September Sales Updates:

Calidus Autogyro at Shoreham

September saw a fairly slow month overall with not even my best agent Shutterstock turning in a great performance.
However, Shutterstock did take first place for the month with a good crop of On Demand sales and a couple of Single sales. Under the old payout limits I would not have been seeing any money from them for September.

In second place were Istock with 5 credit sales and 23 sub/PP downloads. Just a few uploads to go to break the 1000 image level in my portfolio there.

Third place saw 123rf with 11 downloads. There reviewing hiatus is still in effect for me with uploads going back to August still in Pending (both editorial and commercial uploads). Sigh.

Bigstock took fourth place with 10 downloads with, as ever, Hastings area images showing strongly.

Scraping into fifth place were Dreamstime with just 7 downloads with all but 2 being subs. One of the two credit sales netted a magnificent $0.13 for an Extra Small download!

The famous Notre Dame in Paris, France

Sixth place saw Redbubble selling a sticker of, you guessed it, Margaret Thatcher. This was somewhat offset by my discovering the Sales By Time view on the sales page. This shows the status of all commission payments and I was somewhat disappointed to see my very first sale there (a Margaret Thatcher T shirt) now had the status as Cancelled. Oh well, I'm just continuing to upload images and see what happens.

Fotolia took bottom place with just two sub sales. As yet I am not really seeing any boost from the new exposure of my FT files on Adobe Stock. However, my port is still small so I will continue to upload any non editorial files I have. Whether or not FT might take editorial in the future came up for discussion on Microstockgroup recently. Personally, I think it is a possibility especially with Adobe's recent appointment of Scott Braut (ex Shutterstock). If anyone knows the value of editorial images, he certainly does!

Eternal love and, hopefully, eternal sales from Paris

Meanwile my Alamy experiment continues with , so far, no further images rejected. However, just uploading one at a time to avoid mass rejection is a slow way of building a portfolio there :)

Recent uploading saw some of my few images from the Shoreham airshow. The tragic event that occurred bringing the show and photography to an end. On a happier note, I went back to my Paris trip of last year to upload images of the ancient Notre Dame cathedral and the, so called, Love Locks on the Pont De L'Archeveche. This is where couples from the world over attach padlocks to the bridge railings as a symbol of eternal love. I'm hoping these might generate eternal sales for me :) Regards, David.

Shoreham Airshow Crash:

Shoreham crash scene

Regular readers will know that I enjoy photographing aviation subjects and always try and get to an airshow each year. This year I was set to go to the Airbourne airshow at Eastbourne but bad weather on the day I was going led to the cancellation of all flying. The excellent Dunsfold airshow which I attended last year was out as I wasn't free to go that weekend. This really only left the annual airshow at Shoreham-on-Sea in my area. This became a must see event when it was announced that XH588 -the last flying Vulcan bomber would be displaying on Saturday 22. This is the last year of flying for the Vulcan and, although I have seen it twice before, I was delighted to have the opportunity for one last chance to see it in the sky.

Archive image of a Hawker Hunter

The weather was perfect both as a spectator and as a photographer. Plenty of sunshine and blue skies -ideal for airshow photography. Late morning saw a number of aerobatic displays including Tiger Moths and the RAF parachute team The Falcons. The real action of the day got going just after 1.15pm with the arrival of the Hawker Hunter jet fighter. This fifties vintage jet is a favourite of mine having seen a number of Hunter displays at various airshows. A low level high speed run down the display line was followed by a steep climb and loop to bring it back to the display area. Because of my position this is where I lost sight of it behind the grandstand area as I poised my camera to capture the return run.

The rest is tragic history which has made the news around the world as the Hunter lost altitude before crashing on the busy A27 road next to the airfield. I sensed something was wrong when the aircraft hadn't reappeared as expected. There was then the sounds of gasps followed by a loud explosion. I moved my position a few feet in time to see a large fireball go up followed by plumes of thick black smoke. At this point the thousands of spectators simply fell very quite. The Hunter had been only seconds into its display and there was a sense of disbelief and shock at what had just happened.

Archive image of Vulcan XH588

Initially, most thoughts were for the fate of the pilot but it was only later that the full horror of what had happened emerged as the death toll from the A27 road reached eleven with the pilot (still) in critical condition. Needless to say, the rest of the airshow was cancelled. The one exception was the Vulcan. About an hour after the crash XH588 made one very slow and very quite flypast over the scene in what was a very moving and poignant tribute to those lost in the crash. That, sadly, will be my last memory of seeing the Vulcan in flight.

It truly was an appalling experience and not one I would want to repeat. Far worse, of course, for friends and family of those that died. You always have an awareness at airshows that something could go wrong but, in reality, never actually expect it to happen. An investigation into the crash is underway and currently in the UK all Hawker Hunters are grounded with restrictions placed on displays by other vintage jets.

Will I still visit and photograph airshows? Certainly - I cannot imagine I'm likely to witness something like this again. Regards, David.