2015 - My Photography Highlights

As usual, here's a summary of my photography highlights from the year.  2015 was the first year I haven't traveled overseas for many years, and with all sorts of other things happening to keep me occupied, photography has taken a back-seat.  The selection below hopefully shows that the UK has so much to offer, even for the time-poor!

Mammals

In April, a very obliging fox visited our garden, and seemed happy enough to strike a pose for the camera:

Fox

...a baby rabbit was seen on the top of our local hill...

Rabbit

...and a Fallow Deer was photographed nearby in Sussex

Fallow Deer

The Moon

Having missed out on the eclipse last year courtesy of cloud cover and with my new 500mm lens bought second-hand, I was keen to get a photo of the 'Super Blood Moon'.  It meant getting up at 02:30, but was worthwhile:

Super Blood Moon

As it happened, I went out the previous evening to see which settings would work best.  I managed to get a shot with a small aeroplane flying in front of the moon, which has come out quite nicely:

Moon and aeroplane

And whilst we're on the subject of night-time, here's a shot of Guildford Cathedral, with an obliging firework nearby:

Guildford Cathedral

XH558 Vulcan

2015 was the last year which the iconic Vulcan was allowed to fly, so I was keen to get a few shots of it.  I tried a couple of times whilst it was flying in the South (living near Dunsfold helped my chances!), and managed to get a shot to remember her by

XH558 Vulcan

Birds

Here are some of the highlights from birds I've been able to photograph this year.  A return visit to Gigrin Farm in Wales meant I could get a Red Kite photo I was happy with, plus towards the end of the year, two separate Barn Owl viewings were very special.  Elsewhere, an OK shot of a Great Grey Shrike was good, but still not in good light.  Finally, my local swans gave birth to NINE cygnets, so an early walk along the canal treated me to some special moments.  And then there was the Buzzard 'caught in the act'...

Red Kite

Barn Owl (very low light)

Great Grey Shrike

Swan with two cygnets

Buzzard

Instagram

I'm now on Instagram, and use it to showcase some of my favourite wildlife images from trips over the years.  You can follow me here.

Microstock

Finally, I earn a little income from a back-catalogue of stock images, which are for sale on various microstock websites.  Earnings are way-down again this year (£126.91), partly as I haven't uploaded any fresh images, but also a symptom of the changing industry dynamics.

2011 - My year in photography

Well, here we are at the end of another photographic year - one where I've spent less time doing photography (and blogging) than I could have, but have kept things ticking along.  This year's highlights are:

• I've been lucky enough to photograph Red Squirrels in Jersey, Puffins in Scotland and Freshwater Manatees in Guatemala, alongside a few things near to home
• Setting-up my 500px account, with a surprise popular photo
• Microstock sales of £257.63
• Dabbling with timelapse photography (once)
• Continued to grow my Twitter followers (thanks to all 337 of you, even the spammers!)
• Treating myself to a shiny 27" iMac with Lightroom 3 - a major upgrade from my 10 year old PC with Elements 6!
• I bought a compact camera!

Wildlife Encounters

No dedicated wildlife photography trips for me this year, so it was more a case of taking advantage of any opportunities that arose.  This in a way meant any sighting was more special, as it demanded a good splash of luck alongside the patience!

More of my images can be found on my Facebook Photography Page.

550px

Move over Flickr, there's a new kid in town - 500px.  This website attracts some inspirational photographers and simple voting system means you can easily admire other people's photos.  Surprisingly for me, my most popular shot is something that I'd never previously done anything with, from a trip a couple of years ago from the Angolan border down through Namibia trying to find nomadic Desert-adapted Elephants.


Microstock

Here are the results from this year's sales:

iStockPhoto          £60.28
Shutterstock         £84.96
Dreamstime          £57.22
DepositPhotos      £10.33
Fotolia                  £44.74
TOTAL                £257.53

Compared to last year, earnings from iStock are significantly down, with Dreamstime faring better than last year.

I dabbled with editorial shots for the first time and will try to do more of this next year.

My most popular shot (again) is: 

Lightroom 3

To join my new iMac (amazing screen!), I have bought Lightroom 3:

It's early days grappling with getting my photos transferred from my PC to the Mac, but Lightroom seems very powerful for what I need - minor RAW adjustments, then publishing.  The Scott Kelby book (link above) is a useful companion.

Timelapse Photography

I haven't got a DSLR with video, but still wanted to try out timelapse photography.  I've just got my paws on a remote timer device...

... and have tried it once on a very blustery evening, a short walk from home:

Compact Camera - Canon IXUS 220HS

For a trip where I wanted to try some underwater video, I bought a compact camera, the Canon Ixus 200HS.  Although less flexible than my DSLR, it's with me more often, so means I can be ready to pounce on occasions like:

The camera itself is great, although there's some lens noise when zooming, something I might go to the shop to ask about.  I bought an Aquapac underwater bag which worked really well for snorkeling - and about a tenth of the price of a dedicated housing.

Bring on 2012!!

Microstock news: Fotolia launches desktop-based stock photo app

Fotolia have just launched an Adobe AIR desktop widget  - allowing you to search and buy stock imagery, video and vectors direct from your PC or Mac. 

It's free and easy to install.  More information available here.

As well as using this new application or going direct to the microstock site, there is one other way to get your stock imagery - via free Microsoft Office ribbon plugins.  Fotolia have one and so do iStockphoto.






 

Microstock News: Fotolia launch microstock plugin for Wordpress

Fotolia have launched an innovative new plugin for Wordpress bloggers - allowing users to easily license relevant images for their blog postings. Not only that, it also offers affiliation options, so bloggers can earn additional income. More information at MicrostockPhotoPlugin.com

Microstock News: Fotolia on the offensive

In the increasingly consolidating and competitive microstock industry, Fotolia has turned the heat up a notch - this time in trying to attract top contributors to their site, away from others. In launching 'Operation Level Ground*', if you have at least 1000 active images on another site, they will reward you with a status as if those downloads had been made on Fotolia. Only available until the end of the year (although why wouldn't they extend it?).

Microstock Categories - a help or hindrance?

I'm nowhere close to earning a decent income from microstock and doubt I ever will, but it has provided me with some great positives:

• I'm a much better photographer; I'm learning about what makes a 'commercial' shot, improving my understanding of composition and even starting to get my head around Photoshop
• It's a nice feeling that someone is willing to pay for my work
• I can (start to) justify spending money on new gear

What is frustrating though is the hassle (and therefore time) involved in the upload process to the various sites. Specifically, the insistence that alongside keywords, categories have to be specified. They either overlap with keywords, or the list of categories to choose from is so incomplete/patchy, there's never one which seems to fit. And as the category options are all different across sites, there's minimal opportunity to select generic categories.

I'm not a buyer from microstock sites, so would love to know how useful the categories are? My hunch would be though that most buyers know what they're after and they'll simply drop the relevant keywords into a search box. I guess microtock administrators can see from their web stats how often categories and used to search versus keywords, so I'd love to get an insight into this too...

So, I vote to remove categories from the microstock industry! Do you?

Alamy still profitable - but it's tough going

As the update by Alamy CEO James West says in a blog update, times are tough at Alamy, with a prediction that sales will be 15-20% down this year compared to last. James rightly points out that a significant factor has been the 'recession' and its impact on image buyers (e.g. UK newspaper industry). The other factor which I would have assumed was just as relevant is the evolving marketplace and availability of more competitive offerings from the microstock companies (iStockphoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, Shutterstock, etc.). As well as probably being cheaper, arguably some of these companies have tigher image quality control in-place at time of submission, which could lead to a more efficient buying experience.

For the record, I'm yet to make any sales from my small Rights-Managed portfolio on Alamy, but finger's crossed one day I will!

All well at Crestock?

As with most microstock submitters, although we're all encouraged to submit images exclusively to a particular agency (for marginally higher commissions), I've been submitting images to a variety of them, on a non-exclusive basis.

However, uploading images and keywording can be pretty tedious, so I've decided to limit my uploading to only the sites which were providing useful returns - Shutterstock*, StockXpert*, iStockPhoto*, Dreamstime* and Fotolia*. That meant leaving three other sites - Snapvillage (which is being retired soon anyway), 123RF and finally Crestock.

For both 123RF and Snapvillage, closing my account was not only efficient, it was intuitive and managed politely - credit to both. But at Crestock, my e-mail request to close my account has been ignored so far. Further still, a quick look at their forum and it looks like I'm not alone with my experience...

Microstock News: Fotolia news - a busy May !

• May 1st: Fotolia* now supports video - great for those that can afford the astounding Canon EOS 5D Mark II*.
• May 6th: Fotolia bring in iStockPhoto co-founder (Patrick Lor) to be US CEO/President
• May 21st: Fotolia launches PhotoXpress - a free (!!) image bank to rival Getty owned stock.xchng
• May 23rd: Rumours that TA Associates have invested between $50m to $100m in Fotolia. Christian Grunwald from TA is now on Fotolia's Board.

Is this ultimately leading to a duopoly in stock photography between Getty and Fotolia, or is there news to come from any of the other players... they can't afford to be left behind.

Microstock Tip - using keywords

All the microstock sites rely on keywords in order for an image to feature high-up in a search query. So, the more comprehensive and relevant the keywords are, the more likely the file will be found and therefore viewed and hopefully purchased.

I've recently found a great keywording tool - it allows you to search for similar images and extract the consolidated keywords from images you select. Using this, I've been able to find a few obvious extra keywords. For example, my best-selling image at the moment is:

Previously, I'd used the following keywords to describe it:

- Deer, Antler, Stag, Wildlife, Nature, Animal, Mammal, Autumn, outdoors, wild

But now, I've added: hunt, doe, buck, male, forest, antlers, brown, fall, game, grass,trees, woods, season, hunting, park, large, roebuck

Time will tell how useful it's been, but although a tedious job, it's a no-brainer to give it a go.

p.s. On Fotolia*, they won't allow you to update the keywords after the first submission, to "avoid keyword spamming". A shame, frankly!