Photoshelter - Pro Stock

You might notice a new little widget to the right of this page. I have recently joined the Pro Stock collection of Photoshelter. Photoshelter is a service that promotes the policy of 'fair trade photography'. Let me explain a little, the last few years has seen a boom in the sales of Royalty Free imagery and microstock agencies. It is no secret that this policy has benefited very few professional photographers and sites like iStock Photo which sell images for pittance turn around and give photographers a pittance of that pittance. The big boys in the stock industry, (Corbis and Getty) have welcomed the huge increase of amateur photographers that are willing to sell their images for nothing, and in the process have effectively cut the bottom out of the stock market and making it much harder to make any money on stock.

It is nothing new that our industry is changing and many of us, including myself, welcome that change. We must adapt and diversify but the microstock and Royalty Free has certainly brought the quality of our work down. A photographer that I respect greatly, Vincent Laforet, has more to say on the state of our industry here.

So we get things like Photoshelter and Digital Railroad. Both which offer photographers the option to set their prices and receive respectful amount of the final sale price (70% and 80%) respectively. It is my hope that more and more art buyers that are searching for stock imagery will recognize this effort of 'fair trade photography' and use more of these two services.

If you wish to see what I have in the collection, click on it below or on the right. I am in the process of adding plenty more so check back.

Portfolio 2008

A portfolio process is a long and painful process. Your ego will be trampled to the point where it walks out the door, leaving you crying in a dark room because IT doesn't want to be abused any more.

The process takes many hours of culling and editing and seeking opinions you respect. Then you spend hours in front of a computer screen working on images. At which point you find the best printer you can find, (Maarten Wouters at M*G!C), the best paper you can find, (Ilford Gold Fibre), and you watch the cash take the same route your ego did two weeks before. Once it is printed you spend more hours fitting it into your book and then removing every speck of dust from the prints as if they were disease.

One of the questions you must solve is, how many images should I put in. Anywhere from 10 - 50 images can be found in a book, but I believe in the saying 'Less is More' and my wallet wholeheartedly agrees. Between 20 - 25 images is the maximum. Any more then that and the client needs to be a family member or your best friend because no one else has that amount of patience.

After 8 years of traveling and photographing 5 different continents, what made the cut? See Here.

Soccer Indonesian Style

Early morning, walking along Kuta beach in Bali, I had to photograph this little character. The image of him carrying that soccer ball with the waves crashing in the back ground was great. I hope you enjoy it as well.