I'm an International Sensation

Well.... international... not sure what the sensation is, you should probably get that checked by a doctor.

Checking out my site stats and I see that (excluding my mom.....hi, mom) I am a hit in North Carolina and California (Beverly Hills). Internationally it is Portugal and Canada (though Canada can technically be called the USA's 51st state). So if you are from these regions, give yourself one blog point.

And another blog point to Luis, who complimented my post yesterday. Thank you, Luis. I was impressed with it myself, I actually read it twice.

Yesterday I posted the best of Shutterstock, today I'll hit a few of the rest.

Best Overall Seller "Football Front": (also the best at Dreamstime, CanStock and 123RoyaltyFree)

Best at iStockphoto "Dollar-Eye": (also best at Fotolia)

Best at BigStock "Gator-Side":

Well, I thought I had enough time to write another Pulitzer Prize winning post, but alas, time to go to work.

The Numbers To Beat

A: I want to apologize to those of you who wake up in the morning and expect a new post from me. I know I am like your coffee, but I was just too tired to spell this morning. But then... I am always too tired to spell.

2: Normally I would be at work right now, but the little one was running a fever so I was volunteered to take her to doc. Now I am waiting for Angela to get home so I can return to work.

III: I used my deep fryer I got for Christmas for the first time last night. I am now taking donations to help me buy bigger clothes because I am going to be eatin' a lot of fried foods. Best. Fries. Ever.

Four: I need to watch how much I talk about movies because this could easily become a movie blog. I am a huge movie freak. Don't care for horror/slasher films, though I do occasionally watch one (which is wierd, because I am currently helping shoot "Exit 101", a zombie film). I prefer rom-coms and epic adventures, Avatar, While You Were Sleeping, Forrest Gump. I enjoy independent dramas as well, Bella, The Good Life, Lars and the Real Girl, for instance.

Next: I have nothing to say here, just wanted to see how many ways I could make a point.


Ok, running over my Shutterstock history.
Started in May '05.
I am (as of 3:39pm) currently three sales from my best month this year.
My best month ever was 78 back in August of '08.
My best day was May 23, 2007 with 15 sales (just returned from shooting lighthouses in Maine)
My longest streak of 'consecutive days with a sale' is 20, set during August-September of '07. I also sold 37 out of 38 days during that time, too.
My most downloaded photo is "Cart Myrtle":

My most profitable picture is "Nubble Wave":

Nubble Wave is about to be taken over by my most hated picture "Empty Roll":

I hate this photo because it's crooked, bad shadows, bad lighting, bad memories. For some reason, I get a lot of sales. And it bugs me everytime. Should I take it down? NO! That'd be money down the drain. I'll just keep sucking it up.

BTW, I have now sold 10 photos of the dice and have made 806% profit from the purchase of them.

So anyways, I'll be back tomorrow (but maybe after work)

(500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer is a great movie. You should watch it. You should know up front, it is not a love story.

Anywho, short blog today. Took 12 photos last night of the same shot, narrowed down to two shots. Kept one as is, and the other I played with saturation and hue, and decided I wanted a red "table". Uploaded and both approved.

One thing I learned during my first group of dice shots is.... dice are black and white. So I can desaturate without any issues. I simply create new duplicate layer, desaturate bottom layer and cut away the dice in the top layer. Kills any color cast the dice may have. I then darkened the pips, cleaned dust and cat hair from felt, filled in info and submitted. Went to bed and woke up to 206 approved total, with 368 days to go.

Got to iron some shirts and go to work.

I'm Back

Got out of work Thursday. Drove 8 out of 10 hours. Brokenly slept for about an hour. Arrived at Angela's parents in Ohio. Tried to sleep on couch. Just about to doze off. Angela's mom starts cleaning living room and bringing presents out to put under tree. No more sleep. Christmas day. Start to get drowsy around 2. Few hour nap. Take family photos and play games. Play Scrabble on DS until 1am. Sleep till 3:30 when dad comes to kitchen and starts doing dishes. Mom follows. They leave, sleep a couple more hours. Brother gets up to get ready to go snowboarding. Leaves, but ends up in driveway honking horn to direct friends parking job. Kids up. Hang around house. Go to Wal-Mart. Come home. Eat. Start packing car for trip home. Leave around 10pm. Take turns trying to sleep and drive. Home around 8am Sunday morning. Kids up. Angela sleeps. I keep kids occupied. I nap around 1ish. Up at 4. Make dinner (baked pork chops smothered in Tony Roma's Hickory sauce, then I squeezed an orange over it and baked a little longer with orange slices on chops) Up till midnight working on family photos. Sleep for what feels like 10 seconds. Kids up. Type out blog. Get ready for work.... so on and so forth.

Moral of the story... I'm tired so stay outta my way.

But seriously.

No stock photos this weekend. I have fallen below an average of 1 per day. But now Christmas is over (did get a tripod, so that'll make life a little easier) and I'll have some more time to concentrate on photos.

(500) Days of Summer. Great Film.
Avatar. Awesome film.
Castle. Great show.
Firefly. Awesome show.

One of the first photographers I followed was Jason Q. Tran. He has people skills I envy. I tried to copy a style of his where he has a groom or bride in the foreground acting normal, and everyone else in the background being ninjas or just acting crazy. Result:

But anyways. Time to get ready for work. I'll be back tomorrow. Hopefully with a new stock photo.

Merry Christmas

I would like to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Ok, moment over. Between the long hours of work and family over the next few days, I probably won't be posting until Monday. Stop crying, you'll live. You had a life before me, you can live without me for a few days.

I am unhappy to announce that since my dice series, I have not shot anything stockworthy. Roughly 373 days to go and I have stalled at 204. I did know that would happen around the holidays, and will happen again next year. Around the first of the year I will hopefully start having time to shoot again. Now in the few moments I do have I need to generate ideas, and since you guys are so much help *rolling eyes*, that should be easy. I am hoping to go to a couple photographer "get togethers" next year. Inhausalypse around October, haven't decided one for the spring. I usually get a good handful of shots there, and usually a group of great models. I might even host one for Providence State Park (Little Grand Canyon)

What I want for Christmas (too late since I've already celebrated due to children leaving town). Memory cards, tripod, prime lenses, blue dress shirts with ties to match, deep fryer, "slider" grill, laptop, car...

What I really want is everyone to be safe and happy. It's a wonderful time of year for what we are celebrating, but due to commercialism it is also a dangerous time of year, people fighting for products, frantic driving, crowded roads, people stealing to have gifts to give. Be safe.

Merry Christmas,
William

Kids are leaving

My two daughters are leaving today, heading up to Ohio with their "Gunkle" and Auntie. House will be mighty quiet, and will remain mighty clean (once we clean it) until they get back. Not having the girls around is one of the prime times for me to shoot photos. Why is it that they pretty much ignore what you are doing until you are doing something that requires them to pretty much leave you alone? Then they MUST be a part of it. A good example would be this blog. The little one hangs around the chair when I'm on the computer, playing with her toys, but the second I start typing my blog, she gets up and starts hitting the keys, so these little grammatical errors you see may not be mine.

But anyway. Just had an idea for a photo, since apparantly most of my readers refuse to comment. So I may try it tomorrow, since I'll be working late today.

Short blog today, because the little one won't stop bugging me. Welcome back to civilization Joey L. I'd like to welcome my first "follower" Luis. And I now have 8 feed subscribers. Dreamstime is finally accepting my photos. Gotta go. Larissa says 21fmfdbn,mn

A Challenge

Ok, didn't do anything photo related yesterday, with the exception of a few quick snapshots of kids opening gifts. And my mind is blank as to anything to shoot. So I am issueing a challange to my 47 readers and 5 subscribers (wow) that I must complete by the end of tomorrow. I want you to comment with a household object you want me to photograph. Try to keep it stock worthy, no trademarks, blah blah. My goal will to get it photographed, uploaded and accepted by Shutterstock by the end of tomorrow. Results on Tuesday. One point for me for accepted, a point for you for failure. Remember, I am already up one point on y'all.

On a side note. I am totally addicted to Firefly. To be honest, never even heard of the show till a couple weeks ago. Netflix recommended the movie Serenity and I read about it, saw it was the "finale" to the series Firefly, so I got the series and watched. Loved it. Love the characters, especially the captain. Anyways, if any of you are going to get me something for Christmas, I'd like the widescreen DVD set.

So now I'm going to promote a photographer. Today is going to be Zack Arias. I first came across him doing photo website critiques and I started staying up late to watch an episode each night. I started researching him, like I do to everyone. Found his One Light Workshop and this has become my dream workshop. Bought a cheap flash trigger, but it only works half the time and it sucks on battery life. Still haven't really learned my Speedlite yet, so I need to work on that. So anyways, check out Zack Arias and his blogs, check out the family photos Dave Black took of him, love 'em. Here's my favorite:

I'll talk about Dave Black another time.

Anywho, gots to get ready for church. Till next time...comment (and click on some ads, too)

To the Wacko

I figured out who my wacko stalker/dedicated fan was. It was real hard, but I figured it out. I was sitting on the couch of Pastor Jon Earls when he turned to me and said I am the wacko. I agreed and then realized what he meant. So today (the day after his birthday) is Jon Earls day.

But first, I wanna talk about me. Sold a few dice photos yesterday. So far every site I submit to has accepted every photo except for Dreamstime (they are still pending, they are so slow there). So here are my stats for each site as of this morning (in order by dollar sales)

iStock: 132 accepted, 961 sold
Shutterstock: 204 accepted, 2062 sold
Dreamstime: 144, 552
Bigstock: 182, 290
123RoyaltyFree: 158, 239
Fotolia: 183, 113
CanStock: 165, 75

So far I have sold 227 different photos, a grand total of 4,292 sales with a gross profit of $2,389.84

May not be much to some people, but a payment of $100 every couple months is nice when bills get tight, or for a little extra spending money at Christmas. In fact, this year the only money I had to spend on Christmas presents was from a payment from Shutterstock.
 
BTW the links on the stats above go to my port on each site. Feel free to sign up and join if you like.

Ok, now to Jon Earls Day. Since he didn't give me a subject to talk about, I will talk about him. You can locate his blog here. He is an Atlanta Braves fan. He is expecting a son, Leonard Duckenheim Earls. And his favorite food is bubble gum. I decided to do a search on Google for him and here is what I found out:

Jon Earl of Seattle is a fan of Lady Gaga and apparantly jealous of bears.
Jonathan Earl of Minneapolis is a singer with an album called Mayslacks.
Juan Earl of San Antonio is an English major who has written four books.
Jon Earl of the United Kingdom is a Lead Development Engineer at LogicaCMG
Jon Earl of Sussex, UK is a golf club pro and lives on Rusper Road.
John Earls of Las Vegas is in the Boogieman Band, quality blues since 1988
John Earls of St. Louis is a Sr. Operations Manager at World Wide Technology
John Earls of Orange County is a communist and union journalist
John Earls of Illinois is a teacher's assistant and is interested in Bioinformatics
John Earls of Peru is a principal at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru
John Earls of Ireland is a used car salesman
John Earls of Washington DC is a Chaplain at Gilchrist Hospice Care
John Earls of St. Louis (the other one) is a wine and spirits expert since 1973
John Earls is a hated music critic, who is giving terrible bands credence and great reviews
John Earls was born in 1836 was a cabin boy in the navy during the Civil War.
I won't even say what John Earls Ray did.

So here is a few of the Jon Earls of the World (John, Jon, Earls, Earl... it's all the same). So go find your favorite one and give them your appreciation.

Thanks to my One Reader

Anyone who truly knows me knows I love numbers and stats. At work I'm comparing sales and figures, markups and markdowns. At home I have this lengthy spreadsheet where I keep track of every photo sale, which site it sold on, and for how much. As I sell photos it updates their ranking by popularity and by profit.

Which brings me to my rant about myself for the day. Since I'm a numbers guy, I like stats. So I keep track of my posts and how many people read them, and how they read them. (Don't worry, I don't actually know who reads them, only the fact that you did read it) My first day, when I was posting on other blogs and talking about my project in the forums, I had 34 readers. The next day I had six, and the next two I had 9 each. Then I found I had a subscriber. Cool. So two days ago I had 6 readers and 3 subscribers.

So, the rant is that I was bugged about my rant yesterday. It really bothered me. For one, because I didn't help Michelle when I said I would. For two, because I know I have a problem and won't (can't) fix it. For three, it musta been a really boring post because only ONE PERSON read it.

So, to my either very dedicated fan, or wacko stalker, if you comment (anonymously if you like) below, I will talk on the subject of your choice tomorrow. Anything you want, photography, quantum physics, the war in Iraq, nose hair trimming tips, movies... You name it, I'll talk about it. It's your day, I want to celebrate you.

Back to the purpose of my blog. Yesterday I did not work on anything related to photography. Watched the final movie in the Firefly series. Gutsy to kill off main characters. Great movie if you're a fan of the series.

Sold a photo, which has become a favorite of mine.

Since I got time, I'll give a behind the scene look at my photo. What's cool about this photo (to me) is that dice appear to be rolling. They are actually hanging on pipecleaner wires, which where hot-glued to the backs and hung from a hanger. The reason I used pipecleaners is because they were strong enough to hold the weight of the dice, yet flexible enough to move them into any position I wanted. The "table" is actually a piece of green felt on a chair. The black background is a pair of my shorts. Here is the original photo before I touched it up in photoshop:

I deleted the wires and cleaned up the dust on the table. The pips on the dice had purple fringing, so I used color replacement to conceal that. I then burned the pips to darken them up a touch. I used a paintbrush to help even out the dark background. If you look at where the background and table meet in the final product, you can see a spot I missed. I then adjusted levels and curves and filled in keyword data.

Running out of time, so I LOVE YOU my one reader. Remember tomorrow is Sat-YOU-day.

Lazy, lazy, lazy

Yesterday is a perfect example of why I am lazy. And the worst part is I know I am and I don't (can't?) do anything about it. I had the day off. Sure, I had the two kids who will tear up any little thing I do. Sure Larissa had diahria (sp?), the kind that was kinda clear and burns. And sure Eliana spent the better part of the day complaining her tummy hurt, and I know she wasn't kidding because she herself was a little lazier then normal. And sure I had a headache, but it wasn't too bad unless except for the kids pounding nails into it. But I didn't help Michelle with the Christmas set painting, I only took four photos, I only did two or three loads of laundry, I only did half the dishes, I didn't do anything else.

A full day off. Re-edited my website. Watched a show with Angela. Photoshopped and submitted four photos. Played with the kids a little bit. Speaking of, Larissa is waking up, so I better wrap up here.

Anyway, to wrap up, I am lazy. And I am surprised I don't weigh 300 lbs. from just sitting around all day. I need to do something about it. But, I don't feel like it.

4 photos accepted, puts my total to 204 with 379 days to go. 

First "blog" photo sale

Woke up this morning to find I sold a photo I created (or rather uploaded) because of my blog. Jon's portrait photo back from day 1. I never would have thought to upload a photo of that style, but hey, a sale is a sale.

I had a plan to get a couple photos done yesterday, and I achieved one, but the other required my hand in the photo, and I just couldn't get it to look right. So then I planned to use Angela's hand, but ended up going to the church to help paint backgrounds for the Christmas Program. I will be helping again today, so I'll see what I can do.

Now to the non-photo portion of today's blog, brought to you today be Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. So much more then just creamy fungus in a can, Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. Buy a can today.

Since everyone is doing their "Best of" for the year (even though the year is not over, but I assume that means nothing worth noting will happen the rest of the year), I decided to list a few of my favs for the year.

Best Book: The Twilight Saga books (the only books I read this year)
Best Movie: Star Trek
Best Meal: Pumpkin Chili (don't knock it till you try it here)
Best Moment: Any moment I spend with Angela (brownie point)
Best Video: The Barbershop Chorus: Ambassadors of Harmony
Best Actor, Actress: Greg Grunberg and Amy Adams
Worst Book: The Twilight Saga books (the only books I read this year)
Worst Movie: Land of the Lost
Worst Meal: The one I wasn't invited to
Worst Moment: I never dwell on the bad
Worst Video: newest Chad Vader videos (Darth's little brother, works at a grocery store)
Worst Actor, Actress: Kelsey Grammer, Megan Fox

Paradise

Same photo rejected yesterday for release issue, so I will have to dig out my files and rescan it.

But I worked on my little project last night to test out the idea of it, and it musta worked because I had an approval.

I wanted to shoot it over my brother's pool table, but the rain is making it dreary here, and I didn't feel like dragging my equipment out to the shed where the table currently is located. But Angela actually found a square of green felt that I may try over today and see what it looks like.

Nobody guessed Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, so I get the first "blog" point. Puts me at one, you zero. Reynolds is the Capt. of the transport ship Firefly, a very short lived television series, but one I truly miss. It was a western set in space. Six-shooters, chaps, horses, etc. on spaceships, flying from planet to planet.

I am off work today, and tomorrow, so I will hopefully get plenty of photos. Need to raise my average, because the closer it gets to Christmas, the more hours I will be working, the less likely I will have time to do anything.

Can't think of anything else to say. I have two kids trying to tear up the Christmas try and the presents underneath, so I can't concentrate.

Tomorrow.....

I'm so tired.

Yesterday is a perfect example of why I started a blog. After a long day of work, and coming home to two hyper kids, I felt I needed to get at least one photo approved to please my readers (I know there is at least four of you, or maybe just one person reading my blog four times you freak). I managed to fix the release issue and resubmitted that photo from a couple days ago, but have not had it approved yet. It is the weekend afterall.

I have to iron a shirt, so I can't drone on and on today. But I do want to see how many people know who Capt. Malcolm Reynolds is without googling him. He is the reason I was up late. Well, him and his misfit crew.

Anyways, off at five and the next two days, so perfect chance to get a few photos done. Going to attempt my first "real" setup. Got to buy a prop and a little equipment, accessories... stuff to try to make it work. I know if I can get it right I will get at least two great photos from it, hopefully a few more, but two minimum.

I really gotta iron this shirt....

Day 3

Woke up this morning to find I had 4 approved photos on Shutterstock. The fifth was rejected for release being to small. It was a group shot, so I have to figure out which release I scanned wrong and I'll resubmit.

This brings my grand total to 198, with 383 days to go. So if I can get an average of one approved a day, I'll have 581 in the end. Of course if I had done this to start with I would have about 1700 online.

Note to Jon, yes you have the photo on the last CD I gave Michelle, and sorry about the "balding" keyword, but I figured "gorgeous" and "supermodel" was stretching it a bit.

Now I'll link to a photographer's site. This guy just ticks me off. His photography is just stunning. He shot the Twilight movie posters, and countless celeb portraits. He has been to 5 countries, and is currently in Africa. His use of lighting is... well, just plain awesome. His name is Joey L. and I came across him by accident on youtube for a little video he made called Nikon Girl. The reason he sucks is because he has done all this and he is ONLY 20!!! He makes me look back at my life choices and wonder what I could have done differently.

Just noticed if I don't start getting ready for work I'll be late.

Be back tomorrow.

End of Day 1

I uploaded two yesterday. One was rejected for focus, the other for model release, which was odd to me, because I already have a few photos of this guy in my port with that release, but anyways. Uploaded a new release and it was accepted.

I promised myself that I would blog only once per day, so when I had that photo accepted, I had to fight the urge all day to post.

I also noticed (which I sorta knew, but didn't realise I was this bad at) I am horrible at keywording. Here's the photo with the keywords I used :

balding, caucasian, guy, head-shot, male, man, pose, salesman, smile, trust

You will notice the small number of words, which was all I could think of when I uploaded. Now I can think of a dozen more, preacher, pastor, insurance, leader, business, suit, formal...

I work today from 11-8, so any chance of photographing is pretty much shot. But I do plan on hitting my old files and seeing them from a fresh perspective, seeing if I missed anything.

Anywho, be back tomorrow

And so it begins...

I have been on shutterstock.com for years, May 19th, 2005 to be exact. I have slowly added new photos, a couple here, a couple there. Mostly scenics; lighthouses, animals and the such. I tried people photos, which tend to sell better, but I am horrible with people. I bring Angela, my girlfriend, with me to help pose, or to bounce ideas off of, even then I don't get very many "sellable" photos.

So, having watched Julie & Julia, a film inspired by Julie Powell and her blog about cooking through Julia Child's cookbook in one year, I had the crazy idea to cook through a cookbook, too. But instead of Julia Child's, I choose Alton Brown. But then I woke up this morning and thought to myself, why cooking? I like to cook, but it's not my passion. I am passionate about photography. For the last couple years, I have made resolutions to get 500 photos online by the end of that year, but that is as far as it goes.

This blog will chronicle my "adventure" to 500. I will pop out ideas, link to other great photographers, upload photos, and hopefully give you a laugh or two. But mostly, I want to build a routine in my photography that will hopefully help me overcome my laziness.

As so it begins. With your help and inspiration, I want to grow my tiny portfolio of 193 photos to the big ol' 500. I have 385 days, with 307 photos to go.