It's not really a mid-term report cause I still have many more years of learning here but still.
It was a bit more than a year and a half ago when I came to learn that I have something useful to do with my pictures. All those pictures I took all those years that were just laying in an album I looked at maybe once a year.
Those pictures friends would occasionally glance at and say "very nice, very nice".

A year and a half ago I saw a facebook post of a friend declaring about a sale he just made of this photo

Asking him revealed this cool site where I can sell my photos.
I wrote in previous posts about my beginners insight and the journey I went through scanning my old pictures and moving from film to digital.
Like most beginners, it took me a while to figure out how this works and what is expected from me as a contributor.

What struck me the most when I started, was seeing all those contributors with those 4 digit sales. I remember waiting a few months for my first sale. And then a few more weeks to hit 10 and so on.

I kept kicking myself that I didn't start in 2005, knowing I will never ever get to those numbers.



Well today it finally happened - I hit my 1000 sale.

Honestly, in my wildest dreams, I couldn't imagine getting here.
In addition I can report 18 level 3's and 3 more that will be level 3 any moment now.
No level 4's yet. I'm not even sure when an image becomes level 4.



This is my1000 sale!









Well here are some of my mid term insights for succeeding here:

1. Photography is only partially photography. Yes, you still have to master all the photography skills to create a great photo.
But today that's only half the job (maybe a bit more than half).
Today you have to master the software of post processing.
Looking at my portfolio, I think I have no more than a handful of pictures that came out of the camera and were uploaded as is.
Post processing saves many images that just aren't technically good enough.
Post processing is what takes a high potential picture and turns it into a great picture.
Without processing you will have a potential, not a great a picture and potential doesn't sell and may not even get approved.
If you don't master the software your success will be very very limited.




2. It's more about quality than quantity. Nothing new here - strive to produce better unique images and your sales will increase.
Get over the pain and throw away duplicates and non interesting pictures.










3. Get a small high quality pocket camera to carry at all times.
You never know when a great vision will appear in front of you even near home or on the way to work.

4. Shoot Raw. This has been discussed many times before.
I can tell you that many pictures that were over saturated or over/under exposed were saved because I had the raw.


5. Love thy pictures. Do you upload your pictures to facebook and wait for all those likes and comments?
Are you proud of every new picture? Do you enjoy looking at them again and again? If so you are in the right place.
Without the love, you probably won't have the patience to learn post processing software and technics.




6. Love thy neighbors pictures. What better way to learn than look and like what other people are doing?







I hope next time I'll be able to report 5 digit sales and all those level 5 pictures I have.
Good luck with that...
:)