When you have restrictive parameters — microstock's obsession with film grain and digital artifacts, or their paranoid fear of unreleased images, even for what has been traditional editorial usage — then it does call for some creativity. My background is in editorial, documentary and journalism. That is still what I enjoy.

As many have stated, I will continue to offer up what I do and be happy when my work is useful to others. As long as it lasts, I have a nice income stream to suppliment my retirement.

Overall I wish I were independently wealthy and could take stock photos, and travel and take nature shots all the time. To me that would be a dream come true.

  you're not alone, but a lot depends on your goals - travel AND wealth are antagonists - one usually defeats the other.  for me travel was more important, so i foundincome sources that would let me do more travel -- that meant consulting programming work and shareware and online games in the early internet days.  also some traditional stock sales thru getty & corbis; the key was jobs that were extremely flexible but with potential for a decent income to allow time off. 

trade off was long range security -- and the niches themselves changed, so it's not a path if yu want to avid risk and uncertainty -- most shareware became irrelevant as more & more features became part of operating systems [anyone remember TSR routines that let you run more than one routine at a time?]  online & other computer games were all independly developed at first, but gradually the hollywood model took over .

today microstock can work [for now] as part of a plan -- recognize you're not going to be a major player but instead adapt what's available to meet YOUR goals.

steve