February is all over the map for me so far.

Shutterstock is performing admirably.  $90.28 through 8 days is fantastic. That’s a much higher pace than I think I can maintain but one worthy of trying!

Alamy has just busted out for me.  Overnight I had $360 worth of sales.  That’s more in one day than 13 agencies have done for me all time (I’ve since quit 5 of those and the other 8 are all obviously new or low performers.)  Alamy will finally owe me a payout, which is great!  Anytime you wake up to $400 worth of overnight sales, it’s a good day!

Dreamstime is also way up.  $41 in 8 days is a great pace considering I finished December with $50.61 in sales. If I could keep that up and SS up, I’d have had BMEs on both and overall without Alamy’s help.  Great pace – I hope it keeps up!  Dreamstime’s current BME is $125.75 but that may fall this month.

On the other end of the spectrum are a few non-performers.

IStock is completely dead to me.  Despite having constantly uploaded for almost 6 weeks now, I’ve made a piddling amount on IStock.  No matter how hard I try, iSuck at iStock.

Bigstock may as well not be open.  I have 4000 images online there and maybe 4 sales this month.  Good God that sucks!  I hope that improves but I don’t hold out much hope at this point.

Last year in February I made $539.39   This month I’m just over $580 in 8 days.  Needless to say my year-over-year looks fantastic.  I’ve never made $1000 in a month.  Will I do it in February 2011?  I think I may! My BME and the record we’re shooting for is $789.84 from March 2010. Next month should be the best of my year by historic standards.  Let’s get that!

Did someone say DIY Lighting?

I’ve been looking at a lot of great food photos for some lighting and technique inspiration.  One thing I’ve noticed is that the best of them look to be shot with small artificial lights. I’m guessing those are Lowel EGO lights.  (single light setup here.)

I’m not against spending money to make money and those EGOs are well worth the cash.  However, I think I may try making my own first.  I found a great DIY Lowel EGO post and I am going to work on these to see how they work.  I may end up upgrading to “real” EGOs but for now, this may do.

If I do end up creating these masterpieces, I’ll post photos of the setup and some test images.

That’s all I have for now.  This week I’m cooking a few interesting foods, a secret Valentine’s dinner, whipping up some other goodies in the kitchen and working on some more SEO for photographers.