I hadn’t heard anything about this program but caught it late last night. It’s available to watch on BBC IPlayer. Shown on BBC3 I think, Alesha Dixon, who was unhappy with her retouched cover for FHM, presented this show about retouching, magazines and the beauty industry. I thought she did a really good job of presenting the information, despite the obvious contradiction of having a beautiful professional model trying to expose the lies of the beauty industry.

Most interesting for me was the section where she spoke to schoolchildren. The younger girls, like we’ve seen in Child of Our Time, were sometimes disturbingly image-conscious, but the older high-school aged girls interviewed surprised me! I’m not sure how old they were, but at least 11-12, and they were so surprised when she demonstrated the level of retouching that goes on in magazines. One of them commented that she had no idea they could make people look thinner - and these are girls years beyond the ones that have already developed these ideas about ideal body image etc that she interviewed at primary school.

In another section Alesha ran a poll in a young girls magazine asking readers to vote on an image of her - chosen from 4, from a very distorted super retouched version, to an untouched photo. The final result was for one of the partly retouched images, but a close second was the number 1, super-retouched version - which I have to say, really didn’t look like her…or that much like most humans!

To be honest, I wasn’t really surprised by much of the social commentary of the show, but was surprised how well presented the information was, and was able to watch some of the professionals in action in London, and find out more about the world of magazine retouching - all interesting stuff!

Also, if anyone does watch it, look out for the section on the studio shoot. Alesha follows a woman to a studio shoot and retouching business to have photo’s taken, as she was insecure about her body and wanted good photos before her wedding. When they look through the untouched photos from the shoot it’s a great demonstration of just how much can be done without retouching. Just through good photography - composition, postures, lighting, a comfortable and happy subject - they took some really nice shots of her, some of which I really don’t think will have needed much work doing to them.

All in all - I recommend! Guardian reviewer Stuart Jeffries thinks that Alesha was a bad choice to present given the subject, and although I agree with him in part - especially the section with Cheryl Cole - I think she did a really good job. She had an intelligent and interested approach throughout the show, and as someone in the industry was able to connect with the subject and offer us an insiders perspective.

It’s been a while since I posted anything!

This is cause I’ve been pretty busy doing a new batch of product shots for my favourite customer Your Own Brand Golf. They are a local company and were my first customer when I set up the business, so it’s been great to go back and do more work for them, and see how much their company has grown!

I’ve been looking forward to shooting some All Star Wrestling shows in Blackpool this summer for wrestler Rene Dupree, but it’s looking like he might not be back in the UK until the Autumn. Oh well..next time he’s around maybe! I might still have to go to Blackpool though I was really excited about Fridays at the Pleasure Beach!

Hmm..what else is new? I’ve made my first sales on Fotolia - odd that it took so long, then I got 2 sales in a week! I’ve not uploaded as many stock images as I’d have hoped to be honest, so should definately spend a bit of time soon updating the stock sites - and trying to get that elusive 3rd image accepted for IStockPhoto!

Well..much as I’ve not been posting - I have actually been working quite abit - so back to the golf bag editing for me I suppose! I also have a portrait shoot for a friends kids next week, and I’m currently trying to scan and repair printouts of images that were stolen when a friend had his house burgled recently . Today I have to search through old prints and find one from back in college that I think could be a great fit for the Sheffield Forum Photo Competetion this month - I’m pretty inactive on my local forums..and all forums in fact…so thought maybe this could be a good way to get involved with local photographers!

So to summarise - busy busy! I’m trying to be a bit more organised and get a few posts up now - so I don’t miss the chance at the end of the month again!

This weekend I attended the Sheffield Fencing Open at the English Institute of Sport -and it was great! I got a lot of photos - some of which are turning out pretty well, met some cool people, including another photographer, Rob Comerford, who was really friendly and let me try out his new lens…which was brilliant! There were some big names there, with UK no.1 ranked epeeist Jonathan Willis winning the Mens epee, (full results here) but across the board some really top notch fencing and a fun weekend!

Plenty more images to be uploaded to my gallery over the next week or so!

We’ve had a couple of days of nice weather so I’ve been out in the garden a lot this week - yay to Spring! Or was that Summer….?

Also..it does seem that seasonally themed shots are getting are lot more hits on microstock sites right now, which makes sense, so why not load up on nice Spring images

WordPress have launched a new theme - the Monotone Photoblog theme, and it’s great! I wish this had been around when I had set up this blog, as I would probably have focused on posting more images…

Anyway, it’s a really impressive theme that alters the layout colours to match the first image in a post - check out the demo site here!

Right now I think I’d end up with a lot of black and white pages, as there are a lot of posts with just text…but my aim is now to up the image posts so I can switch to the Monotone theme at some point!

I found this ages ago and should have posted it back then..but anyway…

Jason Barnhart has a photo essay submitted for publication in JPG Magazine this month, under the title ‘Curiouser and Curiouser!’ and I just love it! It’s a pretty simple idea but done so well…they are well executed, clever, but most of all really fun!!

He gets a big ‘Yes’ vote from me…and everyone should go there and vote! And, while you’re there come and vote for my otter in the ‘creatures’ category

So what’s new…?

Looking through the calendar so far I’m averaging 3 post days a month..which isn’t great, but then I usually post more than once when I update, so it just looks like I don’t update that often

I ordered some of the Moo.com minicards I posted about earlier this month, and they’ve just arrived today! I’m pretty impressed with the end product - they look great and you do get a decent amount for your money - although for £9.99 I couldn’t complain much either way - they are a bargain!

If you’re considering buying them my tips would be - plan ahead! Look at the crop and decide which images you want to use beforehand. Also, I would recommend registering for the site before placing your order, that way you can save the settings for your upload and crop etc. in case you have to change things, or take too long deciding! Or better yet..decide what you want written on the back before you start uploading them!

I ordered them on the 25th, and they arrived today, so thats 5 days - not bad at all!

Microstock uploads are progressing..slowly Now that I’ve got my main backlog batch uploaded to Fotolia and Dreamstime, it’s now a matter of getting new images taken and uploaded to these sites, and getting signed up with other agencies.

I’ve heard on forums that Shutterstock are now turning down everybody and aren’t really interested in new photographers anymore. I don’t know if thats true, but they did refuse all 10 of my sample upload..so I’m leaving them be for now. I’ve got 2 out of 3 approved for my IStockPhoto submission, so just as soon as I get one more uploaded next week, that should be good to go. Although I think I can conclude that IStock *does* have very high standards and I really am not going to get many..if any…of my older images taken on my Minolta approved there.

I’ve had 2 sales through Dreamstime so far, out of 18 uploads, which is good to see, and all of the images are getting regular views, which has to be a good sign - although I do realise views mean nothing..it’s downloads that count

The views on Fotolia are still increasing, but not at the same speed, and still no downloads through there.

When I joined BigStockPhoto I messed up my uploads. I don’t find the site or the upload system that easy to use, and as this one was joined later I haven’t been using ProStockMaster for my uploads yet. This has meant that my first couple of batches ended up having some duplicates in, and a fair few have had to be deleted. My approval rating is low because of this, but I have noticed a few of the duplicates have been approved on second upload…and plenty have been given different reasons for refusal. I guess this is nothing new..but has been the most clear demonstration for me of the subjective nature of microstock.

If you didn’t read my post earlier about joining Flickr, here is the quick summary -

The images shown in the RSS feed to the right are from my new Flickr profile. I’ve held off on joining Flickr for years, but I’m finally giving it a try! I planned to attempt the 365 Project - a photo a day for a year…

However…it turns out that despite me averaging easily a photo a day, I’m not uploading very often, and most of them so far are fairly rubbish photo’s of stuff taken late at night when I realise I have been doing other things all day!

If I was to stick to this ‘photo a day’ idea I think I might as well just call it “Photo’s of my lunch” cause that’s what it would end up being

So let’s call it the 182.5 Project or in other words - Everyday Photos. After all the aim of the project is just to get me using Flickr and taking more photos…so I guess it’s inevtible that some of them are not going to be all that great. Although I might end up having to upload other things to Flickr, just so that this RSS feed is a little more representative of the photo’s I’m taking!

For much better and more interesting images please visit my website - melprestonphotography.com. Cheers!

I’m not sure why I chose to not upload to LuckyOliver, along with other sites, but I guess I’m glad I did!

They have announced through their blog that they will be closing for business on May 15th.

In setting up it was certainly clear to me that smaller sites would probably mean less sales and more risk of no return for your efforts, which is probably why I chose not bother, as people who haven’t reached their pay-out limit probably won’t be receiving any money once LuckyOliver closes.

There’s a great article on Photopreneur today - What’s Wrong with Microstock, which is a much better written breakdown of how microstock works for, and against, photographers. I agree with almost all of what’s written in the article, and even with most of Dan Scott’s comment, “Microstock companies are the greedy parasites of the photography industry,” but am in no doubt that right now microstock is thriving and no amount of righteous vitriol will stop it’s affect on the market. All industries are shaped by their ability to respond to change.

Photopreneurs’ article suggests that the limited audience and usage of microstock photos will eventually further limit their range to a very specific type of commercial images. I really do hope this is how it works out - microstock sites should be a low cost provider of basic, run-of-the-mill generic commercial images. Perhaps this is just the time period where the clear distinction between the aims of microstock and traditional stock has not been established enough. Seeing this model expand into graphic design, music, film-making and programming (among others) indicates that the online demand for minimal cost products and services is bound to conflict with the actual value of skills and knowledge in many fields. At least it won’t just be photographers having this debate!

Anyway, if I had all answers I woud be cashing in on them by now, and probably wouldn’t blog about it

So, my last post explained my new thinking on microstock. In light of this I have spent a week or two signing up and uploading to various microstock agencies. Despite my feelings towards keywording, tagging and uploading I’ve not actually found it *that* difficult or too time-consuming, as I’ve been trying ProStockMaster software, and have found it to be great!

Currently I’m waiting for approval at IStockPhoto and StockXpert. Still undecided about some of the smaller companies - LuckyOliver and SnapVillage. Actually I’m pretty decided about SnapVillage, but it’s not yet got FTP fundtion and isnt included in ProStockMaster, so I’ve left it for now.

So far I’ve been uploading to Dreamstime, Fotolia and BigStockPhoto.

I’ve had higher acceptance rates on Dreamstime, but still some surprises! Images I thought would be a shoe-in have been turned down here, but accepted elsewhere. On the other hand, resubmissions to Dreamstime after correcting errors have all been approved so far. I’m finding Dreamstime easiest to use at the moment, but that’s largely because Fotolia isn’t working on Firefox, so I have to use my laptop, and BigStockPhoto hasnt finishing approving my first batch yet.

I suspect a lot of people supplement their earnings with the affiliate programs that each site offers, so here are some nice shiny affiliate badges - if you want to sign up as a photographer or buyer I get a bonus

Also, back when I first found about microstock a few years ago, I said to a friend that soon it’ll be stock footage that sells. With mobile technology, websites, etc. I could see a market for short clips of footage..and now look! I also didn’t know that vector graphics were sold this way so I’m thinking of looking into that side of things. I have a lot of vector stuff that I’ve put together over the last few years - it’d be nice to see them get used to be honest, otherwise they are just taking up space! I guess the lesson here is to trust my instincts!!

The great microstock debate…or is there even much of a debate to be had these days?

When I first got into all this online photography promotion stuff I looked into microstock, read the statement from Photographers Direct, among others, and pretty much concluded that they were right. Selling an image for such a low amount does de-value the image and maybe harms the industry…

I joined a few agencies and tried my hand at traditional stock, but a year on I’ve reassessed my original conclusions.

After a year of big losses Getty images have now bought IStockPhoto, and Corbis have launched their own microstock site, Snapvillage, which will apparently be used as a sort of ‘talent farm’ for the pro-stock agency.

There is no doubt that in the changing field of digital photography microstock is here to stay, at least for a while! Initial speculation was that devaluing images would harm photographers in the long run, and de-value the skills of the industry. The hard to swallow truth is, an individual image does not hold the same value that it did 10 years ago. Proliferation of new technology and the broadening skills of the amateur and hobbyist field mean that a quality image in itself is not worth as much as once it might have been. Images are worth less than they were - that is plain fact in my opinion.

What is still highly prized, and in my opinion always will be, is the skill and experience of a photographer. No amount of microstock sales can devalue the professional training, experience and approach of those at the top of these fields.

If I was to compare the two approaches, microstock selling, and on-tic photographer agencies, I would say that where microstock does de-value the image, request based agencies devalue the skill-set, time and effort of the photographer.

It was a particular photo request I read that got me thinking about this whole subject. Someone requested an image of a jet, ‘taking off or landing, with clouds behind it forming the shape of the bottom of a lyre’. Now…that’s quite specific! They also included a link to a “similar” image, available for sale on Getty. So, rather than pay for usage rights for the image they wanted, someone thought it would be better to ask as many photographers as possible to try and deliver this image, so they can choose one they like and pay one photographer.

I’m not here to put down Photographers Direct and similar agencies. In my experience there are some brilliant photographers selling top-end work this way, and it clearly works for them. However, as someone who would simply like to make some money from my more generic images, I feel my time is worth more than my photos - it is my time that enables me to take the photos! If I was to spend a week at an airfield hoping for the right cloud formation as the right jet lands…I would certainly be expecting a sale at the end.

This is turning into a long post - but it is a subject that requires discussion imo!

On the other side of things we now have Yuri Arcurs - microstock celebrity. He is now the highest selling microstock photographer in the world. He earns a six-figure wage and employs 12 people. He has clearly capitalised on the new world of microstock, and earns a full time living from it. I imagine it was more than just top notch photography and good timing that made him a success, but is indicative of where the industry might head. With low labour costs in many countries it would not be difficult to establish a company with plenty of employees, taking hundereds of photos for microstock sites every day. I do think this is the next shift in the field, but can’t really  speculate on what changes this would bring.

Microstock is still a changing market, and new changes such as this will shift the balance again. Once the microstock agencies are saturated with saleable images from large companies, will tere stil be room for individual amateur to make money this way, or will the balance shift back to the most talented individuals making big sales through traditional stock agencies?

I don’t doubt Corbis, among others, have been thinking these things over for a good while now!

I have no great advice to give though - it’s up to the individual to decide what works best for them. For me, I have decided to leave traditional agencies and signed up with some microstock sites (more on this in a later post!).

I think the best advice I could give is to keep well informed and be prepared to change! I’ve said it so many times - it’s a changing market and photographers must be willing to change with it!