Hi & welcome back! NiltoMil is officially off and running again – I’m keywording, submitting, pushing images and then working on shooting some new today.? I’m going to be pushing some older images even though I know they won’t sell as well as I’d like simply because I want the momentum to begin NOW not in a month when I get new stuff edited.

I’m ready for 2010!? January will be a very poor month since I’m starting so late but February should show some recovery.

In the last 6 months when I was mainly gone:

• Shot weddings – and we have 4 other photographers who shot during that time as well.
• Sold my house/bought a new house – a fixer-upper.? We’ve been working on it almost everyday since Nov 20th for 12+ hours per day.
• Delved into the food styling/preparing/photo world.? I’ve read almost every post on Still Life With, Matt Bites, and many other foodie blogs.? I’ve devoured four entire food photography books including Rinder/Smith’s new book and Lou Manna’s classic.
• Redesigned our business brand
• Traveled to Maine, twice.? Traveled to NYC.

Now that I’m back my goal is to create an income that will pay my mortgage first, other bills later.? Our mortgage is $680.? This is an achievable goal that I do have to reach for. I’ll do a more extensive goals post in the next week or so but that’s the start of it.

Current BME: $575.46, July 2008

January – blessed January!? How do I love thee?

It was absolutely fantastic to get back to uploading with any sense of regularity.? I only uploaded about 200 new images during our busy bridal show/booking month but 200 is more than enough to get me back on track!

As always, our spreadsheet of microstock earnings is here.

The January numbers were great!? In fact, this was our best month since I stopped uploading last July (other than the ridiculous ELs from SS in Nov (3 of them!)? The final total for all this excitement was 424.82

To put that in perspective for us, Shutterstock was actually down a few dollars.? We had SIX BMEs – Dreamstime, IStock, FeaturePics, Crestock, ImageCatalog and SnapVillage.? Also, StockXpert would have been a BME but we had an EL in Nov.? Our old BME was $19.10 though and so this month’s $30 would have destroyed that!

IStock – no clue.? No new images but it was almost TWICE my BME.? I’ve had almost that many images online for FOUR YEARS and never gone up over $10 really.? $17 was a huge leap.? There’s some speculation that it was a result of all their Best Match changes.? We’ll see if it continues (plus I’m going to be uploading to IStock this month like mad so we’ll see if that helps!)

FeaturePics had a … slightly insane month!? I actually repriced all of my images to $10 from $2 before.? I only had 2 sales but those 2 sales resulted in $15.75, or 61% of my all-time FeaturePics earnings.? It was TRIPLE my prior BME.? I’m going to be working on some ideas to push my FeaturePics gallery around the next 6 months so we’ll see if I can’t keep getting a few sales there each month at the new price.

Check out my Fotolia gallery size increase on the spreadsheet – from 465 last April to 646 as of Dec 31st to 1350 as of tonight!? I over doubled my Fotolia gallery in one month!? The power of the push, I guess.? I worked hard on Fotolia (while watching TV) so we’ll hope that pays off over this month and beyond.

Other interesting bits – I passed 2,000 images on FotoMind and MostPhotos and will pass it on a bunch of other sites this month.? Gotta keep pushing!? You’ll note there are *new* agencies on the list – more on that in a future post…

My BME total is $575.46 and I’ll state for the record now that I hope February can beat that.? I’m only $150 away so I think I can make that up without much problem.? I wouldn’t be surprised to go well over $600.? I have a big month ahead – some news coming soon on our next stock photo trip as well!

Other sites reporting earnings:

Microstock Diaries

jrtb

CJ Photography

Microstock Junction

Driftless Ramblings

PDTNC

MelastMohican

Pixels Away

Bankizdjec

Microstock Experiment

Any I’m missing?? This list is getting rather comprehensive!

The top image comes from Philadelphia – we shot with these three models and one other on our trip.? They are all fantastic models and we hope to shoot with them all again!? We’re actually shooting Ronice’s wedding in April? so we know we’ll see her soon at least.

The next image is Laura – one of the best “character” models we had on the trip for sure!? She did a number of different looks including this nautical theme.? I like the red, white & blue theme as well as the crazy weather around her.? It was a very windy, dark day but we made some great images, I think.

Joseph was our lone Virginia Beach model.? We scheduled 14 models and he was the only one who showed at all.? It was a very difficult day and we considered turning around right then and coming home.? Joseph saved the day with hundreds of awesome photos.

One more trip photo for now – the Assateague ponies.? We now have a 20×24″ of this on our wall in the studio.? This print looks FANTASTIC at that size.? I love the subtle colors in it and the sense of depth with the second pony.? It reminds me how incredible our trip was.

Finally, we’re back to the studio for a little mother/daughter action where Michelle and Kelsey took over in the studio and produced some fun images on white.? This is just one of the series but we had so much fun!? We need to get those two back in here soon.

Once in awhile it’s great to remember that we enjoy our job and that we’re pretty good at it.? Sometimes that gets lost in SEO, business, goal setting, day-to-day business operations, etc. but it’s still important to remember what we do and why we do it.? I love being a stock photographer and despite having many other roles in my life (father, business owner, wedding photographer, book publisher, author) I still enjoy stock more than almost anything else in my life.? It’s the perfect job for me and I want to remember that.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work. – Thomas Edison

It?s always great when a project starts to gather momentum. I wanted to take a moment to AGAIN thank my blog readers for coming to see what I?m up to. I know the last month has been off but it?s going to get really exciting around here VERY soon. October 8th and counting!

There have been a few bits mentioned about NiltoMil.com that I think warrant posting about:

1) Image of the Day at Snapvillage for 100 Yard Dash – my #1 most popular image ever.

2) We?re doing an interview with Moodboard, a stock photo site that seems to have some cool options for selling your images.

3) More SnapVillage blog love – Inclusion in their ?Top 20 Microstock Resource Sites?

4) Google loves us more. We?re up to #4 on ?microstock blog?, #3 on ?microstock blogs?, #7 on ?microstock earnings? and #1 for ?microstock goals? (no quotes on any search). We?re no Microstock Diaries yet. Lee is a fantastic blogger and anyone not reading him is missing a TON of great info. All we can do is try to be another voice in a growing sea.

Adding all this love to our TWO new sponsorships (ProPhotoRental.com and ThinkTankPhoto.com – see WeWillExplore.com for more details) and we?re feeling really excited to get back to work and ready to rock this winter in microstock. We have 5 more weddings before the end of the season. I will finish our last edits hopefully on November 9th, the day after our last wedding. Once that happens, I?m full time microstock for 6 months. Excitement!!!

If you?re following our microstock TRIPS at http://www.wewillexplore.com you may already know this but we secured our first sponsor for the trip today. Pro Photo Rental has agreed to sponsor us with some gear for our trip in exchange for some images from their lenses and telling you & them what we think of the gear. This is great news! We?re going to have much more access to cool lenses & such as well as the ability to branch out of our ?normal? gear and shoot with some fun stuff we don?t normally get to use.

So that?s the first major announcement on our trip. More will be released soon – we may have a new sponsor to announce in the next week as well as a working outline of the trip.