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.