This isn't exactly about my own photos, but it's about my involvement in photography in a more general sense.

I decided to dump my infrequently-updated, rarely-visited, virtually-pointless blog in which I recommended various stock images, usually by photographers other than myself. A key purpose for the blog was to use the referral program of Shutterstock to earn more for myself, Shutterstock, and other photographers. I never had the time to promote it, though, so it was just one more blog lost in the wilderness. When I start feeling stress about a blog needing attention, is more likely that the blog should be eliminated than that I should actually expend effort to bring it to life. Blogging should come naturally; if it doesn't, the blog in question is quite possibly not worth any effort to save.

I will admit that part of the problem with my stock photo recommendation blog was that Shutterstock apparently disallows use of photo thumbnails, so I could only describe photos, rather than show them. That's just lame, and I wish that Shutterstock was more open about this. (I read in the Shutterstock forums how another person who had a similar blog, and was including photo thumbnails, was told by Shutterstock to remove those thumbnails.) I considered switching the focus of the blog to use the Dreamstime referral program, since it appears they are more flexible, but Dreamstime is nowhere near as profitable for me as Shutterstock, so for now the appropriate answer seems to be to kill off that blog.

It's possible -- but not likely -- that I'll bring that blog back somewhere else, using Dreamstime and/or other sites that allow me to post thumbnails of the photos I'm recommending. If that happens, it won't be a Blogger/BlogSpot blog, though. I want to get out of that environment entirely, although I have a couple longer-term blogs there for which I have not yet figured out a migration path.

Anyway, if you're looking for stock photos for your creative work and you don't want to pay traditional prices, I recommend taking a look at what Shutterstock has to offer, with a secondary recommendation for Dreamstime. Of course, if you'd like to sell your own photos via Shutterstock, I recommend giving that a shot (and, yes, Dreamstime too).