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.

Has it really been over three months since I posted something to my photography blog? ugh... I'll let you guess whether that's because my life is boring or because it's exciting.

Speaking of exciting, I finally had a chance to use a service called TinEye, about which I'd read rave reviews from other photographers. TinEye lets you search the Web for your digital photos. Now, why would you want to look for photos that you already have on your computer? Because, innocent reader, the sad, dark truth is that if you have ever put a photo on the Web anywhere (Flickr, Facebook, etc.), there's a chance that somebody grabbed a copy and used it somewhere, without your knowledge. (Probably without your permission, too, unless you specifically licensed it for that sort of thing.)

It wasn't very long ago that I mentioned in this blog that I had been accepted as a contributing photographer on Lucky Oliver. Well, the news is out that the site is closing its doors. That was short lived, at least for me... I didn't make any sales there in that short time with what few images I had online, but apparently there are some who are wondering about their accumulated earnings. I don't envy the position of the site owners at all!

Last week I bought a lens off eBay for the first time, and it arrived yesterday (sooner than I expected, which is just the kind of surprise I like). It's a "double-X" Minolta Maxxum 50mm 1.7 lens, which -- if I can believe what I read on multiple sites prior to bidding -- means it's a model from early in the production run for this lens, and may have better optics than later-produced units.

I recently got the good news that I've been accepted on Lucky Oliver as a contributing photographer, so now I can start uploading there too. The "third shot" (mentioned in an earlier blog post) ended up being a new photo, which was also accepted on Shutterstock and Dreamstime.

After reading about LuckyOliver on a site dedicated to discussions of microstock, I decided I would give it a shot. So I created an account and three photos for them to consider whether to accept me as a contributing photographer or not.

I recently decided to add some more photos on Dreamstime, because I never really took advantage of it for its revenue potential. Since I'm currently not offering any image exclusively anywhere (other than free images on morgueFile that would probably never be accepted on microstock sits), I picked three of my best-selling photos on Shutterstock and uploaded them to Dreamstime.

I have not put a huge amount effort into being accepted to sell microstock photos on iStockphoto, but the attempts I have made so far have all been for naught. Obviously each microstock site has its own process for being accepted as a contributing photographer, and some are easier than others. Shutterstock turned me down the first time I tried, then accepted me on my second try.

No, the title of this blog entry does not describe what happened to my camera, but sometimes I feel it should...

Much of my photo-related thoughts lately have been about improving my stock photography in various microstock site galleries, especially on Shutterstock (the only one where I've actually earned enough to receive a check). Unlike some people who try out the microstock market and hit the ground running, though, I've barely been getting by, with a pretty high rejection rate.

This isn't really a new blog, even though this is the first entry you'll find here. If you visited my site before I switched it to Drupal, you would've seen the earlier content. That was lost in translation, as it were, and the older content wasn't worth recovering, so this one is starting over fresh.

And no, it's not an error that you'll see this same post in another blog on my site, because I did indeed manage to make the same mistake with two blogs. {sigh}