June Sales Updates:

 

Catalonia: In the news

A steady month in June with first signs of the Summer Slowdown balancing with a coming out of pandemic upturn.

First place went to Shutterstock as in the old days. An uptick of On Demand sales making up almost 50% of the dollars earned.

Istock took second place with 24 downloads. An improved RPD brought the figures up here. Interesting that no less than fourteen of these were music festival images (a sure sign that some normality is starting to return).

Third place went to Alamy with 3 downloads. An archival b/w shot of theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn and two images of a Lidl supermarket.

Adobe rose to take fourth place with 8 downloads. Good to see two more of my editorials sell here - Tesco trolleys and a Laura Ashley store.

Fifth place went to Redbubble with 2 product sales ( a T shirt and a greeting card).

Soundwaves community choir: June sales

 Dreamstime took sixth place with 10 downloads. My recently uploaded John Lewis store image got an early sale here.

FineArtAmerica made seventh place with a T Shirt sale.

Finally, in eight place were Bigstock with 5 downloads. My big aviation uplift of the last couple of months seems to have come to an end.

Tentertainment music festival: Picking up sales

Overall in June there was an uplift in music festival images across the board. I also had a number of sales of my community choir images across several agencies. Barcelona protest images also sold as the Catalonian politicians jailed after the 2017 declaration of independence were pardoned.

Still no overseas travel lined up yet. I'm just waiting for things to stabilise a bit more (which will be helped by the proposed lifting of Covid restrictions in the UK on July 19). I'm missing the Greek islands and Spain so hope to be there in the not too distant future. Regards, David.

May Sales Updates:

Protestor climbing a comms mast in Barcelona

A steady month in May with  no major surprises or dramas.

The usual top of the tree placing went to Shutterstock though a decreased number of On Demand downloads pulled the dollars down here.

Making a welcome return into second place were Alamy with 2 downloads. One fairly modest one and one substantial one. These were both from my B/W archive collection from the 80s/90s. I now have approaching 2.5k images there and still have some older digital images to upload.

Istock took third place with 40 downloads. They would have been second but for the Alamy sales and are still, in general, my second best site for sales and income.

Redbubble came in fourth place with 3 product sales (bag, T shirt, poster). One of the things I really like about Redbubble is they pay out any cleared earnings on a monthly basis - no waiting to hit a fixed payout level like with most microstock sites. Equally, it's one of the things I don't like about Redbubble because I never get to a substantial amount (I'm sure some do!). It might be nice to have the option of letting it build up a bit.

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with 7 downloads. There are certainly more signs of life at DT these

Lidl supermarket, retail success in the UK

days and the bad old days of rejecting similar images are long gone.

Bigstock came in sixth place with 9 downloads. The ever popular Tenterden food and Drink festival images still continuing to sell here. May saw the second year of this event so I have some fresh images ready and waiting.

Seventh place saw the (leaving when I get payout) 123rf with a paltry 4 downloads. Just four dollars left to payout now. Except for April when the Stephen Hawking effect kicked in, 123 have delivered exactly 4 downloads every month this year!

Finally in eight place we have (still waiting for editorial) Fotolia with a single download. In common with most other sites FT seem to be rejecting little these days so my portfolio is gradually growing there - but still only about 200 images.

Medieval Crusader castle on Halki island, Greece

As well as covering the food and drink festival in May I also took a series of my local Lidl supermarket. Retailing (and in particular food retailing) are big ongoing media stories in the UK so I plan to start adding more storefront type images to my portfolio. I also shot my local Esso petrol station (it's next door to Lidl so silly to miss it). One of the interesting (for me) by products of stock photography is the amount of (sometimes useless) knowledge you pick up when researching for caption information. Esso, it turns out, is an acronym for Eastern States Standard Oil. Who knew? Not me that's for sure.

Other uploading in May included more shots of my April trip to Barcelona including the dramatic moment when a protestor climbed a communications tower to unfurl a banner. He was cheered and clapped by the thousands in the Placa Espanya below. Another series uploaded was of the medieval Crusader Knights castle on the Greek island of Halki. Regards, David.

April Sales Updates:

Llibertat Presos Politics march, Barcelona

Another strong month in April with Professor Stephen Hawking images continuing to sell and right at the end a flurry of Amber Rudd sales following her resignation as British Home Secretary.

As usual Shutterstock were way out in front in first place. A good number of On Demand and a double figure Single download pushing them up. April also saw a milestone when my total downloads on Shutterstock passed the ten thousand mark. That's a lot of sales.

In second place Istock returned to form with 43 downloads. As controversial as Istock might be amongst some contributors, their regular positioning in second place for me tells why I continue to upload there. In spite of some very low paying subscription downloads the RPD (Rate per Download) continues to be higher than the old 28cents fixed rate.

Third place saw a good month at Dreamstime with 10 downloads. Two of these were higher paying credit sales which raised them in my rankings.

Redbubble came in fourth place with three product sales (a pillow, a T shirt and a sticker). Some lucky person now owns a pillow adorned with Margaret Thatcher :)

In fifth place were Bigstock with 10 downloads. My Tenterden food and drink festival images continue to sell there presumably to illustrate outdoor summer events. These images have yet to take off on parent company Shutterstock where my Tentertainment music festival images continue to shine. Sadly, this enjoyable local music event is no more following alleged complaints over noise and other matters. Still for over ten years we had a great event and photo opportunity.

Sixth place saw 123rf with 4 downloads. At this rate it looks like it may be a while before I get my

Teleferic de Montjuic cable cars, Barcelona

final $5 to payout and close my account. Meanwhile as well as stopping uploading this year I have also deleted the pending editorial images which have sat there since December. Whilst in delete mode I also removed the only images of Margaret Thatcher that 123 had in their library (unless you count a waxwork model of her!). In an interesting move their sister company -macro agency Inmagine has ceased as a separate site with buyers being linked over to the 123 Evo (premium) collection instead. Inmagine used to mirror 123 images in a Value RF section which might be another reason for falling sales (not every Inmagine buyer is just going to automatically move to 123 instead). It's a shame -123RF was once a good, fair agency for contributors.

Canstock surprised with not one but two downloads to give them seventh place. I have also stopped uploading there as well for now. They are not bad people but simply do not sell enough to warrant the time uploading. Silly rejections such as wanting property releases for public landmark buildings didn't help matters here -especially when the same building is already in their library. I'm keeping my account open there -who knows what might happen in the future?

Bringing up the bottom in eighth place were Fotolia with 2 downloads. Editorial please!

Missing from the rankings for the third month running were Alamy but (thankfully) May has started with a good value sale there so they will be back in next months updates.

The stunning Boquer Valley trail on Majorca

April saw me making my second visit to the fantastic City of Barcelona (this time for a full week). I hit photography gold on my second day there when the centre of the City came to a halt for a massive pro Catalonia demonstration and march (specifically calling for the release of Catalan politicians jailed after the declaration of independence in October 2017). As expected this made for some great photo opportunities. I also packed a lot more into my week including an exciting ride on the Montjuic Teleferic cable car line.

Other April uploading saw more images from my 2017 Majorca trip including a set of the Boquer Valley trail. Starting behind the town of Puerto Pollensa this goat filled trail takes you through the stunning rock formations of the Tramuntana mountains before ending in an isolated cove where you get to share the beach with yet more goats.

All in all a positive and exiting month in April with a wealth of new images to work on.
Regards, David.

November Sales Updates:

Barcelona bicycle sharing rank

A pleasing month in November with some strong results from some and only really one big disappointment.

Shutterstock had a good performance to stay at first place. A large number of On Demand sales and a rare Enhanced License kept them out in front.

Second place went to Redbubble with 3 product sales including a canvas print (products seem to sell better here so it was nice to get an actual art print sale). I have mentioned my lack of sales at Fine Art America many times so decided to go in and reduce my prices across the board there. I'll see if that has any effect.

Istock made a strong third place with 28 downloads and a pleasing amount of revenue. I am finding the batch uploading and editing on their ESP platform vastly quicker and easier than their old one at a time uploader.

A return for Alamy who made fourth place with the sale of another of my 1980s archive shots - this time of

Passeig de Colom, Barcelona

former Conservative MP Michael Latham. I continued to upload my (non archive) back catalogue here and now have a port of circa 2100 images.

In fifth place were 123rf with an outstanding 27 downloads. There was a theme there as nearly all the downloads were of my Greek islands images.

Sixth place went to Bigstock with 5 downloads. My images of the Tenterden Food and Drink Festival seem to have taken off here with several downloads turning up each month.

Dreamstime proved to be the disappointment in seventh place with just 3 subscription sales (and 35c sales at that). After last months upturn things just slipped away here.

Local Summer event - Tentertainment music festival

Fotolia, Mostphotos and Canstock took up places eight to ten with 2, 1, 1, downloads respectively.

Recent uploading continued with my Barcelona trip images (ahead of the Catalonian elections on December 21). I'm hoping my parliament building images get some sales in the coming weeks. I also edited and uploaded my images from the 2017 Tentertainment music festival -a subject that has always done well for me. For some reason the Istock reviewer rejected these as an Entertainment event best suited to the Getty newsdesk -despite just being people in a park at a local event that took place nearly six months ago! I'll re-submit those in due course as Istock have never had a problem with this type of image before and previous Tentertainment images are regular sellers on their site. Regards, David.