From the category archives:
This weekend my pictures are featured on two lovely blogs! I’m honored.
At Akane Designs Christina is hosting a photography giveaway. There are several ways to enter the giveaway – you could win a fine art photograph for your walls – maybe one of mine!
Also:
At Modern Classics Jaimee included me in her lovely Mosaic Monday post.
Go visit and leave a comment for these lovely ladies!
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Just want to show you all my newest prints in the shop — I am finishing up some portrait session editing, and then I will have more to share!
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I have been missing in action around here lately … I feel so behind! I have spent the last few weeks winding down the school year with the kids, and beginning the (slightly more) relaxed summer season.
I have missed all of you in blogland!
This weekend looks like it will be a little rainy … perfect time for catching up on a backlog of pictures, blog posts and projects.
I will rejoin the photography world this weekend, friends!
I’ve had a nice break! 
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We had a lovely weekend here at the Torres household … I turned the big 3-0 on Friday afternoon, so I took the day off to relax and play. My sister came in from sunny L.A. and was not disappointed with the sunny Boise weather. We did a little bit of relaxing, a little bit of shopping, a little bit of game playing, a lot of visiting …
Baby Rachel also had a birthday this weekend … she is officially 6 months old as of Sunday. It is amazing how quickly she is learning new things … just a week or so ago Brian and I were noticing that she couldn’t sit at all, even propped up on her arms … and suddenly this week she sits (very unsteady, but sits nonetheless) and also she managed to get her arm all the way out from under her after rolling over …All this in a matter of a few days. It is so fun to watch. She had her 6-month checkup Monday afternoon and she was 16 pounds. That is only the 50th percentile (which surprised me – she has serious fat rolls people!) but she is way down in the 20th percentile for height (length? whatever). So she is a short, round little rolly polly.
I think the whole family is finally healthy after several bouts of the flu … we are looking forward to more sunshine and the last couple of Tball games this week.
There will be more prints available in the shop tonight … or maybe tomorrow depending on how late we are at Tball.
Hope you are all having a beautiful, sunshiney week!
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Hi Honey. Guess what. Next month is Mother’s Day AND my birthday. Just thought I would remind you.
And on another, completely unrelated note – look at this list of really cool stuff I have found lately. This list has nothing at all to do with the upcoming important holidays. Nope. Nothing at all. It is just a completely RANDOM list of cool stuff. I like to share lists of cool stuff. For no reason whatsoever.
Coincidentally, if random readers of this blog follow the links below, they might find places to purchase some of this cool stuff for themselves. Or their wives. Just coincidentally.
1. Lolas! Doesn’t that pink-shirted, blonde-haired Lola remind you of someone familiar?
2. Photomatix Pro. Remember all of those cool HDR images I have shown you lately? Wouldn’t you love it if I could make my own and hang them all over the house?
3. Lenswork Magazine. Lenswork is full of beautiful, classic, black and white photography. Inspiring.
4. Camera case. How cute are these? (via Modish) I would totally carry my camera around in one of these cases. If I had one. Which I do not.
5. Erin, over at House on Hill Road, is going to open up a shop really soon, selling patchwork camera straps. Those would look so great on, say, a Canon DSLR.
6. Christine Berrie’s camera illustrations. I bet photography enthusiasts would really love to own one of those. Maybe. I mean, you never know.
Anyways, honey, I hope you enjoyed this TOTALLY RANDOM list of fun items. Now you can get back to your regularly scheduled day. Love you.
P.S.
Don’t forget to take out the garbage today, K? Thanks!
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I have started contributing some images to iStockphoto and a few other microstock photography agencies. For those of you who don’t know, the microstock industry sells images for a relatively low price ($1-$10 range, it varies). The business model suggests that if you sell images at a low price, the amount of images that will sell will be significant … so it is possible (theoretically) to earn money based on many (low priced) sales of the same image over time. The target market for microstock includes web designers, advertising agencies, independent bloggers … really anyone who might want a low-priced image for some purpose. These are not “artsy” photographs, for the most part … they are generally used for more commercial purposes.
I decided to try it out for a few reasons. I take pictures every day. I love taking pictures, no matter what the subject. I take pictures of lots of random stuff around my house, I use my light tent to set up still life shots, and I carry my camera with me all over town. I am amassing quite a pile of images that are not really fine art type images (and if we are really being honest here, there are a lot that fall not in the “fine art” classification, not in the “commercial” classification, not even in the “snapshot” classification — but right square in the “crap” classification. But that is not what we are discussing here.) They are of things, items, stuff. I started browsing the files at iStockphoto, and thought, “hey, I can do that!” Plus I think that if I put some time and effort into taking photos today … I could potentially earn money on them for years to come.
So I submitted a few images to iStock and waited to see what would happen.
There are quite a few sites out there that are giving specific information about their experiences with microstock. I am probably a little too lazy to go into quite so much detail, but I thought I would tell you how things are going for me so far, and I will try to keep everyone up-to-date if you are interested.
So (as I said before I got sidetracked) I started with iStockphoto. You have to go through their registration process, read their guidelines and answer a little quiz, and then submit 3 images for them to review. If they think your images are of the appropriate type/quality, then you are accepted. I was accepted with my first submission (I have heard that many people have to try more than once before they are accepted – so I was super excited! YAY! See my head growing bigger?) You then have to submit your images again for specific approval into their database. They accepted 2 out of my first 3 … I had over sharpened the 3rd, so I fixed that, resubmitted, and that one was accepted too. YAY me! I have since submitted 2 more that were accepted, a couple that were flat out rejected (my head got a bit smaller) and some that have been rejected, but after I fix what they don’t like I can resubmit. You can see all my files here.
So … then last week I had my first download! YAY!!!! Someone bought an image! I have no idea who, or what for … but it is exciting nonetheless!
So, with this good start, I decided to branch out to other microstock agencies. Shutterstock – you have to go through their registration process, then submit 10 initial images. They review your images, and if they like/accept 7 out of the 10, then you are good to go! Ummm … yeah. They only liked 1 of my images out of my first 10. So now I have to wait 30 days before I can try again (head completely deflated back to normal now!)
I also tried Dreamstime. At Dreamstime you just register and start uploading right away … but they still review and approve each image. So I signed up and started submitting … and I am about a 50/50 acceptance rate. Some that were approved at iStock were rejected here, but then they also accepted some that iStock didn’t want. (my Dreamstime portfolio is here)
I am interested to see how this hobby continues to develop … I will keep you posted! Has anyone else tried selling via microstock? What have your experiences been?
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