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

© Tomas Marek, Dreamstime.com

While NiltoMil covers a wide variety of topics from SEO on Technorati to shooting with models, the main point of its existence is to document our progress from $0 to $1,000,000.  As such, the end of the year is a good time for 2008 wrap up and goal setting for next year.

As of December 31st, our total earnings will be just a shade over $6,500.  While a decent amount of money, we will not get to $1,000,000 with years like that.  Obviously there’s  a need to greatly increase our number of salable images quickly.

Goals in microstock may be measured by many different statistics:  RPI, earnings, download rates, sell through, approval percent, size of your portfolio, etc.  For NiltoMil, we’ll focus on the obvious two: portfolio size and earnings.

My goal for 2009 portfolio size is to have more than 10,000 accepted images by 12/31/09 on most of my sites (Istock will be an exception of course, Fotolia may be as well).  Shutterstock, 123RF, Bigstock, Dreamstime, MostPhotos and StockXpert should *definitely* hit this goal for me to be successful.

My goal for 2009 earnings is to earn $25,000 in stock photography for the year. While not “huge” by any definition, this would be around $2000 a month for the year and would represent the figure that would continue our journey in a positive direction.

So here’s a reason to continue reading NiltoMil.  I am not going to stick around and pretend to be something I’m not.  Too many people set goals and fail to reach them, yet still continue the journey unfazed.  I often share my experiences and ideas in hopes of helping you.  If I can’t help myself first, I can’t help you.

If I fail to reach both goals by 12/31/09, NiltoMil.com will close for good whether I continue to shoot microstock or not.

So wish me luck!  I wish you luck in 2009 in reaching all of your goals.  (Luck wishing appreciated by clicking “Comment” below)

Track our progress at the NiltoMil Spreadsheet

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.

Leaf had an interesting question in the Microstock Group Forum – What are your lifetime microstock goals?

Like many photographers, my goal would be to travel all over the world. I would love to have the resources to drop everything, fly to Europe and shoot for a month. I would like to see Africa, revisit the Great Wall of China, freeze my butt off in Alaska. Life is not a journey, it’s an experience. For me, traveling would be that ultimate experience.

My top places to visit, not in any particular order:

1 ) Hawaii – I want to take my parents to Hawaii before it’s too late. My grandmother wanted to visit Hawaii and never had a chance to visit. My mother has internalized this dream herself and I feel like I must make it happen.

2 ) Australia – home of my best friend and kangaroos. What better way to spend winter in NY than NOT IN NEW YORK?

3 ) Africa – Kenya, Egypt. I would love to see the desert and the sand. View the pyramids and see old Cairo.

4 ) Italy – mainly Venice, Rome and Tuscany region. To drink wine and float down the rivers (I’ve heard gondola rides are not all that in person – I’d still like to!) And spend a relaxing week at a home in Tuscany – relaxing so far from everything I know.

5 ) The Galapagos Islands. They were on my short list of honeymoon destinations. I would like to see things you can’t see anywhere else, to experience what Darwin saw. I am about the experiences and nothing can beat seeing creatures that just shouldn’t exist, living in the wild.

6 ) Ireland. Green and castles. That’s what I think of. And rain. I would love to see the old Irish land, castles emerging from the hillsides. Stonework, architecture – what a great getaway.

7 ) Alaska – there’s something about being thousands of miles from anything you’ve ever known and in a situation beyond your immediate control that feels freeing. I speak from experience having spent a year in Korea alone. Alaska is another exotic must on my wish list.

8 ) New Orleans – strikes me as something everyone should do once. An interesting place, from all I’ve heard.

9 ) All 50 US States – what can I say, I’m a guy who likes statistics and completing tasks. 50/50 is a great stat!

10 ) Cheju Island, South Korea – I was ill and had a twisted ankle the first time I went. I would like to go back, healthy and ready to see the island for all it has. I had so many beautiful ideas about my trip there and they turned out to be … less than ideal. I would like another chance at Cheju.

How do you make all your dreams come true?