Category Archives: Wizardgold

King of Stock photography Yuri Arcurs

Posted on by

I have just watched the video of Yur Arcurs out on a shoot. Interesting video and if you are going to learn about doing the microstock thing then you have to learn from the best and Yuri is without doubt the best in the business. He will shoot 2000 photos himself in an 8 hour photo shoot and his assistant will shoot another 1000. He will have a huge base of photos to choose from from that session.

I saw that the camera he has is large and probably very expensive with big expensive lenses on also. I noticed also that he was not using a tripod much, when he was it was a monopod. I wonder if that is normal for a days’ shooting and if maybe he does photo shoots that he will use a tripod more.

Here is the video – Enjoy

Looking for a favour

Posted on by

Favour number one. In an attempt to increase the circulation of this blog I want to try and build up the exposure of the site on StumbleUpon. What I would like from my readers if you would just spend a couple of minutes giving a review of the site. Stumble It! Please just hit this link and give a review.

Thanks

Favour number two If you could do the same on iTunes also with a review of the Podcast That would be great too. Thanks I really appreciate your help.

One More thing:-
If any one has a site with a topic similar to this site or kind of related then send me an email regarding link swapping. I will put a link to your site and you can do the same for me.

Sold a photo from Fotolia yesterday

Posted on by

Buy on FotoliaI was pleased to see a photo sold of a hydraulic hoist  lift thing with big wheels on. I was at the in laws one day and I shot a picture or two while I was hanging around of one of those hoists that builders use to get up high on the outside of a building, or could be used by those workers that fix the street lighting.

Definitely a great idea to always carry the camera as you never know when you might be able to get a photo.

With this photo I did some photshop work to clean things up both in the background and on the hoist too. There was a logo on the metal work and I removed some ugly dirt on the tyres.

Wacom Cintiq 12WX on it's way

Posted on by

Wacom Cintiq 12WX drawing tablet

I have bought a new Wacom tablet so that I can pass the one I have now, an A5 wide to my son, it wil be good for his art studies. The new tablet is a screen as well as a tablet. It will be like having a digital sketchpad. I will be able to draw directly on the screen and according to others that has such a device is a joy to use.

Today i have been working with the old tablet and I made a design which is a repeating pattern. I have uploaded it to a few sites but I have to wait to see if it is accepted.

On the subject of images being accepted you really need a thick skin because sometimes files get declined for a variety of reasons. I have found in the past that the vector files I would have more or less total acceptance rate on the microstock sites. Today though I had 2 file rejected by Fotolia and the same files added to my portfolios at Featurepics and Crestock photo. Weird – lets see what happens with the repeating pattern I just sent to Fotolia.

Maybe the reviewer was having a bad day. One of the files was a reworking of a file that sold multiple times for me on Dreamstime already.

I have also just sent in 2 files to iStockPhoto. Both were files that I used to gain acceptance on that site as an illustrator so theorectically they should go on without problems, though I was somewhat annoyed with the whole prcess.

With iStockPhoto you have to get accepted as an illustrator first. They make you jump through a pile of hoops to get you you verified on their books. The size of the file has to be just right for both the JPG thumbnail and the EPS vector image too and you have to put the vector inside a zip file and send it all in via the web site. What bugs me is that when it comes to the actual sending in the files again to submit them to your portfolio the sizes are all different and the procedure is different also. Why???? I would have thought that the idea of the hoop jumping would be to train people into doing it a certain way so that it would be correct for submissions.

BigStockPhoto and Fotolia on the other hand are super easy for submissions, you only have to upload one file – the vector file and their system makes the thumbnail for you. You still have to do all the keywords and the categories though.

Sold another photo with Fotolia

Posted on by
You can sell your images on Fotolia too

Fotolia has always been my best Micro stock site for selling photos. Today I had a sale of a photo of an accordion player. It sold through the subscription model of sales on Fotolia so not much in terms of cash but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

It is all part of the micro stock way of selling photos, the thing is that you can sell a photo many times over and if you have a large portfolio then you will get a nice income from many micro sales of your photos.

I do now someone that has a decent income from micro stock and has a portfolio not that much bigger than mine. Where he scores better is having more photos of people. People in business situations which convey a concept well well on line in this arena. I think I need more models to take pictures of.

While we are talking about models you should know that you have to supply a signed model release for any persons recognisable in your images. You can use a generic release form with most of the sites which is good if you submit to more than one. It would be a pain having to get a model to put a separate signature on a sheaf of release forms. Getting models from within the family is one place to start but some photographers make enough from the microstock sales to be able to hire models.

Yuri Arcurs being one such person.  He is a Danish photographer that does this to such an extent that he employs 12 people and hires models for photo shoots when he does them. Click on one of links for the micro stock sites in the side panels and you will find that he has done an interview or two and you can have a look for his work to see what sort of images he makes and sells.