Holiday Planning

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Except if you were like me an incredibly busy with the real job and did not upload holiday images. December is off to a slow start so far. After I learned what happens in November and December last year, I started off the New Year with a resolution to add holiday imagery throughout the year. Well, that is before I knew that I would be working 60+ hours and canceling two vacations. As a result, it looks like a holiday sump for me this year.

I will say this. I've been watching Fotolia's Best Sales area. There are some artists out there who have created some beautiful imagery. My stocking hat is of to them.

How to get Those Blurry Backgrounds

For those of you with SLR cameras, you have the ability to change the zone where objects are sharp. You do this with your cameras aperture. The aperture is the device inside your lens that determines the amount of light that comes into your camera. There is a side effect, focus.

Let’s first talk about the pin hole camera. When I was a sophomore in high school, I took a photography class. My teacher, Mr. Miller, had us take a coffee can and punch a pin size hole in it. Then, in the dark room, we put some photographic paper on the opposite site of the can and sealed it up. We went out into the field and selected our subject. We pulled back the tape covering the pin hole and counted to 30. We then covered it up and develop the paper. The result was a focused image. Both foreground and background were in focus. How did this happen without a lens?

The pin hole works on a little bit of physics. You see, the wider the aperture, the more light can hide your film at different spots from the same point. This is why your exposure is blurry without a lens. With a pin hole camera, you have a very small open for light to enter. That means the light coming in from your subject can not hit different parts of the film. It produces a focused image.

You may have picked up that we had to keep the aperture open for 30 seconds. Only having a pin hole to look through, there will not be a lot of light to expose the film (or sensor). With reduced light come longer exposures. You can compensate with using extra lighting or a tripod.

How does this benefit us? Let’s say you find an interesting subject, but it has a very busy background. By opening up your aperture, you will focus on the subject, but blur out the busy background. You can also place people in the background to create an interesting feel behind your subject. Conversely, by closing your aperture, you bring a larger area into focus. For example, if you are photographing a skier but also want the mountains several miles behind your subject to be in focus, a small aperture will help produce this image.

To use this technique effectively, practice, practice, practice.

November Earnings

The sales were there, but the form of payment as not kind. I saw a lot of subscription purchases this month. I would say nearly 50% were subscription sales. This may point out that Microstock is becoming more accepted and that more agencies are using the more cost effective model for them. For us, that means lower profits. StockXpert had a new sales high of 27 images. Mostley subscription sales from partners. Also, Extended License's did not come my way. Talk about a tough month.

I did manage to upload some images this month. I finished uploading my images from Key West and discovered one that seams to have potential as a profit maker. Here is the breakdown.

	October results	Change from last month
This month	$101.21	-$20.51
Total Downloads	124	+ 14
Lifetime Total	$1519.93
Number of months contributing	20
Average $/month	$76	$1.03