PART 1

subtitle: how I discovered the promised land

I think the title pretty explain itself. In these articles I will be telling you my personal experience at Dreamstime, in the hope to be of help for some newcomer. In the next parts I will explain my direct experience and how I get to know Dreamstime, when and why I joined, how I managed to become better, my submissions 'tactics', my developments as photographer, what I have learnt since my start, my aims and much more.

Well, enough with introduction, now lets' begin!

It was September 2005. I was reading a copy of Computer Arts magazine and noticed those Royalty free images on the cd attached. It said they were donated by a company named Dreamstime.

Some days after, I decided to see on internet this dreamstime.com website. Useless ...

PART 2

subtitle: Learn and accept rejections as a tool for growth

I decided to consider my first year at Dreamstime as a 'learning year'. During this time I uploaded tons of images and illustrations, trying to cover my favorite topics at first: technology-computers, industry, conceptual, business-money.

I had my amount of rejections, as I think must be for all photographers that are new to the business of stock photography.

In a few months I reached the 'milestone' of 500 photos accepted. I didn't care too much at the time about acceptance ratio (I will talk later about the importance of that) and in fact it was floating from 90% one month to 40% of the following one.

My strategy was simple and somehow brutal, it followed the assumption that more photos=more downloads. (hint: the ...

PART 3

subtitle: how to learn from others and submit quality images

Year 2006 for me went well with growing sales month after month.

Steadily but slowly. The portfolio continued to grow, reaching 600 then 700 and hitting the 900 images at year's end. My concern was to learn quickly how to improve sales a bit faster than it was going on. I started to study portfolios of best photographers, their numbers (you learn a lot from those stats if you know how to look at them) and analyze my own portfolio to see where could be improved.

This year the result of my studies produced some good results.

Sales jumped at next level and now I'm quite satisfied with the proportion of time I spend in photographing and the payout.

I call this year, 2007, year of expansion. Expanding into new levels ...

PART 4

subtitle: more submission tactics

This time I want to add something again about the submission of images, that is maybe the most important subjects for who want to be a better stock photographer in the microstock era.

I have already explained in last article one my small 'tactic' (better should be called a 'system') to try to reduce rejections and to be sure to submit something fresh and/or new.

Today I want to add what I consider another good system to add to this list of 'tricks', that is quite related to the previous one. It consist in finding through searches (I will never stress enough how this is one of the greatest tool to use!) what subjects are less covered.

Let's say you would imagine to submit images of an ant. You would search Dreamstime and see how many images ...

PART 5

subtitle: where I am now. You can do it too!

This 2007 year is particularly fruitful for me at Dreamstime, because I have found my way to better manage the digital work-flow, nicely increasing acceptance ratio, sales and my personal satisfaction. Ergo my Ego! :-)

My stats tell today that I'm at 1185 images approved, and my next aim is to reach 2000 images approved. It will take some months, because as said previously, I submit less images now. Sales are satisfactory (well above the ones of last year, comparing month to month), but I want to reach a monthly earning of at least 500 dollars and that will require another year, in my esteems.

My skills (at evaluating images, at understanding what is worth to

send and what not) are greatly improved thanks to Dreamstime and the ...

When my wife noticed that Dreamstime agency, where I was selling images taken with my Canon powershot (yes, my first 20-30 images accepted were taken with a point and shoot! After that, only Nikon reflex) she decided to take part in the game too.

Not for the money, just for idea that her images could be seen all around the world (and maybe also bought). That was for her something worth to experience. For myself the input was the idea to try to make a living out of it (selling stock photo), for her is a just like a nice, pleasant game.

The advantage of taking it (stock photography) a bit less 'seriously' is that you are kind of mentally 'free' to experiment and create. Yes, she has more crazy artistic view than myself, and I should never ever try to make change her mind.

This is her way ...

With digital cameras now so available to anyone, and sales that account for millions of items worldwide, the number of people that start photography as hobby or profession is obviously increasing.

I don't think that with the oversupply of images there will be space for everybody in this crowded world.

Who is going to survive, then? The most fitted, you'll answer. Right. But who is 'fitted'? These are the professionals that can produce huge amount of images and manage to balance the expenses with consistent and four digits earnings monthly.

These people already do well in microstock nowadays, but in the near future I think they'll have to compete still harder for the share of market. The survivors will be the ones with 'teams' of helpers (assistants, co-photographers,...