And this past weekend I was in Nashville, Tennessee for another group shoot called Inhauslypse.01 hosted by a new friend of mine (and talented photographer), Dieter Spears. I got home from the event pretty tired since it is the second one in less than two weeks, but I had a great time and made a lot of fun new photos to add to my stock portfolio. Enjoy the trailer:
Hear ye, hear ye! Today marks another milestone for me as I reached 100,000 photos sold on istockphoto.com In addition to the contract commercial photography that I have always done, over the last three years, shooting and selling stock photos has increased my total income significantly and has allowed me the flexibility to travel longer and more frequently to capture more unique images. It has required a lot of time, hard work, and dedication, but I have learned a lot and it has definitely been worth the effort. With the recent announcement of istock's Vetta collection, I am focusing on pushing my work even further to create even higher calibre images (click here to view my Vetta files so far). I look forward to the coming years as I set my sights on the next milestone of 200,000 downloads!
Twice a month, istockphoto sends out an email blast--Hot Shots--showing their favorite eight new images and comparing them to Getty's best new images. In my opinion, the istock images are almost always on par or better than Getty's images, even though the Getty images cost a whole lot more. Today's issue featured my Meticulous Father Cutting the Lawn with Scissors image. It's always nice to receive some kudos and recognition for my work. Thanks istock!
I've been in Calgary for the last week attending a big 3-day photo shoot event hosted by istockphoto. They had set up several different stations with models, props and a theme (ie: Impossible Love, Mobster Christmas, Camping, Community Activism, Riot, etc.) that we all rotated through and we each had only 10 minutes to stage, light and photograph the scene. It was a very challenging exercise, especially since I am used to being in control of my shoots, thinking them through ahead of time, and not being limited by time. But it was a great learning experience! There were 50 very talented photographers in attendance, many of who's work I have admired for years. It was great to be able to meet them in person, see how they work, and develop new friendships with other passionate photographers.
I'm currently in Cancun (Cozumel today to be exact) enjoying some well-deserved family time. It seems that as a photographer, I end up doing so many shoots outside of the normal M-F 9am-5pm timeframe... early morning shoots, evening shoots, weekend shoots, shoots that require travel away from home, etc. That eats into our personal time as a family, so I try to make up for it with a big family vacation once a year where the family is the first priority instead of the job. Of course, being the photo junkie that I am, I can't help but bring a minimal amount of camera equipment and sneak away once in a while to capture a couple of shots for my stock portfolio. It doesn't hurt to have some cute models with me all the time either. ;-) As I've been going through the images, I've noticed that the number of photos I have of each child rises proportionally with the age of my kids. I think that is due mainly to the fact that their attention span and willingness to be photographed increases with age.