One guy, one year, one thousand dollars in stock

In a major blow to my fledgling stock career, my sole agency PhotoShelter Collection called it quits today. I really admired what they where trying to do there and wish them all the best with there Archive service. It was never going to be easy but from a business standpoint you have to pull the plug.

So where do I go next? Almay?, iStock(bleh), DigitalRailroad? I would rather not go micro so please let me know where some good RM agencies are.

Update: Vincent LaForet gives his thoughts on his blog

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Judging by reports in the forums and my own stats things are starting to happen at Photoshelter. In the past few weeks the number of “I made a sale” post on the forum has increased dramatically. Other reports (and my own stats) show a good uptick in lightbox adds as well.

I can’t imagine how hard it must be to startup a stock agency, kudos to the PhotoShelter team for all there hard work, looks like it is starting to pay off.

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So nothing to show for Q1 as far as earnings. I am still basically exclusive at PhotoShelter (I have like 5 images on Dreamstime) and my portfolio is up to 73 images but I have not really be shooting much with only stock in mind. I have some good ideas I want to shoot and hopefully can get some time to shoot them in the next couple of months.

Work flow I have pretty much nailed at this point. PhotoShelter’s Aperture plugin rocks! I can go from import to upload really quickly. What I really need is key wording help. I was browsing around iStock the other day and see images with like 30-40 keywords, most of mine end up in the 10-20 range. Not sure what resources I can find to help with that though. Any ideas on key wording would be greatly appreciated.

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My Nature Photos at PhotoShelter

My Childrens Photos at PhotoShelter

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Amazingly good time! The models where great and the fellow photographers where awesome. Here are the pics I took that made the cut. I was fighting my ghetto wizards all day, really frustrating and it pretty much cemented my desire to get some Radio Poppers.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

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It is not a sale but I am pretty stoked one of my images made editors choice. It will be interesting to see if it brings more traffic or not. I *think* I am getting a better idea of the style they are going for in the collection so I will hopefully get even more images accepted. Check out my editors choice image:

Smiling girl in Spring

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I have decided that Aperture 2 is going to be the main part of my workflow moving forward. The time i used to spend in Photoshop is now spent in Aperture. I can do 99% of the stuff I need to do with my photos I can handle right inside Aperture.

I also got the awesome UberUpload plugin for Aperture. It adds a super handy Export function to upload to ftp servers. For stock agencies that support ftp this is a godsend. My basic workflow looks like this:

1. Import images
2. Do a quick yes/no pass
3. Perform any adjustments needed
4. Keyword
5. Upload with Uberupload

I can rip through a ton of images using this technique.

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The Moment It Clicks is an amazingly inspirational book that is easy to read and understand. The book is written by Joe McNally (blog) Who the heck is Joe McNally? A brief snip from his bio:

is an internationally acclaimed photographer, whose career has spanned 30 years and included assignments in over 50 countries. Although the majority of his career has been spent shooting for magazines such as Time, Sports Illustrated, and National Geographic, in the mid-1990s Joe served as Life magazine’s staff photographer, the first one in 23 years.

Joe is an amazing photographer and it would be a great book if it just had his photographs in it. In addition to his stunning images though he has 1-2 page stories and “How to get this shot” sections that explain the story and technique behind the photograph. These are straight and to the point. This is the first book I have read that is both inspirational and instructional at the same time. This tips cover the gamut from photography to being a photographer to life in general.

Amazing book that you must add to your library!

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Still 0$ in sales although I did have a lightbox add at PhotoShelter. As I mentioned before I am throwing practically all my eggs over there. I have one or two images at a few microstock stock sites but almost all of my images are submitted to PhotoShelter first. They seem to be lagging a bit on the reviews lately but I take that as a good sign that they are getting busy. More photographers over there is a good thing.

I did get to go to the Bay Area Strobist mini-meetup which was awesome. I also rented a Sigma 10-20 for Borrow Lenses and captured this photo that I love of my new son.

I am also trailing Aperture 2which looks like I am going to choose for my main workflow app. I can do 95% of my post work there. Hopefully there will be a PhotoShelter plugin soon.

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