Living large off of Google Ad Sense

Nope.  Not really.  Can't even buy a coffee for what I earn with Google Ad Sense.  I earn maybe $0.01 to $0.10 a day depending on if I get a click on one of the ads that are featured on my site.  I wish I was running a bigger site but it's been up only a few months.  I'm just a one man band that runs the site and I blog a few times a week.  I work full time and do this part time with my photography.  I wanted to run this focusing more on photography.  I think in the future when I move to Calgary later this year, I will focus this more on photography.  I'm not a gear reviewer or a travel photographer.  I just do this for fun as an amateur photographer.  I photograph landscapes and wildlife and sell my stuff on sites like Shutterstock, Pond5 and Storyblocks.  I've shot about a half a dozen weddings in my lifetime but they are a pain in the back.  I don't have the space to do headshots so I stay away from them.

I enjoy being outside and being with animals.  They are way more relaxing than being stuck inside with a camera.  Anyways, Google Ad Words.  I'm glad I'm getting some money from it but it's not a get rich quick scheme.  Hopefully in a few months, while I work on the site and do more blog entries, my income will grow.  I don't know about doing YouTube with YouTube demonetizing people for using the "wrong" words and thoughts in their videos.

My most popular image

My most popular image so far has only been online for just over a year.  I shot it in Banff, Alberta while on a weekend.  I've been doing micro stock for about 4 years now and this image just keeps selling on average every 3 days.  At first I thought it would be a throw away image when I shot it and looked at it on the computer.  Then I had the bright idea of turning it into a black and white image.  It got accepted and I keep selling it.  You can find the image here.

It's been a while

Sometime, life gets in the way.  I've been doing a lot of photography but haven't been posting to the blog.  I wish I could post daily but I've been uploading my fall photos to Shutterstock, Bigstock etc.  Just trying to get more money.  I recently booked a vacation to Arizona.  I'm going to the Grand Canyon, the horse shoe bend near Bend and Monument Valley.  

The above picture is from Mud Lake located here in Ottawa.  I've been there a lot this fall doing video work.  I was able to get a juvenile egret up close which is awesome.  

Lac Leamy Casino Sound of Lights

Finally got out to do some photography after taking a break.  This summer has been weird for me for photography.  I didn't really get out much this summer with the cameras.  At least it doesn't feel like it.  I've been doing a lot more video work and uploading to other micro stock agencies trying to diversify my portfolio availability.  

I think this fall, I'll be heading out more to do some more landscape and wild life photography.  I miss shooting my wolves, deer and foxes along with my Algonquin Park landscapes.

Lac Leamy Casino Sound of Lights - Canon Vixia HF G40

So I wanted to do a review of the Canon Vixia HF G40 last week.  Life always gets in the way as a friend and fellow photographer lost her life to cancer at the young age of 28.  I hadn't gone shooting for a bit with the camcorder as my day job seems to get in the way.

But this past week, I got to shoot the Casino de Lac Leamy fireworks.  I had missed the previous show as I totally forgot about it.  And yesterdays event, let's just say, whoever went to it got soaked in the torrential downpour.

This was the first time I had used a camcorder at night.  Shooting video is a little bit different than shooting photos at night.  Especially fireworks.

I had set the camera at ISO 100, f1.8 and exposure of 1/8th of a second.  Let's just say that didn't work out as I thought.  The exposure was way too low so I increased it to 100th of a second and voila, problem fixed.  So setting with ISO 100, f1.8 and the exposure was 100/1000 of a second.  Problem fixed.  So I thought.  My external mic died about halfway thru the show.  Hence no sound on the video.  For this Wednesday's show, I have a fresh battery in the mic and I know what my settings have to be.  I also have a better idea of how to frame the shot as I framed it wit htoo much empty space to the left.  

Overall, I think the Canon Vixia HF G40 is an excellent daytime and night time camcorder.  You can control pretty much any setting on it as far as exposure, white balance, mic etc.  I am really happy with the camcorder.  

One of the reasons I bought the camcorder was to do a lot more video work at Parc Omega where I get pretty much all my wildlife shots.  I hardly go there in the summer as the animals hide in the shade of the forest because of the heat.  I'm planning to go a lot more starting in September as it's mating season and the fall colours start.  Also the fur on the animals thickens as they prepare for the colder temperatures of Canada's northern climate.

Photo & Video

Lately, I've been doing shooting a lot of video as I have had plenty of photos on the various micro stock agencies.  I'm just trying to build up my video portfolio.  It's time consuming doing both but I do love doing both.  Video clips sell for a much higher price but they are far and between what I typically sell.  I do still sell a lot of photography.  Not as much during the summer as most people are on vacations.  I'm hoping sales of both video and photos pick up again in September.

July is the slow time!

The summer months are the slowest times for photo sales.  At least from my experience.  As people take vacations, they purchase less from micro stocks where I do pretty much all of my business.  I travel as well to various parks to do my photography.  The above shot is from Barron Canyon in Algonquin Park, Ontario.  Took it just before I got to the Algonquin Radio Observatory.  I'm thinking next weekend going to Algonquin Park again.  But this time to the southern Highway 60 corridor.  There are a lot of moose sightings.  I also want to do some astrophotography imaging.  Hopefully the weather will co-operate.  If not Algonquin Park, maybe one of the other parks which are located 2-3 hours just west of Ottawa.  Weekends in Canada are just amazing with the weather and scenery.  

I typically go to Parc Omega in the fall and winter seasons as the landscapes are amazing as the tree leaves turn colours.  I hope to make it to Tremblant as well for a day or two.  It's a good time to be living and doing photography.  The technology is just amazing.

Algonquin Radio Observatory - The short version!

The shorter version.  Because attention spans are shorter than gnat lives.

Algonquin Radio Observatory shorter video

Favourite duck

I go to Mud Lake often to shoot nature and wildlife photography and wildlife videos.  Mud Lake is located in Ottawa.  It's a lake surrounded by a lush green forest and is near a water filtration plant.  It's a peaceful refuge if you just want to get away.  It's got several nature trails and is really convenient as it's located within city limits.

You get a lot of turtles and various water fowl.  A lot of herons and a lot of various types of ducks such as the above Male Wood duck.  It's my favourite kind of duck.  It's not as friendly as the regular mallard duck as they don't seem to like going near humans.  But that's ok for us photographers with our lenses and large sensors.  We can crop our photographs to still get a nice image.

Holy exhausted Batman!

No new photos or videos today as I was swamped at work.  Plus I didn't get a chance to edit photos that I took yesterday.  I took a lot of panorama photos and some wide field like the one above taken with the Canon EOS 6D and the Canon EF f2.8 16-35MM L series lens.  I think I will do some photography tomorrow.  I haven't been sleeping well in the past week or so.  I'm really exhausted.