Archive for 2008
Written by astoner on 11 August 2008
I just came across an excellent tutorial on taking portraits on a white seamless background. It’s by Zack Arias and is a five step tutorial with pictures and great explanations of everything.
A lot of this is probably old hat to many pro photographers but for a novice the information is great. He explains how to build the set as well as how to light and shoot it.
I’ve been wondering how some of these techniques are achieved, especially the reflection of the legs. Now I know, thanks to Zack.
Allen
[EDIT]
Don’t know what I was thinking, I didn’t even put a link directly to the article on my post. Well here it is, White seamless tuturial.
Tags: background, Photography, seamless, white
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 31 July 2008
It looks like this should be the month I switch over to reporting only monthly earnings. I almost doubled my entire previous earnings with 48 downloads raking in $27.85, giving me a total from microstock of $61.37. Guess I wont be getting any new camera equipment for a while. I would like to cover some of cost of the Nikon 18-200 VR lens I bought recently. The way the earnings are being made across several sites makes it look like I’m still several months from a payout.
The horse picture I refered to in my post Microstock RPI (return per image) actually accounts for a large portion of this months earnings. It was 2 of the 3 downloads from Stockxpert for $6.50 and several downloads on ShutterStock. The other big picture for the month was another animal shot, namely our wonderful alpaca cria that was born recently. The head shot was the EL from Fotolia and the only download for the month from IStockPhoto. And I didn’t think alpaca shots would sell very well!
Overall I’m really pleased with my results for the month. I’m still working out a workflow that will hopefully allow me to get some more consistent uploads, especially to SS, but to also build my portfolios on the other sites. Verizon finally made DSL available in my area so it’s a big help actually having broadband at home and not having the take the files to work an upload them. Actually one of my goals now is to get my microstock earnings to cover the cost of it on a monthly basis.
It’s still July somewhere but I think I’m pretty safe to post this a couple hours before midnight at the international dateline. Maybe some one from Hawaii will buy one in the next couple hours and I’ll have to edit the post.
| Sites |
Portfolio Size |
Downloads |
Balance |
Comments |
| Fotolia |
144 |
2 |
$8.25 |
I doubled my balance here with only two sales. Got my first EL which accounts for $6.60 of the total. |
| IStockPhoto |
55 |
1 |
$2.10 |
|
| Crestock |
21 |
0 |
$0.00 |
The only thing that changes as this site is my portfolio size. |
| ShutterStock |
54 |
42 |
$10.50 |
Didn’t nearly as many new ones on here as I had hoped. |
Stockxpert
|
99 |
3 |
$7.00 |
Still trying to figure this site out. Have gotten several images online, but not working with it effeciently |
| Dreamstime |
14 |
0 |
$0.00 |
|
| 123RF |
110 |
0 |
$0.00 |
|
| Totals |
Avg.71 |
48 |
$27.85 |
|
Here’s a couple other blogs I follow that report their earnings:
Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away
Captured Little Moments <– Just found and added
Allen
Tags: earnings, microstock, Photography
Posted in Photography | 2 Comments »
Written by astoner on 21 July 2008
I went to check to make sure my list of digital print sites was up to date and check to see if I could find some new ones. I made some additions and subtractions from the list and wasn’t seeing any significant changes until I found Artscow and their offer of 400 free prints, 200 of them are 4×6 and 200 of them are 5×7. This and the addition of Giant Eagle doubles my original list.
Don’t just let all those digital pictures sit on the computer or in the camera, get some actual prints to put in a photo album to show off to people. This 950 free digital prints is just amazing. I didn’t think I would get anywhere this number. I’ll have to be sure to update the list when the artscow deal ends.
Allen
Tags: free digital prints, free prints, Photography
Posted in Photography | 1 Comment »
Written by astoner on 13 July 2008
We recently returned from a really great vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana (pictures to follow). Of course two weeks before we plan to leave my Nikon 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX
which came with my Nikon D80 decides to quit working. I checked into getting it repaired but I would not have gotten it back before we left for vacation. I had been looking at the Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens to upgrade the kit lens and I finally broke down and bought it.
It is a great all purpose lens. The wide angle of 18mm was nice for landscape photography and the zoom to 
200mm was great for zooming right in on the wild life, like the mountain goats at the goat lick. I’d love to have a longer telephoto lens for the next trip but it’s not really necessary with this lens. It also works great for taking pictures of some of the kids sporting events.
I do plan to get the 18-135mm kit lens repaired and then I’ll have to decide which one I need to sell. Hopefully at that point I’ll be able to justify keeping the 18-200mm lens.
Allen
Tags: 18-200mm, camera, lens, nikon, Photography, zoom
Posted in Photography | 8 Comments »
