My picture in a poptart ad

I've been starting to stumble across more and more of my shots on the net now, especially after google developed it's image search. This one I found after searching for my user name and "shutterstock". I wonder whether it was a regular subscription sale for 25 cents, or an EL for 28 dollars.

Sold a movie today

My first footage sale at Shutterstock, netting $8:

http://footage.shutterstock.com/video.html?id=1127365

I only have four clips at the time being. Time to go shoot some more!

A shutterstock best seller

I had luck with this picture; it was placed on the front page on Shutterstock when I uploaded it a year ago. This gave it so many downloads that it got a favorable search placement, that it has kept since. In one year it has earned me $35, from 100 downloads.

It sells reasonably well on several of the other microstock sites too, but nowhere near as well as on Shutterstock.


© Photographer: Gaja | Agency: Dreamstime.com

A fun request from a buyer

Dreamstime has a forum where buyers can make request for pictures they can't find in the database. Sometimes these requests lead to good ideas and fun sessions. Like this one; where the buyer wanted children laughing.

I hope it will get accepted, and that the buyer can use it, otherwise I'll just have to have fun with my kids another day too. Oh, the hardships of being a photographer... :lol:

My first sale at Alamy

I had a few pictures of a lovely little girl with hearing aid, and didn't want to sell it as RF. So I uploaded them to Alamy. They have had few views, and I didn't expect any sales before I could upload more pictures. But today, as my PicNiche-bar started updating, a sale popped up for Alamy: $71,17 for this picture:

It's going to be used in a textbook somewhere in the world.

The upload process on Alamy is tedious, but if I get more sales like this one, it will be worth it. :)

My first EL

This picture got me my first (hopefully not last) Enhanced license from Shutterstock.


© Photographer: Gaja | Agency: Dreamstime.com

28 dollars in one go made a nice impact on the total for February. :)

Children skiing - a niche?

I took this snapshot last winter, and it was rejected by most agencies due to technical issues. But in those few places it as accepted, it has sold relatively well. Scanstockphotos is usually a very low earner, but this picture has sold 4 times only in January.

Cross country skiing is a very popular winter activity even for small children in Scandinavia, and competitions and races are arranged regularly. A search on Shutterstock and Istock reveals no similar pictures to this one, and a simple search on picniche gives a rating of 8500. So I guess I'll be bringing my good camera and a few more props the next time we go skiing!