A decent month for me, RPD of 0.51 and this time IS brought in slightly more than AS and also more than SS, that doesnt happen often.

So I just joined discord to generate some images with midjourney bot for fun, and guess what! I typed: portrait of next president of united states realistic high resolutioin... and it generated photo of 4 guys, 3 of them resembling Ron De Santis A LOT!

Very interesting.

Thanks all for your input about taxes, it is indeed gonna be pain in the ass, as I expected. I am just afraid I will spend more for the consultation than what I earn in a month or two from stock, so I am determined to keep investigating online, or ask some dutch people in my surroundings.

Thanks also for encouraging me to take photos of the most touristy parts of Amsterdam which I was somehow overlooking, thinking that it would be too difficult to compete with what is already there. I am not thinking that anymore.

Here comes one fresh story (from today) that I would like to share. Full of determination and encouragement, and knowing that the weather will be good today, I set off
on my bike to the centrum of Amsterdam, to take photos around canals... after doing some pre-scanning before combined with online research on google maps and stock agencies, I found few good spots, took out my tripod, and started shooting the scenery with historical houses along the canal with houseboats in the foreground. In just a moment big group of tourists with a guide appeared meters away from me, where they all stopped, listening to the speech of their guide. I usually hate being seen, but I just ignored them, and kept shooting, trying different settings and slightly changing the composition. I had to interrupt my session to meet my gf for a coffee and cake in one of the nearby cafes, only to continue later, after susnet. So I started to unscrew my ND fliter from Irix that I purchased only recently, when the * thing fell on the ground, and then, to my horror, bounced to the side and slowly disappeared in the canal !!! I didnt even try to catch it, instead I was just staring at the spot where it fell as if frozen, and left the scene to have that coffee. I started by saying "if I tell you what just happened to me, you will think that I am joking"... then I told my gf what happened, and accused myself of extreme clumsiness in front of her. Together we revisited the spot, to measure the water level, only to find it deeper than expected. Then my gf walked away to the neaby big, old, docked boat, the one where people are actually living in it. She knocked on the door, and I sharply waved at her to stop it and come back. From whatever reason, I am the one who would never do that, expecting that I would get negative response, something like: what . do you want, dont disturb... but the doors opened, and my gf politely asked the older dutch man, whether he has some tool which we could use to try to retrieve the nd filter from the depth of the canal. To my surprise, in a short moment, he borrowed us 2 meter long stick with the net at the end, and we used it to comb the muddy bottom of the canal, in hopes to catch the filter in the net. I knew chances were super small, and unfortunately there is no happy ending here, but at least we tried. My gf left, I opened strong beer that I had ready in my backpack, visited few more places to take more photos, and returned home. At least I had some good sales today, to make that misery of losing 100+ euros nd filter less painful. So I hope next time I am less clumsy, and I hope some of the photos I took tonight will sell.

Quote from: Devotio777 on November 17, 2022, 06:56

Yeah, I dont have photos that are making 100s of sales, only two are just about to break first 100.
Only time will tell how much will that artificial intelligence change the industry, I hope the demand for
real photos of travel destination will still be there, because showing real photo of how certain place looks like and what you can expect as a tourist
is quite different than showcasing some AI-generated mishmash.
Hmm, but then nothing will prevent AI to mimick the drone perspective as well... but I see your point with drones, more original perspective and less saturated market.

If you are relatively new and have just over 1,000 images, to have a couple which are pushing 100 DLs, you are doing just fine.

Looking at your first uploads on SS, you have 42 windmills, the rest are mostly churches and castles. Diversity is a good thing after you have the local subjects covered. Of course the exception is, if you find a new one that's better than any windmill that you already have in your collection. More of the same isn't going to grow your demand or downloads as much as finding new subjects.

Niche is a good thing if you have the demand.

I have already move on from that windmill obsession, but at the same time, I photographed even some less-striking ones because many small dutch villages dont have any other eye-catching landmarks except for windmill or a church, so I thought it would be good to have them, just in case somone wanted a photo to represent that particular village or photo of that particular windmill.

Quote from: Devotio777 on November 15, 2022, 16:19

Quote from: Brasilnut on November 15, 2022, 11:19

I wouldn't share so openly my best-sellers from a place but it's been so long that it doesn't matter anymore.

So, I lived in Rotterdam, Netherlands between 2011-2014 and these were/are my best-sellers from that time.

At the time, Rotterdam was growing a lot with new buildings/infrastructure, so buyers picked up on those kinds of shots. Rotterdam Central station and Markthal come to mind.

I shot regularly in Amsterdam but very few sales from there with exception of inside Schiphol terminal and airplanes.

I'm keen to go back there in the spring and shoot the tulip fields with my drone.

Thanks for sharing. I forgot to say before that I am a follower of your website, and find it very helpful and inspiring.
I used to live in Breda till July 2022, had a boring job for a chinese company, working in excel, and spent countless hours reading your posts and thinking about stock instead of working.

Looks like you got into some building to have a good view on Rotterdam central station. I have been there so many times (and will be there tomorrow again on the way to a metal concert) but always thought there are too many distracting elements in the composition, and didnt take any photos.
I got a discount pass for dutch trains which allows me to travel for free at the weekends, and in combination with bike it is a great way to explore and cover many places. Nothing like cycling the whole day, shooting stock, and then ending in some pub drinking special beer to finish the day off!

Tulips with the drone sounds good.
I got this idea of capturing dutch tulips together with dutch train and rental bike also from dutch railways.
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lisse-south-holland-netherlands-0105-ovfiets-1969662391
Sold few times, but nothing crazy.

My best-seller is one of the first, if not the very first photo that I have uploaded to stock sites
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lighthouse-breda-by-sunset-540095644
all about that sky, which was really spectacular that moment.

followed by this one
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/scenery-traditional-dutch-windmill-called-de-1736017865
despite that bland sky

Hi Devotio,

Cool you follow my blog! I was probably at my boring corporate job in Madrid while writing some of the posts so we were both dreaming of freedom haha

Yes, the view of Rotterdam Central was taken from my ex-office so was priviledged to have this view point. From down below it's not as interesting.

These are three pretty shots but probably difficult to have 100s of sales as still too generic. For instance the sheep with windmills, soon we'll have AI that can create almost infinite variations of this type of scene with a query-search - many threads about this here alerady.

That's why I suggested the drone perspective but not as easy as buying a drone and taking off as there are lots of rules as you've mentioned. I still think it's worth getting all the qualifications / authorizations. Much of the NL is still OK to fly without major issues, including the tulip fields.

Yeah, I dont have photos that are making 100s of sales, only two are just about to break first 100.
Only time will tell how much will that artificial intelligence change the industry, I hope the demand for
real photos of travel destination will still be there, because showing real photo of how certain place looks like and what you can expect as a tourist
is quite different than showcasing some AI-generated mishmash.
Hmm, but then nothing will prevent AI to mimick the drone perspective as well... but I see your point with drones, more original perspective and less saturated market.

Wow, didnt expect stats to be published so early.

BME for me as well, with RPD of 0.68, and thats way higher than what I normally get.

You say that you live in Amsterdam - so my advice is to take advantage of it. The bestsellers from Amsterdam must have thousands of downloads, but I see no photos from the historic center of Amsterdam in your portfolio. Go to some famous scenic spots in Amsterdam and try to get them in the best light possible.

I am always on the lookout for good weather conditions and ready to hop on the bike and cycle to the center of Amsterdam to take photos, but competition for such a popular spot is high, so I often find myself taking photos somewhere bit further outside the center. There are many interesting neighbourhoods.
But like you say, as an insider, I have advantage to someone who is here only as a tourist for few days, so I am definitely going to keep shooting.

Devotio777, stop taking photos at all, don't waste your time on photography. In the photo you will not earn normal money. Shoot only video. That's all that you took in the photo, shoot now on video. Get yourself a tripod, gimbal. Yes, you can hire models and shoot them however you like, but models are a cost and you have no income. Therefore, shoot videos without models for now, and only videos.
If you are not satisfied with your camera, I can also recommend the Panasonic GH6, an excellent camera for drains. But the camera is not the main thing, the main thing is to constantly shoot videos so that the size of your portfolio grows to 6000 and more videos.
Look at my posts, I wrote on which stocks you need to upload a video or where you should strive to get.
That's all.

Yeah, I know money is in the video nowadays. I enjoy taking photos much more, but at the same time I see video as exciting new thing to learn and do.
I think my Sony A7IV is pretty good for video, but there is a lot to learn, have to find good tutorial about picture profiles, quality settings an all the rest.
As a fun fact, I recorded few videos with my smartphone last weekend at the airport, where climate activists broke in to the airport terrain through the fence.
There were some pretty dramatic moments and I thought what else should sell if not this... but to my disappointment I only sold few stills, and only for cents.
I guess in this particular case it would have been smarter to contact some news directly, the same day I took that footage.

Hello all,

I have been creeping around for a while, made few posts, but never really introduced myself.
I am 36 years old czech guy living in The Netherlands since 2014, doing stock last few years, but it has been only last 2 years since
I delved into it on a slightly more serious level. I figured out only recently that me being an INTJ, metalhead, and antisocial outsider, this is really the
best hobby for me, only I feel like being a decade or two late to make a living out of it (with the comissions tanking fatally) Anyway, just few days ago my port at SS reached 1000 photos (and in few months time I should reach that as well on adobe and istock). That made me to evaluate a bit, and think about the future.

As of now, with port of 1000 (and bit less on other 5 agencies) my monthly average in last 3 months was 83 dollars.
I would love to keep shooting stock in any case, but as you can imagine, I would like to squeeze some cash out of it along the way.
So, here is my port: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/milos+ruzicka
I would love to hear some honest and constructive critique. I am all self-learnt, no photo courses, no friends photographers, and it is more than likely I am still making some beginners mistakes.

On the top of that, I had these ideas for the future to maximize my profit:
- do more videos (I got only few, and it is all taken with smartphone, didnt really master the video with my Sony A7IV+Tamron 35-150 f2-2.8 yet, shamefully)
- do timelapses (I live in Amsterdam, and I was thinking about finding some slightly elevated spots with good view on the landmarks)
- do more model released photos (selfies basically, I got almost no friends, so idea of asking someone to be a model for me is just unreal as much as I would love it)
- do more sets (I used to submit one photo only, while now I know it does not hurt to submit more of the same subject, different angles, slight changes)

Does anything of it make sense ?

Thats quite humbling (and motivating to keep working on myself and improving) to see your great numbers people... I mean, I suppose you must have really brilliant content to have RPD of more than 1 dollar, or earning more than 100 per month on istock (or having monstrously enormous port, in this case)

It was a best month for me, with freaking 15 dollars
RPD of 0.33 disappointing as pretty much always. Cant recall a month with RPD higher than 0.45
Port of 700 assets, no vids

Hello all,

It seems that istock is way stricter than other major agencies when it comes to accepting photos with people in them.
The photos with me from behind, or with me wearing a mask were rejected (accepted by ss and as without any problem).
So I decided to re-upload via deepmeta with the digital model release attached. I am not going to use their recommended easy release app
beause it is paid, so I used model release form from adobe instead (since they say they accept model release forms from certain outside agencies)
but my submission was rejected. So I wanted to ask which digital model release to use to have my submissions accepted.
I hope I dont need to go back to prehistory by printing and physically signing anything.

I am down to only 50% of what I earned in April, but my port is relatively small, so no big conclusions in here. My RPD for May is 0.45 which is not high, but still significantly higher than the really disastrous RPD at SS.

Oh boy... it can bring me 245 euros if I nominate them all, and if they all get chosen. Tempting, but I am definitely not gonna give away my best sellers.
I am pretty sure some of the photos nominated wouldnt make 5 euros across all agencies in one year, maybe even in few years, but one probably needs to think about
it in such a way, that the photos involved are pretty much finished when it comes to sales after the free collection period expires, and that will probably apply also to sales on other agencies. If I can ask you people, how were your photos from free collection doing on other agencies?
I only had a handful last year because my port was (and kind of still is) small, so I dont have any relevant data.