Bronze and Exclusive

Today I had my 250th DL at iStockPhoto. This means I have become a Bronze level photographer and will be accepted as an iStock Exclusive contributor. That means an increase in royalties and a bunch of other benefits. I'm stoked!

What is iStockPhoto? Well basically iStockPhoto is an internet site where you can buy very high quality photos (or videos or illustrations) of just about anything for not very much. You can then use the photos in brochures or work presentations or booklets or school projects or you can just get them printed out at your local photography shop and hang them on your wall. It is Royalty Free (RF) which basically means once you have bought it you can use it over and over again. How much does it cost? Small pictures suitable for a brochure or booklet start at about $1.60 and from there they increase up to about $32 for an image you could print out at poster size. Think about it, you could download a photo as good as a Ken Duncan for $32 and get it printed out at poster size your local photography shop for $20 and get it framed! Or you could buy a Ken Duncan and pay $2000 for it.

Anyway, use this link if you are interested:

Then go over to the left and click on the "How to buy stock" link on the left and follow the instructions. If you buy some credits, I'll get paid a little bit too!

Unfortunate ... but memorable

Last night the Costa's came over for dinner and to hang out because Jeremy had agreed to model for me for some iStockphoto shots. Kate was just going to watch TV and chat with Meeks. It was the first time I had had anyone model for me so I was a bit nervous about it all. I had planned out the "shoot" and had a running sheet of photos that I wanted to take and had set up the lounge area in our house as the "studio". All was going well, until Jeremy who was sitting on the window sill leant back and managed to crack the glass of the front window with his back side. Huge shards of glass rained down around him and miraculously he didn't even get a scratch. It really was a lucky thing. Some of the shards of glass on the ground outside the window were a foot long and weighed quite a bit. I imagine if one of them had hit him we would have been racing off to hospital rather than searching on the internet for 24 Hour glass replacement. Of course the rest of the shoot was called off!

O'Brien couldn't fix the glass straight away because they were too busy and another company couldn't do it straight away because the glass pane was too big for what they had on the trucks at that time, so we boarded it up with a sheet of ply that the council had left outside Kate and Jeremy's place (don't tell anyone!). This afternoon O'Brien came out and fixed the glass and all is good again. What's more Jeremy has agreed to come back for a second helping tonight to finish the shoot. I've promised not to make him go near any more glass!

Mitchy slept through the whole thing. What a good boy!

The irony of Jeremy breaking a pane of glass with his backside while we were watching The Biggest Loser Finale was not lost on anyone :)

Along with the police visit after shooting the Shell Refinery at Clyde, I'm building a collection of unfortunate but memorable photography related incidents.

New Job

Yesterday I gave my notice to EDS that I would be resigning. I'll be starting a new job with IBM on 29th May. When I say "new job" it's really the same job, in the same location, with pretty much the same benefits, but with a different company (and more pay). Obviously I'm very pleased as it will make things like going to the UK for Krissy and Glenn's wedding next year financial easier (but still expensive!).

In other me news, iStockPhoto continues to go well. I had my hundredth image accepted last week and am very close to reaching 100 downloads (currently 97). I'm also approaching my first payout which wont be much, but it will be nice. I feel like my photos have improved a lot as a result of the "on the job training" (basically unless your photos aren't any good they don't get accepted) at iSP. I'm also going to treat myself to a new camera lens as reward for the new job. Not sure what yet, probably this one to go with this one which is the lens I currently use.

What's been happening?

As usual it's been an eventful week or so. Mitch has been up to his usual capers, including playing in the park next door

Click on the image to see Mitchy climb the ladder. Clever boy!


Picking flowers

Playing "Peek-a-boo"


And a visit to Fagan Park where we had a picnic and fed the ducks


There were some other birds there too which were a bit aggressive. Mitch was fearless though and wanted to go up and pat them. We thought perhaps that wasn't the best idea. His little fingers could be mistaken for juicy worms.

What other news is there? Mitch has learnt to count ... well kind of ... if you start at "one" he will say "two" and "three" and even "four" (which sometimes sounds like "bore") on a good day. He has trouble with "five" it comes out as "fight" or "fard" so he usually skips it and goes straight to "six". "Seven" is another problem number so he normally jumps to "eight" and then gives himself a little clap and cheer. For some reason he gives you a clap and cheer if you say "ten". It's his way of saying "Well done Mummy" or "Well done Daddy!". Either way it is very cute.

That's about all the news. I've sold 4 photos now which is very exciting. This duck is my highest seller!

First sale!

I sold my first photo on iStockPhoto today. Someone, somewhere in the world bought this photo of Mitchy drawing on his easel, what a cutie!