Stock Photos, Selling Own Prints, Webby Woes, Kulturnatta
Stock Photography
I was accepted as a contributor at iStockphoto.com, whee! (meaning, I have submitted three sample photos they deemed acceptable for me to upload photos that one will actually be able to sell via their site. It "only" took me roughly a year to apply as a member and then find time to dig out potential pics to submit that were accepted...)
Now, I just need to dust off all pics not uberhigh in ISO value etc and see what has stock potential. It's not like I'll be making a lot if any money on this though, unless I have like a zillion really good pics in my online stock portfolios, 'cause the pay per usage is not at all great. But it is a nice challenge taking pics that are composed well aestethically as well as technically. Far too often I've managed to get unintentional out of focus pics, grainy pics due to high ISO etc..
And I ponder whether I'd want to be an exclusive photographer for iStockphoto or not. The pros are that one can upload more pics per month, get some percentage better pay for pic, but one cannot even upload pics that were rejected by iStockphoto to other stock sites. Although considering I have yet to find 15 pics with stock potential to upload..
So maybe I should just upload more plain stock pics there, or/and have the rest elsewhere on other stock sites/ my own site. T showed me an interesting writupe about Selling Photos Online, and that photographer said iStockphoto had the highest rejection rate for him and that he felt earnings had decreased over time. So I think exclusivity might not be ideal after all for any stock photo site, and I shall have to see if I should bother uploading a lot to iStockphoto, or try and compare how identical uploads fares on that and some other stock photo site. Hmm.
Unless I do want to share personal identity details with Shutterstock, I might want to stay away from them though. Seems non-US contributors at Shutterstock are not that happy right now, given how Shutterstock are withholding 30% tax from them to comply with US tax laws, unless they've sent in documents proving their non-US identity and all. You can read an article that summarises it all here - Shutterstock and tax.
Selling Own Prints
And I also thought of selling smaller ish prints of own photos and so (I just need to take more photos overall suitable for that first, ahem)..
Is there really not any printing company that does not print their name or keep photo paper logos on the back of printouts one buys from them? As I've been very happy with prints bought from ProPrint.se for instance, but if I was to sell own prints that I first had them print for me, it'd be nicer if the backside of the prints did not have file name/proprint/photo paper text. I was suggested to glue a blank paper on the back of the printouts though, but that might be a bad idea?
Webby Woes
And I must do something about my own webby asap, have a proper info page, photo gallery (the current gallery software is some navigational friendly than the last one at least) and all.. and then there's the elfquest stuff, still not happy with the new layout as it requires a bit of fiddling to fit in stuff that was very wide in width.
I just mailed the pics I took during Kulturnatta 2009. But I wonder if I was supposed to take the package myself and put it outside in the mailing bin once the cashier person had attached stamps on it. As I kind of got sidetracked and headed off into the store to buy food once I got my change back that I paid for postage... >_< well, I hope the cashier is nice and sends it off properly. This kind of forgetfulness that seems more and more common for me, but given mental memory/age charts, this sort of forgetfulness isn't that unusual :/
Kulturnatta
Kulturnatta itself was better than expected (think big free-for-all cultural event, with companies/artists/performers etc having their own little spots and stages and more, fashion shows, exhibitions etc) as it was quite nice helping out in the photo tent taking pics of people/finalists for Spectacles wearer of the year 2009.. (the photo association I'm in had photographers, including me, helping SpecSavers out) but, I worked 7-12 before heading into town to help out in a photo tent as well as roam the street and snapping pics of people. So next year, if I plan to photograph stuff, I should try not to work beforehand as my feet were particularly unhappy with me when I got back home. And yus, I shall attempt and upload pics from last year to flickr, as well as from the Star Wars exhibition I went to last summer.
Aaand a little humour to top things off.. Inny showed me Google Classic :D