All of my fellow self employed friends will get a kick out of this little cartoon. After you’re finished watching it, make sure you get your stuff done!
Are you this guy? We all need breaks in the day, but it’s funny how quickly one thing and lead to another, and before you know it your entire workday is shot. Where did it go? I dunno. I’m still trying to figure out what happened to the month of August.
Dear microstock agencies that I love working for,
I need microstock t shirts. Please send me some? I make you guys a decent amount of money. Pretty please? It’s not easy being naked. I’ve been selling stock photography for 5 years now, and never got a free t-shirt. I get a lot of mosquito bites and sunburn when I go outside. Sometimes random people pinch my hairy nipples. Purple nurples hurt. My dog also jumps on me and scratches me. I promise to wear it a lot and tell people about what the company is all about. I promise not to resell it on ebay or craigslist. Think of it as free advertising!
Love,
Todd
Normally all images are priced at $9.99 but starting today you can use the “Make an offer” feature to snag any of our ultra high resolution royalty free stock images for just $7.99
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SALE DETAILS: Offer valid now through 11/01/10
There is no need for promo or coupon codes – simply use the “Make An Offer” purchase option and enter $7.99
* Images keyworded with the tag “vector” are also available in vector format. Use the contact form here if interested in eps format.
Please RT this tweet:
Please RT: 20% off all RF stock photos graphics and vectors http://arenacreative.com until 11/01/10 Just use “Make an offer” $7.99
I just got called a “parasite of the stock industry” and I was told to “wake up”. Well, isn’t that special? I’ll just go back to making my living now… 
It’s still hard for me to believe how many bitter feelings are still being held about microstock by those who have been in the stock business for decades. I’m not sure the Rights Managed photobanks will ever forgive it. Microstock strikes a very painful nerve with most rights managed photographers. I can understand where they’re coming from, but it’s been a good 6 years that microstock has been in the limelight. I don’t think rights managed will ever go away totally, but its definitely on the decline. But don’t blame microstock – blame technology and it’s advancement. You can get an 8mp DSLR used for $200 right now in the US. That’s less than the cost of an ipod or iphone, and we all know how many of those are in people’s pockets.
A lot of credit has to be given to those traditional stock shooters that have either embraced microstock, or at least given it some respect and consideration. Guys like Jack Hollingsworth and John Lund. Not everyone is a hater, thankfully. Check out their amazing blogs.
Heck, if I could license all of my work at prices ranging from $100-10,000 per license, I most definitely would. Unfortunately, I had my start in microstock, and I’ve been playing the “bulk sales” game ever since. If you’re a rights managed stock photographer and are still maintaining your sales, that’s incredible – keep up the good work. All the best to you. I’m not knocking that side of the business at all.
All I’m saying… is that the creative fields change yearly, if not monthly. If you can’t roll with the punches, and the changes of the market (the same as in any other field) then you’re going to be left behind. Just because some of us choose to sell micro, doesn’t mean we’re giving stuff away for free. The prices of microstock are, in many case on the increase. The price wars will continue to go on between the newer and upcoming agencies. But you can trust me on this: you will never see my giving my work away for free. It’s one thing to give stuff away. We all do it, you almost have to nowadays just to get hits to your website. Free advice, free tutorials, etc. It helps one another out, and one hand washes the other as in all things.
Different strokes for different folks, is all I’m saying. I’m done ranting, time for me to get back to work. Happy shooting!
Do you ever feel like your work is never good enough? Do you get praise from others about your creations, but deep down inside you don’t feel the same way? Maybe you feel like you just served up a pile of trash. To be honest, I feel this way about my own work a lot. I recently did a few photoshoots and nothing I shot really wow-ed me. This type of thing happens other creatives I have spoken to, as well.
I Am My Own Worst Critic
I’m definitely my own worst enemy when it comes to criticism. I see the flaws in my work. Even if they are minor, almost untraceable to others, I still manage to find them. Am I just being over critical? Am I bored with what I’m doing? Is it just because I’m being overly anal? What’s wrong with me? I want to be happy with what I’m doing. I am definitely enjoying it, but I don’t think I’ll ever be 100% proud of where I’m at creatively. I think we all want to have our own “style” but this is easier said than done. I’m still trying to figure out what it is, and probably will continue to do so for a very long time.
Transform
Last year Atlanta Georgia based editorial photographer Zack Arias made a video like no other. It described a personal struggle that a creative has and lives through. I don’t care if you’re a graphic designer, a hairdresser, a chef, a contractor, a sculptor, or even a basket weaver… if you create on a daily basis, watch this video. It’s a must see, and I am pretty sure you will be able to highly relate to it. Any creative professional should see this.
Getting In and Out of Creative Rutts
We all get in the same creative patterns sometimes, and many times we might not even notice it. As a designer I would find myself using a lot of the same typefaces, or laying thing out with the same compositions all the time. In photography, I might find myself framing a lot of headshots in the same way. Or, I might continue shooting the same themes and subjects with different models. What do you do when you realize you’re in a rutt? You do whatever you can to get the heck out of it. Don’t wait around for someone else to tell you what to do. Mess around and get crazy the next time you get to work. Change things up surprisingly. Look elsewhere for inspiration, if you need some. Try something new (maybe a different subject, theme, or style) that you might have passed up before. I personally find that when I get out of my comfort zone and try something new, I get a lot more satisfaction out of my successes. You will also realize whether or not your new experiments are for you or not, and just might step back into your comfort zone. Even still, you’re going to be a lot more well rounded of a creative than before.
It’s Okay…
Being your own worst creative enemy is not necessarily a bad thing… be worried when the opposite is true. Then, you might have a problem. Heck, maybe it’s healthy. It’s nice to have a constant semi-dissatisfaction with your work, in a way, so that you can use that to drive you onward to the next level. I talked to my mom about this topic recently (she’s a hairdresser that’s been in the business for over 30 years). We agreed that sometimes you just have to keep doing what you know you have to to please your clients and pay the bills. Feeling completely satisfied with where you are as an artist or craftsman might be a lifelong quest… just try not to beat yourself up so much along the way.
ST. LOUIS (May 26, 2010) – Graphic Leftovers (GL) has launched GL4iPad, the internet’s premier iPad-dedicated stock graphics and images website. With the launch of this site, GL becomes the only stock image resource on the web where iPad users can purchase and download graphics and images directly to their photos folder. iPad users now have an abundant resource for affordable, royalty-free JPEG images for use in their Keynote, Pages and other apps.
In developing the site, GL created features that iPad users will love; right-hand navigation, large high-definition thumbnails, one-click favorite tracking, one-page search results that can be browsed with a flick of the finger and a pay-as-you-go purchase platform. Anyone can access GraphicLeftovers.com to purchase images online, but only iPad users can experience the new GL4iPad site, which includes over 30 free iPad wallpapers.
GL co-founders Kelly Jay and Daniel Errante were able to accomplish the rapid launch of the new GL4iPad site by initially developing GraphicLeftovers.com on an open-source, non-flash platform with a scalable database architecture and search functionality. The creation of this new iPad-only site was a natural evolutionary step forward for GL.
“We create everything on a Mac, we love the brand and are huge fans of the new iPad platform. We knew the development of business productivity apps would create demand for users needing high quality graphics and images,” said Jay.
“We intentionally built GraphicLeftovers.com using leading technologies so we could efficiently evolve the site to work with the exploding mobile market. We kept Graphic Leftovers.com simple and it paid off by using HTML5 and CSS3 for the launch of our new GL4iPad site,” said Errante.
Steve Jobs said it best in his recent open letter “Thoughts on Flash” posted on Apple’s website; “Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen.” GL heard Jobs loud and clear and launched the only stock image site for iPad users.
GraphicLeftovers.com is the leading equitable stock image marketplace for both contributors and buyers on the internet. The company is an innovative provider of high quality, royalty-free graphics and images serving creative professionals around the world. With thousands of images added weekly, GraphicLeftovers.com is the only provider of downloadable graphics and images specifically built for Apple’s new iPad.
This is the perfect example of why you should never sell a stock image where you’re doing anything embarrassing. Here I am, digging for gold (picking my nose), featured at a busy international tradeshow blown up at poster size. Yeah, my mother would be proud.
Gigabyte, a Taiwan based notebook company, used myself as well as a few others in an ad campaign geared towards their dockable notebooks. The point was supposed to be that it gets better once you “stick it in” to its dock. I can’t say that I think it’s the best marketing concept, but I definitely got a huge laugh out of it
When you post an image up for sale that you don’t think will be used, chances are… someone just might find a way!
I still think I had the best technique in the series 
I later found out from another person that the same ad of me picking my nose was plastered on a huge billboard, on the side of a building in Taipei. Wow, my shining 15 minutes of fame, glory and honor! My parents always knew I’d grow up to amount to something special hahahahahaha!
Just a friendly reminder to those living in the US (not sure about the other states)… be sure to mail or efile your tax return before midnight tonight!
Click here for more tax related stock photos.
Wow… 3 blog posts on the same day. What’s wrong with me? It must have been all the coffee I sucked down today.
Congratulations to iStock on it’s 10th year anniversary! Check this out to learn more about the history of the company, and the story behind the evolution of microstock (micropayment stock photography). They did a really amazing job on this site.
Shortly after we’ve seen Bigstock and 123rf redesign their websites, here is the next one to do a little bit of “spring cleaning”, so to speak. It’s very clean, and much improved. I didn’t have anything against the older logo, but that has been updated as well. Upward and onward!
hfng
Matt Antonino
Cyril
Gracey
Bob Davies
Evan
mystockphoto
Eric Cote
Henrik
solarseven