Life of a Stocker

I got accepted and I am uploading images. 123RF is one of those lower cost stock sites so I am thinking hitting the higher end with PhotoShelter and the lower end with 123RF and see how it goes for a while.

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Let’s start with the not so good news.

Money earned this month = $0

But I had a kid!

I have to say I was somewhat expecting this but it is still disappointing. I was a little overwhelmed with all the administrative work it takes to apply to sites, get releases, retouch photos, recall what pictures you uploaded to what sites etc… It was a bit overwhelming. Combine that with my 2nd child being born at the end of the month all conspired to to severely limit the amount of time I had to actually take pictures. This is bringing back memories of when I was a wedding assistant/photographer. The ratio of shooting time to administrative time is still pretty skewed.

I did get some ground work done though. Got Photoshop CS3 installed and started using Bridge to manage IPCT data which helps a lot. That way I don’t have to rewrite descriptions and keywords after every upload. I also got my scanner installed to handle the model releases.

Places I have been accepted to so far:

PhotoShelter Cycle61 say big things are afoot here!
BigStockPhoto

Places I am in the queue for:

Dreamstime
ShutterStock - need to find 10 images to upload
123RF

Rejects:

IstockPhoto - Twice!

Todo for Febuary: Actually get out and shoot something! I am taking my camera to work now and I went of a walking shoot today. I plan to do that every day I possibly can.

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I am totally stoked that I have been accepted at PhotoShelter! Thanks to Cycle61 for pointing it out to me. My first pic, the infamous devil dude, is riced at $85 for Royalty Free Web use and the price goes up from there. I have a couple of other versions to upload of that shot as well. I really hope this works out because $85 per image is a heck of a lot better than the $1 I was getting at other sites. I am going to try to be exclusive at Photoshelter for a while to see how it works. I like that they do news shots as well, as I plan on shooting some local sporting events.

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I picked six of my best shots and uploaded them to PhotoShelter this morning. Hopefully they are good enough by their standards to make the cut. The ETA for a up or down vote is about a week. Wish me luck!

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I got pointed to PhotoShelter Collection by Cycling61’s great blog post on PhotoShelter and stockphotography. I have applied to PhotoShelter and I am in the process of uploading my initial images.

PhotoShelter Collection looks like it could be really good for photographers since I get to set my own price. They also use fotoQuote to help you set the price. Cycle61’s prices came out between a few hundred and $1000 dollars. If those are my prices then I won’t have to sell many to make my goal of $1000. they also handle news photos which is great since I plan to shoot some local pro and college soccer.

Designers and photographers should check out PhotoShelter Collection for sure!

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BigStock accepted my Elephant shot! I am totally excited! I got some skin in the game. I have about 6 other shots to upload and I am going to send them to BigStock for the time being, hopefully someone thinks they are good enough to buy.

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So far I have been rejected by iStock and Dreamstime. I only uploaded one image to Dreamstime and it was rejected for composition and poor lighting/exposure. When I look at the image again I can totally see that those reasons are valid. iStock rejected me with the old

These images are very similar in subject matter or style.

I had uploaded the elephant and 2 of my daughter. The ones of my daughter where taken at the same session and did have a very familiar feel but the trust worthy elephant shot was not. It is going to be a bit of a challenge to build a portfolio with a lot of variety in the next few months.

FYI here is the elephant shot.

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With all apologizes to Tom Petty (do I have to apologize to Nirvana now?!?!?) waiting just sucks.

I finally got off my butt and picked a few pics to upload to some microstock sites. I had to upload 3 to iStock to complete my application, iStock says that will be 2 weeks before they are done. I uploaded one picture to BigStock, they don’t appear to give any ETA and lastly I uploaded the same pic to Dreamstime who gave me a 44 hour ETA on a decision. To top this all off I am waiting for my scanner so I can get Model Releases scanned in since most of the “good” shots are of my daughter.

I guess that leaves more time actually taking pictures. I can see a lot of time is going to be spent simply managing my portfolio on all these sites. I see a big opportunity for someone to write some software to make this easier.

If you have any tips on managing multiple microstock sites at once, I would love to hear them via comments.

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