Snapvillage is Coming to an End

I received my notice that SnapVillage will end their uploading on Friday, May 1. After that, you will have to wait until the transfer to the Veer Marketplace before uploading again. Thus far I’ve made $77 off of SnapVillage. I’m hoping this new website will provide a greater exposure for all of us. Currently I’m trying to get as many images in the upload queue as I can before they shut it down.

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Update!!!!
I wrote this article last week. As of Friday, April 24th the upload has been disabled.

First sale on Yaymicro!

Today I discovered that I made my first sale on Yaymicro. I had written this website off long ago, but decided to check my account today. I made 5 pounds (about $7.20). I decided to complete uploading my portfolio to it today when I discovered that the upload process is not as bad as it once was with this site. Site, with a minimum 30 pound payout and only 1 sale in over 6 months, I have a feeling that it will be a while.

I’m continuing to transfer my “Exclusive” images on Fotolia to non-exclusive and upload them to my other sites. This is a time consuming process, but since I have not be able to take any pictures latterly, at least I’m uploading.

Everything Old is New Again

With a tight schedule and bad weather, I've not been able to get to down town Indianapolis to take any photos this week. What I have been doing is going through my Fotolia account. I have now been selling stock for two years. In the early months, I had everything as exclusive photos on Fotolia. I'm now removing exclusivity from Fotolia and uploading those photos to the other agencies that I use. My statistics show, exclusivity does not pay. I'm hoping these photos find new life, and income, on my other sites.

No offense Fotolia. Just spreading the love around.

Long time, no see.

Well, it has been a few months since I’ve posted anything. Four 14 months I had to endure a very harsh working environment. With 60+ hours a week, I had little time for writing to a blog our enjoying my hobby. In February I had the opportunity to leave and go to work for myself. I’m hoping this allows me to enjoy my hobby and to also contribute more to this blog. Some of you may already know that I’m a Microsoft Certified Trainer. I am now the owner of MCTExpert.com. I also have as part of my business my stock photography. Hopefully, this will help boost my sales as well.

This weekend however, I am in North Chicago. OK, not very exciting. It still looks like winter up here. I did have an interesting experience in Waukegan. I used one of my favorite apps, Google Earth, to locate a harbor. I live in the middle of Indiana so a shore line is something that I do not get to see all that often. What was I thinking? After living here for a year as part of my service in the US Navy, I should have known better. Waukegan is not the most photogenic community. I choose a route that took me through less then friendly neighborhoods. When I finally got to the harbor, there were no boats in the water. I did take some images of the harbor entrance markers. I know, not very exciting. I’m beginning to experiment with a technique called High Dynamic Range. We will see what they look like in post processing.

Next week I’ll be in Fort Wayne, IN. I’m hoping to get an evening out in town to explore with my camera.

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