Getting started in microstocks

If you have a DSLR camera, a passion for photography and an appetite for learning then microstocks could be for you. Treat it as an experiment and the very least it will do for you is to broaden your photographic horizons.

You have a choice of agencies to start with but some require that you qualify for photography status first before you can submit i.e. Shutterstock, Istockphotos and Stockxpert.

I’d suggest that you first try Dreamstime, Fotolia and 123RF because;
• You can summit photographs straight away.
• If your photographs get rejected, you can still submit more.
• You will learn from rejections and be in a better position to submit more photos.

You can build up a portfolio and also understand which photos are the most suitable to use to gain qualified status at Shutterstock, Istockphotos and Stockxpert.

Shutterstock is now considered to be the number one in microstocks. It certainly is in my experience but it’s also notoriously hard to get accepted. It took me three goes and knocked my confidence. After my first rejection, I didn’t try microstocks for another year and Shutterstock for another 15 months.

Here are some tips for submitting to Shutterstock.

Only submit photos that were taken at ISO 100 or less.
Submitted photos should be different from one another.
Use the Shutterstock forums to help. They have (http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4) one specifically for critiquing new submitters.

And good luck. I’ve found that once you have been accepted by Shutterstock that they are fairly constant with what they accept and reject. It’s now my favourite site.

A similar approach with Stockxpert will get you accepted though I haven’t really summitted many more as I found their keyword requirements complicated.

Don’t ask me about Istockphotos; I’m still to be accepted there. They have an artistic qualification system where you submit three photos and they accept you depending on ‘artistic’ quality. I think if you have good stock photos of people then you’ll get accepted.


Submit Photos to Shutterstock and make $$$!





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Why Travel?

Why eat? Because it’s essential to your body! So why travel, because it’s essential to living, to growing, to your mind. It can give you insights to the world, to other people as well as yourself that sitting in a cubicle or reading a book won’t give you.

If life is all about experiences then travel is the ultimate experience rich medium. Exotic locations, different people, continuously changing situations and challenges face you.

You learn, or is it, relearn to appreciate things. Simple things start giving you pleasure again; like eating a new fruit, seeing a waterfall, walking through a forest, hearing a foreign language and getting up for sunrise.

In truth you can have many of these pleasures at home but the business of life and time has the effect of closing ourselves and our senses to these things. When you travel many of these senses reawake. You feel alive, you start to be creative, you deal with problems and you get along with people, most of them anyway.

There are some experiences that you can’t have at home or are just simple better when you go traveling. These include exploring other cultures, learning a foreign language, studying meditation with an Indian guru (maybe in New York or London) and this is just the tip of one gigantic iceberg.

Some experiences I had so far whilst traveling.

• 17 day trek in Nepal – changed my view of trekking and reconnected me with my inner child that fantasized about climbing icy peaks and walking across the Antarctic.
• Disastrous climb of Adam’s peak – taught me many valuable lessons about getting prepared for trekking and big challenges.
• 2 day white water rafting in Nepal
• Teaching English in a Jungle Refugee camp in Thailand – an amazing experience that taught me how resilient people can be.
• Climbing Santa Maria, Guatemala, to witness a mini explosion of her side cone, which sent a plume of smoke about a kilometer into the air – simply awesome!
• Gate crashing a Halloween Party at an Intercontinental in Columbia, when we weren’t even suppose to be in the country
• Being freaked out in Burma (Myanmar) by the terrible political situation there.
• Two weeks of hedonistic indulgence in Goa

This is why I want to break free from work and go traveling again. This time with a view of making money to sustain it and to experiment with different styles of traveling.