February Round Up

Graph Dreamstime Free Photo



Dreamstime Free Photos





It's been a busy month, despite having no work, I haven't got as much done as I'd hope but I did a lot anyway. Including doing my first bungee jump, a 4 day trip to Macau, a 6 day trip to South Taiwan, more exercise and lots of reading.

Photography

The Extended License at Shutterstock is the obviously highlight and this has resulted in a Best Month Ever (BME). Shutterstock also brought in the most dollars. On the downside, I haven't produced many new pictures and didn't increase my portfolio size much, this despite having more time. I expected to increase my portfolio size easily but it didn't happened, partly I hampered by bad weather. Both trips had mostly bad weather, which isn't ideal for stock photography.


Dreamstime Total Portfolio 488 New Photos 18 Feb $10.65
Shutterstock Total Portfolio 205 New Photos 10 Feb $43.63
Fotolia Total Portfolio 215 New Photos 2 Feb $6.26
123RF Total Portfolio 411 New Photos 0 Feb $8.05

Total Earnings $68.59

Highlights

• Extended licence at Shutterstock
• BME - Shutterstock - $43.63
• Started taking 'people' pictures and got a friend involved in one photo session.


Other photography highlights of the month.

• I might have found a studio that I could use for photography.
• After seeing my flickr a/c, a woman with three shops and sells on-line wants me to make some designs for T-shirts aimed at teenage girls.

Writing

I've written some stuff and have gather the bulk on two subjects that could be made into a few articles. I've found a new topic, the health of teeth, that I'm interested in and if I make contact with some 'experts' it should be easy to get stuff published.

Generally though, I'm behind where I would like to be though.

I only contacted one editor. This was disappointing.

Chinese

I feel that my Chinese is progressing, it's going forward and I can understand more and more. My speaking is still clumsy though.
Started to learn characters again. This is something I'm good at. I don't know why, but I find learning characters enjoyable and easy, relative to speaking.

Comfort Challenges

I did the physical ones I set out to do. The bungee jump and getting my hair shaved were very easy (fighting but only take a short time to do). The ones I still need to do are 'contacting editors and Chinese from the streets (taking audio recordings of people on the street, reading local signs around were I live).



Click here to see The Bungee Jump

Escaped the Race - February

I've escaped the race, well, at least for now. Currently I'm in Macau, hence, no photo. The place is very photogenic but the weather has been miserable so far and seemingly getting worse by the day.

Yesterday was a great day as I did something that I thought I'd never do. I'll put the video up and some photos when I get back to Taiwan but I won't spoil the surprise just yet.

February targets

Writing

Contact 10 editors about stories I'm developing
Visit the Taiwan Tourist Board and develop an article for them.
Develop some articles so by the end of the month I have 4-5 complete-ist articles and another 4-5 developing.

Blog

Overall, I want to get more professional in my blogging.

Learn how to do internal links in a post.
Use Luis's suggest on how to insert tables - print screen
Follow some more relevant blogs
Link up with Youtube

Videoing

Get more familiar with the technology
Download video on to the computer
Check out video submission requirements for Shutterstock
Make some Language orientated videos.

Photography

This should be easily accomplished

Upload 40 new photos for 123Rf, Shutterstock and Dreamstime.
Do some involving people.

January Round Up

Freedom in Life

Dreamstime Free Photos Here









Considering I escape the race at the end of tomorrow, my alternative income looks inadequate. This month I earned $39.38 from stock photography and about $27 for writing an article for the company's newsletter.

Stock Photography Report


Dreamstime - Total Portfolio - 470 New Photos - 41 Jan earnings - 13.82
Shutterstock Total Portfolio - 195 New Photos - 40 Jan earnings - 15.38
123RF Total Portfolio - 411 New Photos - 16 Jan earnings - 4.79
Fotolia Total Portfolio - 213 New Photos - 10 Jan earnings - 5.39

Highlights

Shutterstock was the number one agent for the second month running. Only had one 'on-demand' download. Sales were up over the previous month and 40 new photos is the biggest portfolio expansion ever.

Dreamstime - I had 23 downloads but rates per photo were low. I had my first referral (no income and very mysterious). Added 41 photos, this was the biggest expansion of the portfolio since Jan 09.

Fotolia - Not a highlight, but they have started to deducted tax. My British status has been established but tax still seems to be deducted. I'm finding it hard to expand my portfolio with this agency.

Writing

I had an 'advice article' for teachers in Taiwan published in my teaching company's newsletter. This is the third article published with them.








Submit Photos to Shutterstock and make $$$!

Update

Update

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past month researching ‘language learning’. There are definitely many camps out there but the one that’s got my attention is the ‘acquisition approach’. This approach requires a ‘silent’ period that can last for up to a 1,000 hours and massive input of the target language. It doesn’t require books, study or even thinking, as these practices will ultimately restrict your ability in your chosen language.

Advocates of this approach include;


Though I haven’t researched it thoroughly, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of products for this approach to language learning. The advocates would say that in this age of technology you can source many of the things yourself but this is time consuming and if you’re not familiar with your target language you might end up getting stuff in the wrong language i.e. Mandarin and Cantonese.

I want over the next few months to develop a proto product designed to meet the requirement of the ‘acquisition approach’. I will use it myself to learn Chinese and I’ll share with friends to see what they think.

Chinese – this is slowly improving. I can understand many more words now and sometimes I get the gist of what they’re talking about on TV. There hasn’t been any jumps in my comprehension though.

Photography – my income for July was down to $36 from $41 in June. Currently I’m likely to get around $30 for August. The summer months are suppose to be slower than most other months and I hope this turns out to be true. My aim is now to earn a $100 per month by the end of the year. To achieve this I really need to increase my uploads. I also need to upload people pictures as they’re more in demand than objects and scenery.

Writing – I haven’t done much on this for some time.

Videoing - despite getting a brand new video camera I haven’t done much with it. I have a plan to make a language video as well as to record different techniques that could be used to ‘acquire language’.

Overall, I don't think I'm making much progress towards being free from work. There are ideas bubbling but I really need to take the next step with them.