Looking for your image on the web

I was thinking about a couple of my images which I've posted on www.flickr.com. They're been viewed a fair number of times and I figured that they might have been re-used elsewhere on the web.

Turns out that Tineye scoures the web (over 1 billion images and counting) for images and stores a 'digital footprint' of each. You provide your photo and it will look for the same image, even if cropped or altered. Examples here.

It didn't find my images (not even on flickr.com) for any number of reasons:
1. it hasn't crawled the entire web yet
2. the photos were added since the last time it crawled flickr.com
3. the Tineye web-crawler didn't crawl over particular parts of an otherwise public website which contained a robots.txt file.

Anyway, food for thought given our endeavours...

Commercial vs. Editorial photography

I had just had one of my photos rejected by Shutterstock and was investigating whether submitting it as an editorial photo would get it approved, when I came across this article (linked to in the Shutterstock FAQ) on Commercial vs. Editorial Stock photography.

From the article:

In short: commercial stock photography offers high upfront money, but questionable artistic reward and little opportunity for long-term photographer/buyer relationships.

Editorial stock (photo illustration) receives lower fees, but the photos enjoy longer shelf-life and multiple sales over the long haul. Editorial stock is generally more introspective, sensitive, and universally appealing, and eventually can become historically significant. And the nature of most editorial markets, with less turnover of personnel, provide photographers with opportunities for long-term sales associations with buyers. All that marketing homework has a chance to reap more mileage.

It then goes on to talk about the appeal of editorial photography.

Given that I'm not inclined towards studio shots, and find myself increasingly attracted to the candid/artistic aspects of photography........found the article quite interesting.........

Neutral graduated filters

I haven't bought any filters yet though I probably will soon. I have used the Graduated Tint feature in Picasa which does a pretty good job. I've taken a photo and added slices of various graduated tints to illustrate what Picasa can do.



Slice a: added default colour tint
Slice b: increased the shade (amount of tinting)
Slice c: increased the feather (the degree of merging)
Slice d: changed the angle of the horizon (by clicking to left or right of centre)
Slice e: picked a new colour
Slice f: combining all the above - see final photo

It begs the question: why bother buying the filter if it can be done in Picasa? I think the real filter provides greater freedom e.g.:
a) you can tilt it 90 degrees (which you can't do in Picasa without rotating the picture first
b) you can take the shot, preview it in the field, and adjust settings as necessary (rather than get home and find Picasa can't produce the desired result)

Graduated filters are commonly used to reduce the contrast between ground and sky. Pretty important on sunny days or when you want to bring out the features of good-looking clouds.

Useful links

Thought it might be useful to aggregate all the useful urls we find:

Microstock industry
Dan Heller's blog: Microstock industry analysis
Microstock Diaries: Lee Torren's observations about microstocking

Status check

Ok. So I thought I'd do a status check.

Since this blog is about keeping track of our journey into photography - with microstock photography being a key component - I thought I'd take..stock..of where I'm at.

The Facts:

- Started microstocking in July 07
- First sale in August 07
- Submitted 20 to 60 photos across various microstock websites from July - November 07 (5 months)
- Thereafter, made no submissions till July 09 (1.5 year hiatus)
- Restarted submissions in July 09
- Currently submit to iStockPhoto, ShutterStock, Fotolia, 123rf, Dreamstime, BigStockPhoto

The Money:

One of the reasons I got into microstock was that it was a way of making money out of something I like doing. Over time, I've come to realise, that probably more than the money itself - it is the knowing that someone likes my picture enough to *pay* for it, that gives me the biggest kick. The more they pay, the more they like. The more I like. :-)

Nonetheless, pure earnings are an important indicator for me - despite their seasonal fluctuations - and I hope to eventually reach $1,000 a month....though $100/month is a more achievable short-term goal. It will be difficult, no doubt - with more microstockers coming on board all the time, but nothing ever worth achieving was ever easy....as someone said.

So here are my earnings per month: July 07 - July 09

The Reflection:

As you can see, I started with a bang, but the earnings slowly dribbled. Despite the same number of photos being available, the earnings reduced fairly significantly. I attribute these to three things:

• Search algorithms. I've come to think that microstock website search algorithms are somewhat biased towards newer photos (e.g. ShutterStock), or photos of people who are active contributors (e.g. Dreamstime).



• Lack of Submissions. Carrying on from above, I am sure my 1.5 year hiatus detrimentally affected my earnings. It is not a necessity however - Lee Torrens over at MicrostockDiaries is yet to see that problem after 7 months of non-submission.



• Increased Competition. More and more people are entering the microstock world - and not only amateur photographers, but professionals as well (us microstockers are putting them out of business). More people, more photos, more competition. (luckily though, buyers are increasing as well).

Hopefully, now that I am submitting once more, that line should start going upwards a little.

As for the spike that earnt me $50+ in one month, that was an extended license sale over at LuckyOliver, which has since shut up shop. I'm still working on replicating those types of sales...

In need of a good photo editor

Any recommendations for a free photo editor? Photoshop, Lightroom, GIMP? I've used Picasa and Paint.NET which are useful but there are better alternatives...

Need to be able to process jpg, RAW and possibly TIFF formats.

A blog is born

And from the depths of one's imagination and desire to derive an alternative income source that might one day supersede one's day job, another blog is born. No ordinary blog mind you - more of a means to goad its creators into taking their interest in photography a little more seriously.

Step 1: Create a gmail account. Check.
Step 2: Create the blog. Check.
Step 3: Dislike the blog title and change it. Check.
Step 4: Think the blog's url looks more like a typo than a name and change it. Check!