenly started getting rejections for these saying they needed (press) credentials to submit. I emailed pointing out that my local annual airshow at Eastbourne and many others in the UK were not closed ticketed events but public shows held on the seafront that anybody could attend and, therefore, no credentials were required (or even issued). Within a day I had a reply saying they would change their policy and make it on an event by event basis and that Eastbourne images were fine for the reasons I had explained.

This helpful approach took a downturn in recent years when much of the initial support queries were outsourced to fellow contributors who, by all accounts, had no inside knowledge or the ability to actually do anything. My one experience was regarding an uploading issue I was having when all the respondent could do was ask for a screenshot even though I had already explained clearly what the error message was telling me. I suppose that this diminishing of support should have been a clue to the way things were changing between Shutterstock and its contributors -the people supplying the product they sell.

And so to May 2020 when everything changed with the arrival of that email. With just six days notice (can you even call that notice?) the lifetime earnings levels which I had worked hard to achieve were being scrapped to be replaced by % of sale price system. I started from level 3 paying 25% though would have climbed to level 4 (30%) fairly soon. But 25% of what? The price per image that the customer actually pays right? That is how Istock calculate it by waiting to see how many images in a subscription pack the customer uses and paying a percentage based on that (which is why Istock no longer have real time reporting of earnings as they wait for the subscription to end).

Poll tax riots #nolongeronshutterstock

Shutterstock have a much better (for them) money grabbing scheme. They simply assume that a customer will download the full amount of images in the pack and pay a percentage to contributors based on that. Put simply for clarity if a customer pays $100 for a pack allowing them 100 downloads then any image downloaded is valued at $1.00 and the contributor gets their percentage of that. In reality we all know that most customers only download a proportion of what is available (that's how the subscription model works). In an extreme example if the customer only downloads a single image from that pack they have paid $100 for that image and under a fair system the contributor would get their percentage of that amount. Shutterstocks scheme still has the contributor getting a share of $1.00 while they pocket the other $99 odd.

And, of course, let us not forget the second sting in the tail that Shutterstock have in store for us. When you have worked hard all year rising through the percentage levels based on the number of your images downloaded it's Happy Christmas because every January every contributor gets trashed back down to the lowest 15% level and has to start all over again.

How did an agency that I was proud to work with descend to this? God only knows but I want no part of these new terms. Yesterday I disabled all my 2610 images on Shutterstock (the opt out is in Account Settings) and within a day or two my images will no longer be available to license there. Worth noting that this does not delete your images and you can re-enable sales in the future should terms change for the better. Don't hold your breath waiting though.

Good luck to you all. Stay safe. Regards, David.

April Sales Updates:

Poll Tax Riots sold on FineArtAmerica

A surprisingly strong month overall given the Coronavirus pandemic with an unexpected number two in the rankings.

Just retaining their first place were Shutterstock with a decent but lower amount of downloads causing me to miss payout by just a few cents. Never mind, it will be a bumper payment next month with May already off to a good start. On Demand sales made up some 40% of my downloads as is so often the case.

A surprise second place (only just behind SS) were Redbubble with 10 product sales. I wrote last month that maybe people weren't buying art products in the current climate but April proved me wrong with T shirts, prints and sticker sales coming in every few days.

Istock took third place with a reduced download tally of 22 but a decent RPD and a bunch of Connect commissions pushing up the total.

In fourth place it was welcome back to FineArtAmerica with 4 coffee mug sales. These featured my

Coronavirus letter sold on Bigstock

images of the 1977 Rock and Roll Radio campaign march and the 1991 Poll Tax Riots. Firstly an order for two small mugs and then for the same images on two large mugs!

Alamy made fifth place with 2 modest paying downloads. Both from my B/W archives - tennis player Annabel Croft and Robert Sheldon MP (the latter I spotted in the obituary page of one of the Daily newspapers).

Adobe took sixth place with 2 downloads (one of which was a decent paying Custom use).

In seventh place were Dreamstime with just 3 downloads.

Finally we had Bigstock with 5 downloads (all sub sales as they tend to be on BS but, on the plus side, I had my first two sales of my coronavirus letter image. This is the information communication sent out by the UK Government to every household which I photographed laying on a door mat. Not especially original as I found out later - just about every stock photographer seems to have photographed that letter - so I was pleased to get some interest in mine).

Stormy seas at Cala San Vicente in Majorca

I haven't mentioned Picfair for a long time for the very good reason that I haven't had any further sales there (not since 2017). However, I did think it time to have another play with my pricing using their excellent bulk pricing change feature. I've previously tried the premium pricing of £49 per image (with no takers). Went down to £31 (the same as Alamy's Stockimo images on the site). Nothing. So I am now back to £10 (my cut) which is the price point I had my previous sales at. Worth mentioning that Picfair are currently waiving their commission which normally adds 20% to your own price. This continues until July 9 so helps make the images even better value. We'll see if anything happens. Essentially, I see Picfair as like having your own photo selling site. You upload what you want, price how you want and you can group images into albums to promote on social media. And it is free (unless you want to upgrade to a customisable store front there). Uploading is easy enough so I'll just keep going with it for now.

New uploads recently included my previously mentioned Coronavirus letter. I also returned to my 2018 trip to Majorca for some more images of a stormy sea at Cala San Vicente. Travel? You remember that? Maybe next year. 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.

February Sales Updates:

Sold at Alamy: 1978 animal rights demonstration

A steady (and short) month in February with a mix of highs and lows.

Still up in the usual first place were Shutterstock. No Single sales this month but a worthwhile increase in On Demand sales pushing the income up.

In a surprise second place were FineArtAmerica with first a high value print sale of Margaret Thatcher and then four separate postcard sales of the Greek island of Paxos. I have had Paxos images bought as postcards before and I am guessing these are to the same buyer.

Alamy took third place with a single good price $$ of a 1978 anti seal hunting demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London. This archive image gets used on quite a regular basis across the various sites that have it. Not bad for a fourty two year old image.

In fourth place were a disappointing Istock with just 16 downloads -less than half of what I normally

T shirt sale at Redbubble: Monarch jet landing at Skiathos

get. A low RPD didn't help matters here either. Can only hope for an improvement in March.

Also disappointing in fifth place were Redbubble with just a single product sale. In this case a T shirt of a Monarch jet coming in to land on the Greek island of Skiathos. Taken in 2012 it is a reminder that Monarch, sadly, no longer exist.

Sixth place went to Bigstock with 6 downloads. Nothing to get excited about but an improvement on recent results.

Seventh place was taken by Adobe with 2 downloads. I had some fun recently by going into my portfolio here and forming two galleries (Majorca and Halki islands). These get featured on your profile at Adobe as well as being published on an Adobe Portfolio page. Whether it helps sales in any way at all I couldn't say but the customisable Portfolio pages look good at least!

Halki island chapel, Greece

Finally, down in eighth place we had Dreamstime with just 2 downloads. 35c subscription sales at that :( With around 2.6k images on Dreamstime that really is a sorrowful result. I've said many times before that I really like DT and can only hope for a turnaround there.

Personal circumstances meant not much time for uploading recently but I did revisit my 2017 trip to the Greek island of Halki including an image of a small chapel on the seafront at Emborio. I've uploaded images of this chapel before but like this more distant view framing the chapel with trees.


Too early to judge how March will go but past experience suggests things should take an upturn from here. More next month. Regards, David.

January Sales Updates:

British power pop band The Boyfriends in London, 1978

An interesting month in January when it looked like the usual front runner was doomed to relegation until a last minute sale turned things around.

In first place were Shutterstock. Though there were a good number of downloads an almost complete lack of On Demand sales (just one) made it look like I would be struggling to even make the minimum payout. Right on cue a substantial $$ Single sale came in on the last day of the month when a buyer in Russia downloaded my 1978 image of British power pop band The Boyfriends. I saw the band play many times and knew them quite well so was able to get these exclusive posed shots.

Beaten into second place were Alamy who had led the way for most of the month with 4 downloads (the most I have had in one month so far). A good variety as well - a Shell petrol station, the Department of Health in Whitehall, an archive b/w image of Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore and, finally, a travel image of the harbour on the Greek island of Skiathos (location for one of the scenes in the film Mamma Mia). Good to see a travel image sell here.

A worthy third place went to Redbubble with 5 product sales (T shirts through to phone cases).

Alcudia marina on the Spanish island of Majorca

Istock managed fourth place with 36 downloads and a reasonable RPD this month. The Greek island of Tilos featured heavily here in my downloads probably down to the islands ongoing project to become self sufficient in power by use of solar and wind technology.

Moving down to the (much) lower levels I had Dreamstime in fifth place with just 4 downloads - all subscription sales at that.

Adobe managed sixth place with 2 downloads. Still waiting on them giving the green light to general editorial images (if they ever do).

The Palau de les Arts in Valencia

Bringing up the rear were Bigstock with 2 downloads. Never a big seller for me but a real decline for me over the last few months.


Recent uploading saw me continuing to work through my Valencia images, this time concentrating on the visually stunning Palau de les Arts at the City of Arts and Sciences. Other uploads came from my November trip to Majorca including the iconic Alcudia sign in front of the marina.


February is painfully slow so far (with one surprise exception) but, hopefully, will pick up towards the end of the month. We will see. Regards, David.

December Sales Updates:

Tony Blair - Christmas mug sales on Redbubble

A mixed month to end the year with strong performances from a couple of agents and some pretty poor ones from others.

Shutterstock took a decisive lead despite only producing one On Demand sale all month. A substantial Single Download of former Prime Minister John Major turned it around here financially.

Second place went to Redbubble with 12 product sales in the run up to Christmas. The December General Election here obviously influenced some choices with no less than three mugs featuring another former Prime Minister -Tony Blair and other products with Margaret Thatcher.

Istock took third place with 28 downloads but a really low RPD dragged down the earnings substantially. I cannot remember the last time I earned so little at Istock.

A surprise at fourth place as Mostphotos delivered a worthwhile single sale of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell. Sales on Most are rare for me but as I am opted out of subscription sales those I do get pay at a better rate.

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with 9 downloads.

Sa Calobra road, Majorca - mug sale on FineArtAmerica

FineArtAmerica came in sixth place with 2 mug sales of actor Alan Alda and the Sa Calobra hairpin
bend road on Majorca. The latter is a famous destination challenge for cyclists so I would guess that is one cyclists Christmas present sorted.

Seventh place saw Alamy back from zero last month to just a small personal use download with single figure commission to me after they deducted their 60% commission. Still, good to at least see some action there again.

Adobe made eighth place with just 1 download. Still waiting for Illustrative Editorial to be opened up to all with, hopefully, regular editorial to follow. Who knows what 2020 will bring there?

John Major - large single sale on Shutterstock

Finally in ninth place we had Bigstock with just a single subscription sale. Again, I cannot remember such a low result from them before.


Uploading in December went on hold as I prepared to move home from my seaside Hastings where I have been for eleven happy years to the charming Kent country town of Tenterden. Finally getting everything ready and moved just a few days before Christmas. It's gradually all coming together and I'm getting everything up and running in my new home.

Wishing everyone a very happy and successful 2020! Regards, David.