I’ve been trying to jumpstart my photography hobbies again, and as a result I’ve been looking into ways I could profit off some of the images I take. After some research and Googling, I learned about how some amateur photographers have been able to generate a pretty decent monthly income by submitting their portfolios to microstock agencies. Due to their nature, you only get a percentage of the profits for every photo downloaded or sold, but the more photos that get accepted and placed in the database, the more chances you’ll have of seeing your income steadily go up. In addition, they take all the guesswork out of building your own portfolio store, and provide a much needed marketplace to help monetize your images, something you wouldn’t be able to do on your own unless you were already lucky enough to have a high profile website. As hard as it might be to believe, I am unfortunately not one opf those people.

From what I read, iStock and Shutterstock were the two most popular microstock sites, and those photographers who joined and been accepted have done very well with them, especially Shutterstock. So I decided to join the party too. After all, my photos aren’t doing anything for me just sitting on the hard drive. Why not sell them and start padding my income a little? Maybe with the extra cash I can buy some niceties that’ll help me impress the ladies and finally get me a date for those lonely Friday nights.

After making my decision, I quickly went to work. I upgraded my Photoshop software with the Noise Ninja plugin, then spent hours sifting through my photos, picking out the best ones, then running them through Noise Ninja to get rid of any digital and noise artifacts, adjusted the color tones here and there where needed, and by the end of the day I had ten gorgeous photos I felt would easily pass inspection.

I submitted my photo samples to Shutterstock, and got back a response a few hours later:

5061175 Rejected
5061178 Rejected
5061181 Rejected
5061184 Rejected
5061187 Rejected
5061190 Rejected
5061193 Rejected
5061196 Rejected
5061199 Rejected
5061202 Rejected

Regards,
Shutterstock Support

Crikey, I hadn’t seen this much rejection since I last logged on to eHarmony. Apparently I’ve arrived very late in the microstock game here, and the competition to get accepted into agencies like Shutterstock has become so fierce now that even professional photographers are being rejected.

Well that’s just great. If only I could go back to 2005 so I could give myself a good slap across the face and tell that idiot, “Hey you schmuck! Go check out those microstock sites before they start getting popular! You can make some real coinage man!”

*Sigh* Always too little, too late.

On the upside, I can apply again in 30 days. But now that Shutterstock has basically deemed my entire portfolio to be utter crap, I’ll have to start all over again.

I guess I’m not much of a photographer after all.

Tags: artifacts, competition, hard drive, high profile, hobbies, images, income, iStock, making money, marketplace, microstock, niceties, noise ninja, photography, Photos, photoshop, portfolio, portfolios, profits, rejection, ShutterStock
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Tonight’s chat with a dear friend of mine reminded me of a lesson I learned a few years ago, when I went ape nuts clicking every blue link I could find at iWon.com in a bid to become independently wealthy and attract me some hot gold digging babes. I was on a mission to win something, ANYTHING from iWon’s site, so I could pay my bills, quit my job, and at long last tell my boss to go blow it out his own arse.

I also signed up for these gaming sites too in the hopes that I would become some kind of gaming master and win hundreds of dollars in cash prizes. Instead, I would win $1.50… then lose $2.00, win $4.00, then lose $5.00, and on and on.

For three weeks I was at it, playing games, click click clicking, playing some more games, then click click clicking, then play iWon’s slot machine, then click click clickity click click clicking, until my fingers started to sprain. By the end of the third week I was a few dollars in the hole and my fingers looked liked they belonged to the Elephant Man. I wasn’t getting anywhere. As usual, luck was never a lady with me, and in the end I finally gave up.

The next day I went to work, and as I was signing in, somebody handed me an envelope.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“That’s your raffle prize.”

“My…. what??”

“Every year we raffle off the profits from the soda machines, and everyone is automatically entered. You were one of the winners, so that’s your share. 25 bucks.”

I just stood there, blown away by having finally won something, and especially at the timing of it all. I had spent the last three weeks trying to win every prize imaginable at iWon, and failing miserably at that, and now came this, a $25 prize for a raffle I never even knew existed. I still have that envelope by the way, with the money still inside.

There’s an old joke where a man prays to God to win the lottery and the Lord tells him to go buy a lottery ticket first. In my case even that part had already been taken care of. It was a sobering lesson straight from heaven, and one I had sadly forgotten over the years. As much as I’d like to believe God to rain His blessings on my life without requiring any effort on my part except to receive it, I still strive in my own strength to create my own success, and no matter how many times I fail, that lesson never seems to fully sink in for me. It’s been especially true these past few weeks, as I try to cram as much knowledge as I can find into my poor little brain so I can utilize it all to make money off the Internet, whether through my blog or elsewhere. There’s so much information to sift through, so little time to digest it all, and not enough brainpower on my part to take what I know and transform myself into the self sufficient man that I’ve always longed to be.

And yet I seem to leave no room for God in any of this. I’m trying to do it all on my own strength, relying on the world’s wisdom and philosophies, when instead I should be casting these burdens on Him, and trusting Him to once again provide that envelope of blessings when I truly need it. That’s something no professional blogger or Internet mogul will ever tell you either. But it’s the secret to real success, real peace and freedom from worry, learning that it really is all under His control. If I succeed in this new mission I’ve made for myself, it will not be because of my talents or skills or luck, but only, and ONLY, because God is gracious in His blessings towards me.

By the way, I do intend to use the prize money I won someday… specifically for when I finally meet the girl of my dreams.

Tags: babes, blessing, blessings, blown away, cash, dear friend, elephant, elephant man, failure, financially independent, fingers, gambling, get rich, God, grace, iwon, lord, loser, losing, lottery ticket, love, money, nuts, playing games, prize, prizes, profits, schemes, self sufficient, slot machine, success, win 4, winner, winning, wisdom, world, worldly
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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