Hi All,

Thought id introduce myself as I'm really enjoying this site. I work in Melbourne Australia freelance taking lots of travel/portrait/wedding/music imagery.

I dabbled in stock a while back but didn't give it enough of an effort for it to do anything. Wish I had now. I basically got into it again after a big road trip across the US and trying to take more stock like photos. I bought a Kindle, downloaded some books and have thrown myself into it. Its also a way for me to sort thru the 10s of thousands of images that I have doing nothing on my PC.

An idea of my portfolio can be seen here:

http://depositphotos.com/portfolio-2209782.html

I am achieving between 65-95% acceptance rate to 9 libraries. Fairly happy. Im still uploading borderline shots to test the boundaries of the reviewers. For example how much of a copyrighted landmark can be in a shot before its rejected. How small can people be without a model licence etc. Its fun stuff overall. A few sales have come thru but with only 100 uploaded or so I guess that should be the case.

My next step is to move more into the stock photography concept type thing. Most of my shots are standard travel, urban type imagery. Id like to do the 'man resting on holiday' type image. Also explore the editorial imagery sector. I have A LOT of images that I think meet this grade. I just don't understand it yet

Anyhow enuff from me. Have a good day!

Chris

Hey Chris, welcome along! I'm sure you will find MSG to be a useful place.

All the best with it.

I've been on-board for almost 2 years now and the more involved, the deeper I go! To the point now where its almost obsessive. Rejections help you learn. Acceptance keeps you motivated.

Very nice portfolio. A real potpourri. You'll do well!

Welcome.  I'm pretty new myself, but have already found this forum an invaluable resource.  Not least to know that you're not alone when an inspector rejects your "awesome" image, or an agency's upload requirements want to make you tear your hair out

Flamingo's used to live in Australia, but now are extinct there." Phoeniconotius eyrensis, from the late Oligocene of South Australia, was one of the most massively built flamingos known. At the time Lake Eyre was a vast inland lake, home to many other water birds as well as crocodiles, lungfish and numerous marsupials. The youngest Australian fossil flamingo is Pleistocene in age. Flamingos most likely became extinct in Australia as increasing aridity caused permanent inland waterways to disappear." (Australian Museum). However  there are flamingos in Zoos when they escape they gorge themselves at barbies eating prawns and drinking tinnys this turns them bright orange. 

Hey Chris welcome.

I myself am quite new to the site but have well over a decade in stock photography so thought I'd toss in my 2 cents worth

A few sales have come thru but with only 100 uploaded or so I guess that should be the case.

 

Years back (before photography) I worked in advertising, then, your target was 1 sale per 100 people that saw an advertisement, according to  friends still in the industry these figures are still pretty accurate with 1-2 sales per 100 people. 
I use this as a guide for selling stock images, for every 100 'views' of an image I hope to achieve 1 sale.  If I have had an image up for a while and it is in excess of 150 views with no sales I either re-keyword it and try again or delete it if it's not a strong image.
Just a rough way to measure sales and not clutter up your portfolio.

My next step is to move more into the stock photography concept ----  Id like to do the 'man resting on holiday' type image.
Chris

A tip on keywording, you being an Aussie, and me a Brit, we speak proper English unlike our Yankee counterparts to me and you. 'Man resting on holiday' means just that.  To the Americans 'Holidays' are Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter etc, they refer to our version of holiday as 'Vacation' so just remember when keywording the Americans make up a massive part of the market so make sure you aren't missing sales due to differences in languages.

All the best, Darren.