Back in the Seventies and Eighties I founded and ran several Fleet Street photo agencies specialising in stock images of celebrities from pop stars to politicians. These were syndicated to the National and International press and Television. These days I am active in the Microstock world and this blog charts my journey as well as, hopefully, providing inspiration and ideas to others. Image buyers should also find this blog useful with links to my portfolios and regular updates on new uploads. Unless otherwise stated all images are my copyright and may not be reproduced or copied. Comments are very welcome but will be reviewed before publication. Enjoy your visit. Regards, David.

Wednesday 13 January 2021

December Sales Updates:

Ferry boat Prevelis at Halki island, Greece
An uninspiring month in December as you might expect in a year of pandemic and lockdowns combined with the usual lengthy Christmas and New Year holidays. However, it is what it is and my own plan is just to carry on until we get to better times - hopefully later in 2021.

In top place were Alamy with 2 downloads both from my archives. John Major, former Prime Minister and the late Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop retail chain. Both decent $$ sales.


Redbubble were just behind in second place with 7 product sales. The usual mix of products and images here from prints through to T shirts.


Third place was the best Shutterstock could manage with a low number of downloads overall, no Single

Quality but short lived Sunday Correspondent
sales at all and a limited number of On Demand sales. On a more positive note my short lived Level 4 status brought me a sub sale paying $1.16 - the highest I have seen yet. Obviously we all crash back to level 1 from the start of January. Happy New Year SS!


Fourth place went to Istock with 19 downloads and a poor RPD. What I am really noticing here (as everywhere) is the lack of sales of my music and food festival images which previously sold on a daily basis. The cancellation of almost all events in 2020 meant little demand to illustrate forthcoming outdoor events. This may not improve much in 2021 as Summer events (on this side of the World) are needing to be planned and booked right now and it is a brave person who lays out money without any certainty.

Historic old White Lion, Tenterden

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with 6 downloads. On the plus side, reviews at DT are lightning fast -often just a few minutes after submission.


Finally in sixth place was a welcome back to Bigstock with 5 downloads. No idea why sales just stopped there for months and then suddenly restarted again. 


Nothing from Adobe at all in December which was disappointing after my first three illustrative editorial sales in November. I had hoped to see that continue.

Uploading recently saw me going back to my 2016 Halki island trip for a set of ferry boat Prevelis as well as a more recent images of my local Oasis fashion store (now closed down for good) and the historic old White Lion Hotel. My main emphasis was, as before, getting my back catalogue up to Pond 5 and filling in gaps in my Picfair and print on demand sites at the same time. These included images of the short lived Sunday Correspondent which was an excellent quality UK Sunday newspaper. Launched in 1989 it closed down in 1990. I still have the first issue.


January has started off slowly for myself and others on the forums are reporting the same but, as the month goes on I'm detecting a small glimmer of an upturn. More next month. Regards, David.