October is off to a good start.

To expand on a recent theme, I got back into the studio with model #2 this morning, and grabbed about 100 frames. 25 or so made the cut, and I've already edited 7. On shots like this, the editing goes as follows:

• Nuke any intruders. (Paper seams/wrinkles, umbrellas at the edges, hair or dirt on the floor.)
• Sanitize. In a shot like this, I avoided some with advanced application of gaffer tape, but there was a lot of cloning and repair tool work inside the case. Motherboard logo, gfx card logo, printing on the cables, etc. I helped myself a lot by dressing my model in logo-free clothes.
• Check that the in-camera isolation went well. Sometimes there's a few stray hairs floating in space...
• Cleanup any visible smudges or ugly spots.
• Lighten the floor a bit. (It's getting dirty, so I quickly mask it off and lighten it just a little.)
• Check for CA. (Purple fringing.) Here, I had a bit at the right edge of the computer case, which was right at the leading edge of my main light. (super high contrast...) Easy enough to remove from a nice straight edge. (Thanks Nicolesy, I tried your method and it was better than the process I'd been using.)

Fifteen to twenty minutes per image, I'd guess. This much effort makes me more selective about my picks. I think I might also just upload the first 10 or so, and wait on the reviewers' verdict. Then, edit and upload the rest later if things go well.

There's lots of variations on the above, with various other implements of construction/destruction. And I still have at least one more set I want to attempt before I try putting that computer back together... I'm starting to lose faith that it's going to make it through POST after all this abuse...

Parting thought #1: If it takes 2-3 years for an image to earn it's money, then why on earth do I waste my time checking my earnings 50 times a day? I have the awesome PicNiche contributor toolbar, two iPhone apps, and I leave browsers on two different computers open to my iStock earnings page. I just can't help it. I swear, the day they invent a cyber-implant that rings a bell in your ear for every sale, I'll probably be the first in line.

And #2: $117.08 for September. Best month ever.

September Fun

 

It's been fun getting back into the studio with the kids, and working on some new (and some old) image ideas. I had pretty good luck with acceptances for the latest Karate shoot (example below), and have high hopes for the latest "computer (dis)repair" series. The computer images were a bit of a pain to edit, as I had to clone/repair out logos and branding all over the place... In the future, I might spend more time up front physically covering up and/or removing more of the logos. But on this shoot, I used a computer that I thought I might want to actually put back together, so I didn't want to be filing, scraping, or cutting things apart.

I can definitely see improvement in my work, comparing images from last year to this year. Not only are the images looking closer to what I set out to capture, but I also find myself happier with them overall. Not just technically, but artistically. (Plus who doesn't like looking at pictures of their kids?)

Sorry about the watermarks, but I want to be very careful about my new exclusive status at iStockphoto. It's working out well. September will be my best month ever, with my monthly earnings exceeding $100 for the first time. Not enough to start scaling back my other work, but a guy can dream...

Back in the studio

After taking it very easy over the summer, we got back into the studio today and had some fun. The above image was my favorite of the day.

As I mentioned, I've been shooting a lot, just not for stock. Since school started back up, I've volunteered (or been volunteered) to be the official 1st grade class photographer, daisy troop photographer, and soccer team photographer. This is all on a volunteer basis, but I'm loading all of the images onto Smugmug. I'll consider it a nice bonus if a few grateful parents order some prints to help cover the cost of my annual membership there. But the above duties give me the opportunity to shoot a LOT, where the results actually matter to someone other than myself. Plus it's a ton of fun shooting all these kids, and I've had so many parents already approach me with compliments on my work. One even booked a portrait shoot- my first!

Since I went exclusive at iStock, my sales have gone up significantly. Must be the improved search engine placement. I feel a strong motivation to "feed the beast" and start uploading more regularly. My upload limit has increased from 15 images per week to 60 per week. I'm wondering how hard it would be to actually produce that many. 8-9 finished images per day, on top of work, taking care of the kids, and my other photography, seems like a lot. But then, 15 was too few, so I'm happy, even if I don't use all of those slots every week.

Yes, I read about the changes at iStockphoto.com. No, I don't think they spell the demise of the agency. And no, I'm not sorry I went exclusive there.

Milestones

I've been shooting a fair amount lately, but not for stock and not for pay. Call it a personal project I guess. I'm definitely learning a lot and keeping myself in practice, though. I didn't make a conscious decision to take a break, but I just haven't seemed to find the time this summer to set up a decent stock shoot. I'm starting to get the itch, though, so we'll see what I manage to come up with this week... One great thing about stock photography, though,  is that when I take a break from adding new images, the existing ones keep on working. One shoot in particular generates a sale almost every day. Now, I just need to figure out how to shoot more like that! I do understand why these images are selling, but I don't think that what we did was deliberate at the time. The model and I were simply playing around.

Meanwhile, there have been milestones.

1) I've reached the 250 sale mark at iStockphoto, and with my 69% acceptance rate there, I was qualified to go exclusive. So I did, after deactivating my portfolios at Shutterstock and Fotolia. I'm looking forward to only having to upload at one place, and hoping that better search placement gives me enough of a boost at iStockphoto to compensate for the cessation of sales elsewhere. I will certainly keep you posted.

2) My brother noticed one of my images of Model #1 in Sports Illustrated! It's a tiny 1 cm x 1 cm picture, and it probably only made us a dollar or two, but I must confess that this one made me pretty happy.

New Series: Karate Girl

As the number of photos featuring model #1 in her gi grows, we've hit the point where it made sense to group them in a lightbox, with a link to the lightbox in each image's description. I described how I built these links in an earlier post, and others have described similar procedures as well. (Search the iStockphoto forums or google for more help.)

These images are selling slowly, but I consider the set a personal project, with the following benefits:

1) I am learning a lot, trying to light a fair-skinned blonde girl in a white suit against a white background. Right out of the camera, some images are slightly too dark for my taste. In such images, the gi separates clearly from the background but the skin tones are too dark. And underexposed skin can be brought back up in post, but it looks noisy and wrong. In other images, the skin looks great and the face is crisp and sharp, but the right-side edge of the uniform fades right in to the background. Eventually, I'll get skin tones and razor-sharp facial features, while still separating the white gi from the background, all the way around. I can't put a light right on her face, she'll move out of it as she jumps around kicking and punching... Maybe I can partially block off a second light, so that it's neck-level and above...

2) I've learned my lesson about isolating the subject completely. Every time I cut her out, feet and all, I get rejections. If I leave the white floor slightly less than pure white, and leave some shadow, I have far better luck with the inspectors. 

3) I continue to refine my lighting setup. Currently it is: White seamless paper background, lit by 2 AB-400's metered to f:15. Large parabolic Paul Buff umbrella/lightbox on an AB-400 camera right, feathered across the front of the subject, metered to f:8. Reflector camera left for fill. The floor is painted white epoxy, with some grit to make it less slippery that also textures it just a bit. Minimal post processing is required, unless she moves way off her mark. Occasionaly, she'll be way out of position, but give me such a great look that I'll spend whatever time I need to cleaning up the image in post. Maybe I shouldn't fall too much in love with an image that's way off in-camera, but sometimes I just can't help myself. I tell myself I'm learning better editing skills in the hours of cutting-out, clone stamping, and level and color adjusting.

4) As my model earns each new belt, we shoot a new session or two. She learns Karate, I learn to shoot and process images, and mom gets lots of great pictures of her kid. Win/Win/Win. Oh and we get paid (a little).

iStockphoto 200th Download

I hit 200 downloads at iStockphoto this morning, moving a bit closer to eligibility for their exclusive contributor program. I'm thinking of opting in, for the following reasons:

1. Relatively easy uploading and release management with DeepMeta.
2. The appeal of only having to manage one image collection.
3. More than half of my earnings come from iStockphoto already.
4. More allowed uploads per week.
5. Increased royalties as cannister level increases.
6. Faster inspections.

I still have 50 more downloads before I'd be eligible, but I'm currently leaning towards exclusivity.

Improvement

Sure, I was hoping to make a little money in Microstock. And I am. Things even seem to be picking up on that front, though I'm far from earning any kind of a living at it. But let's remember the other goal: improving my photography.

I can absolutely see an improvement. In addition, less and less of the shots I really like are accidental. I'm making deliberate choices in composition, exposure, and lighting in order to achieve a shot I want. It doesn't always work out, but I can remember a time when I wasn't considering any of these factors.

Of course I have a long way to go, and a ton more to learn. But isn't that what makes life/art/photography fun? It is for me.

The above was shot with my latest impulse buy: a Nikkor 105mm Micro 1:2.8. I love it.

A break from white seamless: staged indoor images with flash.

To give myself a bit of a break from the white seamless, I've done a couple of shoots in the house with the SB-600's. Both of these sets were shot in TTL mode, on stands, with white shoot-through umbrellas.

It was fun moving around the speedlights to get the look I was after. In the first shoot (on the left), I was attempting to emulate morning window light from the left. I'm happy with the result. In the later shoot (on the right), I tried several different shutter speeds. In the end, I went with a slower shutter to blow out the windows in the background. You can still tell it's a window, but you don't see any of the distracting shapes outside. I also adjusted the depth of field, to blur the background while maintaining a hint of the furniture.

Still wrapping my head around the ability to adjust both shutter speed and aperture to whatever I want, and then relying on the TTL speedlights to expose the subject properly. (Adding +/- to the speedlights to fine tune their exposure, of course.)

My system did tend to underexpose my subjects slightly. I have to remember to watch the histograms and adjust as necessary.

Subject Matters

Yesterday, I submitted three images from a recent outing to a water park.

The response from Shutterstock (always the quickest reviewer by far) is in: Two of the three were accepted, but one was not- blowing a pretty good 100% acceptance streak. Looking at the images today, I agree with the reviewer. I'll tell you what he said in a minute, but first. What would be your verdict on this set? Which would you reject and why?

I had one other rejection, from another set. For the same reason. It was one of these two:

Any guesses?

Here's what the reviewer had to say:

Composition--Limited commercial value due to framing, cropping, and/or composition.

What I think they meant was this: In the rejected shots, you cannot really see a facial expression. This makes it very difficult to form an emotional connection to the image, which evokes no "gut response". Thus, the image isn't really suitable for any kind of storytelling, and probably does indeed have "limited commercial value".

In all of the accepted images, you can clearly see an expression, and can very easily guess the emotional state of the model. You might even connect to one or two of them. Do they evoke any memory or emotion? They do in me, but I am biased.

Of course, there will be exceptions to this general rule. I'm sure there are plenty of great sellers that include a human subject and convey no emotion through facial expression. But, I think that for the stuff I shoot, it'd be a good idea to think about the emotion and storytelling of an image before submitting. If I'm going to all the trouble of creating an image with a human subject, I suppose I may as well include their face. Unless, of course, I have a specific reason not to...

This is probably something that comes up in Photography 101. Unfortunately, that was a class I never managed to squeeze into my ten years of college...

One good way to measure a year: Shutter Actuations

Once I was comfortable with my new D300s, I decided not to keep the old D90 sitting on the shelf as a backup. So, I sold it on Craigslist. A potential buyer asked how many shutter actuations it had, which I initially couldn't answer.

I'd had it just over a year, every day of which I took between 0 (shame, shame) and 4-500 pictures. Probably 30 a day on average, so I guessed 10-15k. But, suddenly I *had* to know the actual figure, and no matter how much I looked, I couldn't find it anywhere in-camera.

Opanda Iexif 2.3 to the rescue! 18,504 shutter releases. (Just open any image from the camera with IExif, and scroll around to find all sorts of cool embedded info.)

Poking around a bit more, I noticed that my Lightroom catalog had grown by only about 6-7k images in that same year.

What did I learn?

1. I shot approximately 50% more than I thought I did in the past year.
2. I throw out about two images for every one I keep.

Upon deeper reflection, of those thousands of new images on my drives, I'm pretty sure that only a few hundred are any good. I think I shoot a lot that I shouldn't bother with, and I keep a lot that I really should be tossing. I'm going to look into a better selection process.

Oh, and an image from yesterday's stock shoot:

Just a bit underexposed. Looked fine on the back of the camera, but I should have looked more carefully at the histogram. Not catastrophic, but needed a little brightening, then some noise reduction and smoothing in the darker tones. And then some color correction, which still isn't perfect. I'd switched my shutter speed to 1/250, the flash sync speed of the D300s, but I am wondering if the delays that come from optically triggering the AB-400's (which also sync at 1/250) are moving some of the light outside of my exposure window.

There's three things I can think of trying:

1. more power
2. shoot at 1/500, 1/250, and 1/125 with the same strobe settings, and compare exposures
3. use a sync cable

We'll see how it goes.

Today's Shoot

Looking back over some of my older images, I really liked some of my tighter shots, so today I shot a little closer...

I went back to my favorite lens, the Nikor 80-200 1:2.8 AF-S. I also moved my lights around a lot, but still have 2 on the background, 1 overhead and behind the model, 1 in a big parabolic softbox camera right, and a reflector camera left.

I'm much happier with the lighting on my model here than in some of my recent images. Here's two more from today:

On White: Isolated vs. Clean

The image above was accepted at Shutterstock and Fotolia, then rejected by iStockphoto. Unfortunately, as usual, the rejection message was completely unhelpful, as it gives only a vague hint of what the problem is.

The execution of isolation contains stray areas that are either too feathered or rough.


OK. The hair, the feet? The toes? Is it too feathered? Is it too rough? Is there a minor problem somewhere, or is it more of a larger, overall problem?


Yesterday, before this rejection, I was showing a friend the set of isolated images. Personally, I don't love them. They look to much like the model is just floating there. But, they would be easier to insert into a composite image. I decided like this better:

So, I did a few re-edits, and resubmitted versions like the one above, with a little bit of the white floor visible, and a bit of a shadow. Even if a buyer is looking at the images for use in a composite later, they still have to look good on their own, right? We'll see if the iStock inspectors agree, but what do you think?

UPDADE 4/21: It seems the iStock inspectors like these better, the first two resubmits have been accepted. Hopefully there's more to come, but at least I think I learned a little more about what not to do...

UPDATE 4/24: Just about all of the edits, and some new shots where I left the shadow in, have been accepted. It seems that although Fotolia and Shutterstock inspectors don't mind the fully cut-out versions, the iStock inspectors prefer a little shadow and some floor around the feet and legs that's not quite 255 white...

First image found in use!

Michelle at The Sixty Second Parent was kind enough to send me a heads-up. An image of Model #2 having a tea party can be found here.

Although I've tried TinEye and various google searches, this is the only image so far I've seen in use. I look forward to finding the next!

Acceptance

The five from yesterday, plus three more I finished up this morning, were already accepted at Shutterstock. I'm loving their responsiveness. (And their approvals!)

Back in the Saddle

I'm slowly getting back into the shoot/select/edit/keyword/submit cycle. While I seem to have forgotten some of the Photoshop keyboard shortcuts I used to use, and I feel extremely rusty, I'm figuring it all back out. And I've begun using a feature of the PicNiche toolbar for Firefox, the FTP uploader.

I used to use an FTP client to upload to each site (except iStock, for which DeepMeta is awesome). PicNiche makes it easier, simply toggle on whichever sites you want the files to go to, then drag your files from the explorer window (I use a PC) into the toolbar's FTP Upload area. Then click "go". Multiple files to multiple sites in one simple operation, a great feature I should have been using all along!

iStockphoto is closed for uploads due to some technical issues, but I uploaded 4 files to both Shutterstock and Fotolia on Friday, and saw 100% acceptance at both by this morning. (Did they get faster in my absence?) I uploaded 5 more today to each, with 3 still in editing from the same shoot.

Friday's Batch:

Today's Batch:

Just a note on today's batch. I'm not thrilled with the blown out spot on the top of her head. I'm still fussing with an overhead strobe I'm using to try blowing out the floor. It's still not perfect in camera, so I have to clean up the white floor around my model anyway, so I may take out that light and try it somewhere else... Still working on the perfect setup for my 4 lights. Briefly, I have:

1 strobe on each side of the white seamless backdrop
1 strobe on camera right, in a bit parabolic umbrella (reflected mode)
1 reflector at camera left for fill
1 strobe overhead, behind model but obviously spilling onto her, or bouncing too much light

Frustration

I haven't retouched this one, and I probably won't. I'm seeing too much wrong with it. I'm happy that I'm back in the "studio", but I feel like I'm fighting with my equipment.

1) I almost got the lighting, but my main is too far to camera right, and the reflector on camera left must be aimed incorrectly. See how much darker the left side of the image is than the right? Not intentional, and I don't like it. Unfortunately, I couldn't see it on the back of the camera in my test shots. Sure, I could probably use the gradient tool in Lightroom to fix this, but I want it right in the camera.

2) Focus. I usually love my 17-55mm 2.8 DX lens. For general use it's awesome, and it's the lens most often on my camera. But here, it's just not focusing:

I'm using autofocus normally, selecting a focus point already near this eye so I don't have to move much to recompose. Shooting at the 55mm end of the lens just as I normally would... The camera thinks it's got focus. I should be able to see individual eyelashes, but I'm not even close.

Tomorrow I'll try my 60mm Micro and 80-200 at 80mm for comparison.

October in Review

First, the figures for October, and then a happy milestone:



My best month so far, with a modest increase over September. Lower sales at Shutterstock and Fotolia were more than made up for by a nice increase in sales at iStockphoto. Progress toward the overall goal:



The milestone? I hit $80 at Shutterstock, exceeding their $75 minimum payout. So, when payments are processed this month I'll be receiving my first payout ever, of $80.02!

Not appropriate for stock

I shot this yesterday while my kids played at the playground. Instantly, I fell totally in love with the shot, but, I won't be uploading it as stock. I've had sufficient bug and critter image rejections over the past month to know not to bother. The fact that the picture won't be making me any money doesn't make me love it any less. In fact, I kinda like that this one was "just for me".

The experience serves as both a reminder and an inspiration. When I'm shooting for stock, I've got to focus on creating useful images. But, while I'm at it, why not also try for images that mean something? Looking over my portfolio, if I'm completely honest with myself, I see a lot of pretty boring, uninspired work. (Yeah, I know, I'm a great salesman and marketer...) But, how many of the images in your portfolio do you love? How many inspire you?

Maybe this is part of the journey. First, create acceptable images. The agencies can't sell what they don't accept... Get the technicals down, learn to use the gear, learn to light, learn to work with models, etc. Then, begin to work at creating what will sell. Maybe getting really good at this step is all you need to be successful. But, I think to be really happy, I need something more. Strive for some meaning in the images. Inspire emotion, tell stories, go for an occasional wow. I'm not there, and maybe I never will be, but I've got to try.

Lightboxes and Organization

There's a lot I like about iStockphoto.com, but my favorite feature of the day is the ability they give their contributors to organize and present their content in Lightboxes. I've only begun to take advantage of the feature, as it does take some work. But, now that I have enough images uploaded that grouping them makes sense, it was time.

I started with images of Jessica. I wanted anyone looking at one of her images to have an easy link to the others, so I added them all to a lightbox. (Basically, a subset of my images, managed on the contributor pages at iStock.) Then, I created the following graphics:

I did have to host the images somewhere, so I used my own domain, but I assume photobucket or other free options would also work. Since iStock allows uucode embedding into image descriptions, all I had to do was edit every image of Jessica, adding code to each of them that looks like:

[url=http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&lightboxID=6344240][img]http://kesers.com/JessicaLightboxLink.png[/img][/url]

Next steps: more lightboxes, by theme and by model.

Resubmission

When iStock rejects a submission, I usually try to determine if I can fix the problem. Recently I figured out what "The execution of isolation contains stray areas that are either too feathered or rough." meant. I spent last weekend fixing almost every image rejected for this reason in the past few months. But, resubmitting a rejected image to iStock uses up a second upload slot. (It is also way more painful than initial submissions using DeepMeta) So, I have to decide for each one: Do I resubmit the corrected image, or do I shoot something new and submit that?

I've resubmitted two out of a dozen or so, but I'll probably save the others. I don't think I'll have too much trouble keeping a full queue of 15 new images each week. Maybe someday they'll raise the limits, and I'll have room for these oldies. In the meantime, these rejected images are up and selling at Shutterstock and Fotolia. (Every agency is picky in their own special way- this particular problem is really only an issue at iStock. It's pretty hard to detect, and the other sites either didn't catch it or don't care.)

What do you do with your rejects? Fix 'em and resubmit, or abandon them?

The image above was rejected because some lettering was visible on the buttons of her shirt, not a full brand name or logo, though. I cloned out these letters and did resubmit this one, since I like it a lot.