September Sales Updates:

 

Blair and Brown: New Labour, new print sale

A near full house of results in September with only Picfair and Mostphotos (as usual ) failing to make an appearance.

Back in first place were Shutterstock with a good crop of On Demand sales pushing up the results. Two of these  paid way more than under the old structure so more of those please :)

Second place went to FineArtAmerica with two sales including a print of Lech Walesa the former President of Poland.  

Alamy made third place with a record 6 downloads. Sadly, none of these were very high value hence their ranking. 

Fourth place went to Redbubble with 3 product sales. Two prints including an archive shot of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and yet another greeting card. I'm hoping that the Christmas build up will start soon as in previous years.

Fifth place went to Istock with a disappointing 15 downloads. I keep adding to my portfolio there but

Petrol queues: traditional UK panic buying

never seem to see a big growth in sales.

Adobe perked up to make sixth place with 8 downloads (including three editorials).

Seventh place went to Pond 5 with a single download of the Tentertainment music festival. After my super month there a few weeks back it was nice to see another regular sale. I'm still continuing to upload my back catalogue to them so we'll see what they can do going forward. Still, given that you can set your own prices and get 50% royalties there really is nothing to lose by uploading to them.

Bringing up the rear were Bigstock in eighth place with just 2 downloads and, sadly, Dreamstime in ninth place with just one download. A subscription sale at that :(

Lech Walesa: print sale on FineArtAmerica

New shooting included a visit to the postponed Tenterden Food and Drink Festival (back properly for the first time since 2019). I also visited my local petrol station as the UK went into panic buying mode due to fears of shortages caused by lack of delivery drivers. The resultant queues backing up down the road were too good a subject to miss.

New uploading in addition to the events mentioned above included, as I said, pumping more into Pond 5 (as well as filling in some gaps in my Picfair portfolio and POD sites at the same time). I also revisited my 2013 trip to the Greek island of Alonissos for a few additional shots. Luckily, most of the small Greek islands tend to be pretty timeless so even older images are still valid.

October so far has started off fairly slowly but there's time yet. More next month. Regards, David.

August Sales Updates:

 

Poll tax riots: biggest Alamy sale to date

A slow month in general as you might expect from August (the height of the annual Summer Slowdown). However a couple of bright spots kept things interesting.

Alamy jumped straight into first place with 3 downloads. One of these was my biggest ever ($$$) sale there - a poll tax riots image used for a corporate video. I did have this set for Editorial Use Only but Alamy telephoned me and asked if I was prepared to waive this restriction for this particular usage. The buyer accepted all responsibility for use of the image so I was happy to grant this with a nice payout in return.

Second place went to Istock with 29 downloads. What boosted this was that one of my images of the Greek island of Meganissi was clearly some sort of Extended License judging my the larger amount I got. This, of course, pushed the RPD for the month to a very respectable figure.

Shutterstock could only manage third place this month not least because of only a single On Demand

Meganissi island: extended license on Istock

sale and two tiny Single and Other sales. As I have said before, it is the number and value of these non subscription sales which makes or breaks the month. On a plus note I have now moved up to Level 4 so any of those sales will pay out at a higher rate for the remainder of the year.

Adobe took fourth place but only by a upfront payment for adding some images to their free collection for one year. They actually had zero regular downloads in August which was a bit disappointing.

Fifth place went to Redbubble with 2 product sales (T shirt and poster). Looking forward here to the Christmas boost that I have seen in recent years. 

Dreamstime came in sixth place with 5 downloads. It seems a long time since I saw a big credit sale at DT.

Tom Robinson Band: archives now all on Pond 5

Finally in seventh place we had Bigstock with 4 downloads. My massive aviation inspired boost of a few months back seems like a distance memory now.

Nothing interesting to report in new shooting but in terms of uploading I continued to get my back catalogue onto Pond 5. I have completed uploading all my archival (politics etc) material to them and am now working through modern travel/music festival etc images. Let's see what they can do with them! Meanwhile, they have just launched a new customisable Artist Page. As well as your avatar image you can now add a cover photo (or logo). There is also a 500 character space to write a bio about yourself and your work as well as space to add social media links. I especially liked the Featured items section at the top of the page where you can add six photos/footage clips that you wish to highlight. You can change the sequence of these and change the chosen items as often as you want. For now I've gone with featuring my archive material (Robert Maxwell/Margaret Thatcher/Boris Yeltsin etc) most of which is pretty unique on Pond. Check out the link on the right of the page to see what it looks like. 

September has started slowly so far so we'll see what the rest of the month brings. Regards, David.

July Sales Updates:

 

Pond5 sales: Robert Maxwell

A lively month in July in what should have been the height of the usual Summer Slowdown.

Straight in at number one (as they used to say on the music chart shows) was Pond5 making their sales debut here. Four custom license downloads of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell brought me close to $30 each (50% of the total license). For anyone who hasn't sold on Pond5 before you might like to know that they send you a sales email. That was quite an exciting email to receive. Even better, this was their payout day (15th) for balances over $25.00 and within hours I had actually received payment. Can't complain about that.  

Why Robert Maxwell? Hard to believe that it is ten years ago that I posted on this blog about it being the twentieth anniversary of his death at sea. Here we are then coming up to the thirtieth anniversary so I would expect some more activity around that. Not surprisingly I am now pushing the remainder of my back catalogue to Pond5.

Second place went to Shutterstock with a decent month for downloads. On Demand sales made up around 40% of the total along with a couple of modest Single sales.

Istock took third place with 31 downloads. Music festival and travel images again reflecting the gradual

Second World War identity cards

return to normality.

In fourth place FineArtAmerica surprised with no less than three T Shirt sales (all to the same buyer).

Alamy came in fifth place with 3 modest sales. I was especially pleased to see my image of long defunct newspaper Today getting used.

Sixth went to Redbubble with 4 product sales ( 2 greetings cards, a poster, child clothing).

Dreamstime managed seventh place with 4 downloads.

Eighth place went to Adobe with 4 downloads  (two of which were editorial - John Lewis and Laura Ashley store fronts).

Post war ration books

Finally in ninth place we had Bigstock with just 2 downloads (returning to form after the extremes of a few months ago!).

Uploading in July continued with my archive material to Pond5 and also filling in gaps in my Picfair catalogue at the same time. 

New material consisted of a series of post Second World War ration books and identity cards. These all came from my family memorabilia and certainly made for something a bit different to upload. 

Already a few positive things in August, so more next month. Regards, David.

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:

 

Wing Walkers - soaring sales on Bigstock

A different line up in the rankings for May.

First place went to Alamy with 4 downloads. Three from my B/W archives and a Lidl supermarket exterior. Alamy also caused some reaction when they announced forthcoming contract changes. Chief among these was the dropping of the 50% royalty rate for exclusive images down to 40% (which non exclusive such as myself have been on for some time now). Cue a furore in the forums with a thread now running to 105 pages. According to Alamy only around 6% of their image database is exclusive anyway so I don't expect any reversal of that one. New is that anyone not generating $250.00 a year (in gross licensing fees -not in royalties earned) will drop to a new rate of 20% but not until after a year of sales up to July 2022. New contributors will start on 40% and have a year to clock up some sales. I do not expect this to affect me but anyone with a very small portfolio or not very in demand images have cause to worry. Further concerns were raised around changes to the contract wording emphasising that photographers take legal responsibility for the images they upload. This, in reality, was nothing new and I have always assumed this was the case with all agencies. A number of risk adverse contributors have given in their notice at Alamy rather than agree to the new contract - I'll be sorry to see some of them no longer posting in the forum there.

Redbubble took second place with 7 product sales ranging from T shirts to mugs to greeting cards.

Catkins - close to hand

Good to see them pick up after a slower April.

Third place went to Shutterstock. Biggest factor here was the almost total lack of On Demand and Single sales which are crucial to rack up the income.

Fourth place was taken by Istock with 26 downloads. A low RPD pulled them down here. On the plus side it was good to see music festival and travel images selling - a sure sign that some degree of normality is starting to return.

Fifth place was interesting as Bigstock had 17 downloads - all of the Breitling Wing Walking team. This was a smaller scale reprise of the Red Arrows event in April. Day after day somebody downloaded a few more images until they had the lot (sadly I have a much smaller number of images than of the Arrows!).

Adobe made sixth place with 7 downloads including two from my Illustrative Editorial uploads (Tesco shopping trolleys and newsagent WH Smith). Looking forward to getting more of these uploaded going forward.

WH Smith - Editorial sale at Adobe

Seventh place went to Dreamstime with 7 downloads. Interesting that four of these were also of the Wing Walkers which left me wondering if this was the same buyer.

New uploads included some of a John Lewis department store (which, sadly, was permanently closed this year) and some Silver Birch tree catkins which involved the great effort of opening my kitchen window and sticking my camera out :)

Real travel photography is still on the horizon as I now am fully vaccinated and good to go medically. I just need the UK Government to start green lighting more countries. I mean, I am sure the Falkland islands are very interesting but are not exactly a short hop on EasyJet. Portugal was a blow as I had already started researching that when they bounced it back to amber status after just a few short weeks as green.

Lets keep hoping for July. Regards, David.