February 2010 earnings

Summary

No BME to report in any of the big photo agencies but February was quite good considering it had only 17 business days.  My total earning including photos, videos and sounds and referrals was just above $500. You will  find my detailled earnings per media below:

 

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• Photos

Microstock photos earnings were up 68% compared to February 2009  with Shutterstock, Istockphoto and Fotolia  taking 71% of the total. Midstock  agencies did ok  with 12% of total photos sales. Stockxpert closed down the 11th of February so I signed up in two new agencies and both accounts are already showing a positive balance offsetting the loss of stockxpert earnings.

The first agency  is Depositphotos (DP) which attracted a lot of attention with their shock and awe  promotion program by paying contributors up to  $100 if they  upload 500 pictures. Apparently this program has been closed down March 1st. Uploading is quite fast despite the fact at least one category has to be selected. Ranking determines the commission rate which is 44% (for non exclusive photographers) and increases to 46% after 500 sales.

The second agency, Graphic Leftovers (GLO), primarily sells vectors but do sell  pictures as well. Upload

process is a breeze as it is  fully integrated in the Isyndica platform via an API : you don't even need to push

your uploads on the site. GLO offers a generous 52% commission to all contributors.

If you want to join these two agencies feel free to use my referral links above:
http://graphicleftovers.com/ref=ldambies/ 
http://submit.depositphotos.com?ref=1007492

• Videos

I had my first sales at AlwaysHD ($25 for one HD1080) and  Pond5($10 for one HD720) and I am still waiting for my first  sales at Revostock, Shutterstock and Istock. It is not much but enough to represent 7% of my total multimedia earnings.

• Audio

No sales to report this month with about 20 files online at Revostock, Pond5 and Audiomicro.

A visit of Antelope Canyon, Arizona

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I had the chance during my last USA trip to visit the famous Upper Antelope Canyon in Northern Arizona. As the story goes, Antelope Canyon was discovered back in 1931 by a Navajo girl who was herding sheep in the area and it soon became a famous spot for landscape photographers. It is a short slot canyon (about 400 meters long) that you can cross in few minutes but the combinaison of light and sandstone texture make you want to wander for hours....

Unfortunately your time inside the Canyon will be limited since it is located on a Navajo reserve and hence  has a restricted access. Guided tours are available from the nearby city Page to the entrance of the canyon and the 1h30 tour will cost you $32, not exactly cheap....

Once you arrived, standing in front of the narrow entrance, it is  quite difficult  to imagine such beauty inside. Antelope Canyon is indeed a  magical place and walking on sandy ground add something to the whole sensorial experience. The sandstone of the canyon varies from dark red to light orange, some part of the canyon are well lit and others are very dark . Taking pictures is quite challenging and a tripod with a cable release are paramount since 20, 30 seconds exposure are sometime needed to capture the whole dynamic range of the scene. Add this to the excitement of actually being there and is easy to miss some pictures...

Unfortunately this place is victim if its success: even during low season, several groups of visitors are inside the narrow passages at the same time and people often cross in front of your camera ....

The Navajo guide we had was quite knowledgeable about photography, pointing out  good spots to take pictures, but he was way too fast and the time it took to put the tripod in place and  shot a 20s-30s exposure he already moved to the next spot....

A big disapointment was that I could not reproduce the most famous shot of the Canyon with the beam of light since it fades out during winter. This place is worth seeing so if you are visiting Lake Powell you should definitely go there. In the meantime,  if you have not been there already, here are some of the pictures I took there:

January 2010 earnings

Summary

All multimedia files included (photo,video,audio), january earnings  were just above the $400 mark  with not even a BME  to record. Detailed earnings by categories are reported below:

• Photos

Microstock agencies performed poorly this month, although sales picked up nicely in the last week of the month. Earnings are just 28% higher than those in January 2008 despite having larger portfolios. Shutterstock had a solid  month following by Fotolia and Istock, very close to each others. Small agencies and midstock
agencies did not sell as much as they usually do.

• Videos

I had my second sale at Clipcanvas (141 clips on line) which netted me 42 euros. I am still waiting for my first sale at Pond5 and Shutterstock. Due to a  lengthy review process, I have only 6 videos on line at Istock and no sales to report  despite getting a lot of views (as high as 600 per files....).

• Audio

Like mentioned on my previous post, I just started submitted sound effects to several agencies so it is bit  early to expect sales especially with only 16 files at Pond5.

Isyndica Analytics screenshot

Detailled earnings in US dollars