New Year. New Decade. New photography

There is one full day left in 2019.  I haven’t done as much photography as I wanted to this year.  Haven’t done as much photography over the past two years as I wanted.  2020 will be different.  I told my new fiancé that in April I want to move out west to Calgary.  I really miss the mountains and the fresh air.  I hate being here in Ottawa.  I miss Calgary.  I hate the humidity of Ottawa.  I hate the winters.  I hate the summers here.  I would rather sleep in my vehicle or a tent under the stars.  I miss photographing the mountain landscapes.  When I was in Calgary 2 years ago, that’s all I did on my weekends.  Just spend my weekends in the mountains.  Now that I have my 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport, I have room in the back to sleep.  I have pretty much all the necessary equipment except for a cooler for food and drinks.  But I could just spend $60 on a good sized cooler and use that for weekends.  In the next couple of months I will start looking for a job in Calgary.  I wish I could do landscape photography full time but I don’t know if it’s feasible.  I want and need it to be.  I am totally sick of doing the I.T thing.  My Sony RX100 Mark VII is a great camera to do landscape photography.  I don’t need a DSLR.  Actually for the photography I do, all I need is my Sony RX100 Mark VII and my 2018 Apple iPad Pro.  All the software I use is run on the iPad Pro.  I have Affinity Photo.  I have Pixelmator Photo.  Apple Photos is good enough now for doing just the basic edits.  A few months ago, I bought a book for Affinity Photo for the iPad.  I’ve started reading it but never completed it.  That will be my goal for the next 3 months.  Find a job in Calgary to sustain us and finish my Affinity Photo book.

I really don’t want to do any more wildlife photography.  Although it sells a bit on Shutterstock and Adobe Stock, I really enjoy landscape photography.  I like the solitude of being in the mountains.  I gave my fiancé my Sony RX100 Mark VI.  I don’t want to spend any more money on photography equipment.  Not for a while.  The Sony RX100 Mark VII does what I need it to do.  I shot the above photo with the Sony RX100 Mark VI.  I shot the below shot with the Sony RX100 Mark VII.  I’ve sold both images on various micro stock stocks.  A full frame DSLR with an f2.8 16-35MM or an f2.8 24-70MM is not needed.  It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer.

My new Sony setup for everything

My new vlogging, footage and photography setup consistes of a Saramonic SmartMic, Sony GPVPT1 Grip trip and the Sony RX100 Mark VII.  I'm in no need of a full frame DSLR or any DSLR camera.  The thing that changed my mind was when I was out in Calgary, Alberta back in 2017.  I was in the mountains carrying three camera bodies with three different lenses.  I also had a camcorder with me.  It was about 30 pounds of equipment on my back. 

About 4 years ago, I had enough Aeroplan loyalty points to get a Sony RX100 Mark II point and shoot camera. It was a great little camera.  I thought I would use it for street photography when I was in the city.  At the time I didn't think it was capable of doing much of anything.  It didn't shoot 4K video.  The photos were really good.  The tech in the camera was good for 2015.  

Fast forward to 2019.  I'm using just the Sony RX100 Mark VII for pretty much everything as far as photography goes.  With the f2.8-4.5 24-200MM lens, I can go and photography anything, anywhere without being noticed.  I've shot fireworks with the Sony RX100 Mark VI at ISO 100 f9 and roughly 24MM aperture.  I don't get any noise in the photos.  They're super sharp and the colour is awesome.  I have to say that it's not as good as Canon's colour science but with a firmware update or two, it will be.

A few years back, I didn't do footage.  Hated it.  Than for poops and giggles I shot some footage of a coyote at Parc Omega and uploaded it to Shutterstock., Pond5 and Storyblocks.  It sold within two weeks on Shutterstock for $120 and I was hooked on shooting footage.  With my recent experience with working for the government, I sense it's futile to try and get any more contracts with the agencies to try and get in with the government.  My past three contracts have been an utter disaster.  From being mismanaged, lied to about my job description, I've pretty much given up on working for the government.

Once Apple iPadOS comes out I can ditch the Windows 10 laptop and just work off the 2018 Apple iPad Pro.  Apple hasn't updated it's RAW photo software yet so that I can work on the Sony RX100 Mark VII photos.  You cannot import the footage from the Sony RX100 Mark VII to the iPad Pro.  Can't stand Apple for that.  Apple finally listened to its customers and we'll be able to transfer RAW photos and footage files directly to an external hard drive.  We'll have mouse support as well which is going to be awesome.

I am honestly really sick of working for the government doing the I.T thing.  I'm just not enjoying it.  I'm 43 years old and not living the life I want.  I hate where I live.  By that, I mean the province.  Not the apartment.  I love my girlfriend to bits.  I would rather live the nomadic life doing the photography thing.  You know, shooting landscape and real wild life photos.  I think by this time next year, we'll be out in Calgary doing something completely different.  Or at least I will be.

HyperDrive 6-in-1 USB-C Hub — for iPad Pro 2018

So the HyperDrive 6-in-1 USB-C Hub — for iPad Pro 2018 came in today. It’s a pretty snazzy little device.  I wish it just had another USB-C type connector so you can hook up two USB-A devices like a hard drive and Blue Yeti microphone.  Now to make the 2018 Apple iPad Pro an almost perfect device, I need for the iPadOS to come out.  I cannot wait for September when the operating system comes out.  I am missing external hard drive support so I can import my photos and videos to an external hard drive via the HyperDrive 6 in 1 USB-C hub.  I guess one USB-A port is ok.  I don’t think I’ll have my hard drive attached to the iPad on a constant basis.  I want to start podcasting with the iPad Pro and the Blue Yeti Mic.  I have the silver Blue Yeti Mic that I’ve had for years.  I think it goes well with the iPad Pro.

I got the HyperDrive 6-in-1 USB-C hub for the 2018 Apple iPad Pro today.  I rearranged my desk today and put the Canon printer on the ground.  I can connect to it wirelessly whenever I need to print or scan something.  I am amazed by this 12.9” iPad.  It is so fast.  And the new OS is supposed to be even faster.  I think once every 3-4 years I will buy a new iPad.  Once iPadOS comes out and we get mouse support, external drive support and dark mode, I will be very happy.  I will have no need for a Mac, Windows or a Linux based computer or laptop.

I just wish there were two pieces of software that will be ported to the iPad.  Final Cut Pro X and Audacity Audio Editor.  Audacity is already available for Windows, Mac and Linux.  I wish they would port it over to the iPad.  I can stick with LumaFusion for video editing.  It seems feature rich enough for what I do with video.

So in summary, I wish September was here tomorrow and iPadOS was being released today.  Now I wonder if I can do all my photography and shoot video with just my Apple iPhone 8 Plus and edit everything thru the cloud?  

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians out there.  Wish we had a better prime minister but he/she/they will be out in October.  Anyways, back to Canada Day.  Decided to stay home for the majority of the day.  Gonna go see a movie later today and then come home and just relax.  In no way are we headed to downtown Ottawa with all the crazy, drunken and high dopers.  No thanks.

I’ve decided to keep the Sony a7ii and the Canon Vixia HF G40.  I need the pro camera and camcorder.  I need the control.  Made that decision on Thursday when we had thunderstorms pass to the north of us.  I could have used the Sony RX100 Mark VI but it’s such a small camera.  It fits right in your pocket.  It has all the controls I need but the Sony a7II feels really good in your hands.  It’s easier on the tripod as well.

Happy Canada Day anyways.

No need for a laptop with the 2018 Apple iPad Pro

I can print from the iPad Pro.  I’ve even completed my taxes and sent them to the Canada Revenue Agency on the Apple iPad Pro.  I can edit my photos and my footage on the Apple iPad Pro.  I can pretty much do everything on the iPad Pro with carrying around a 5 pound laptop and all the other necessary hardware that you need with a laptop.

The battery life on the 2018 Apple iPad Pro is simply amazing.  I can go at least 12 hours without needing a charge.  And that’s going hard on the iPad Pro from editing photos and videos to watching YouTube on it.  I am really impressed with Face ID after being sceptical about it.  I had my doubts about FaceID working properly and slowly but it’s fast and reliable.  The 512GB hard drive is enough storage for myself since I pay Apple $12.99 a month for 2TB of backup storage.  

Apps are plentiful and most cost less than $10 and do what I need.  Affinity Photo cost less than $30 (one time purchase) and is a great Adobe Photoshop replacement.  LumaFusion is fantastic for less than $30 as well and replaces FCP X or any Adobe product.  I’m not a full time video editor or movie type so I don’t need all the bells and whistles.  I just use the iPad Pro for photo and footage editing for my small photography business and basically media consumption.

The Apple Keyboard Folio is great as well.  Keys are awesome and it feels well built.  It is no backlit which makes it hard sometimes in a dark place.  You know where to place your hands if you know how to type.  I was taught in high school way back in 1990 how to type so having a backlit keyboard is not that big of a deal for me.  The special functions keys are missing as well but I am not missing them whatsoever. 

Honestly the only thing that is missing is support for external hard drives.  I wish the iPad Pro did have another USB-C type port as I’d like to use more than one external device at a time.  Other than that, the 2018 Apple iPad Pro is a fantastic device.

Year in review of Micro stock sales

So last year I had 72 downloads for a whopping $64 on Shutterstock in January.  In January 2019, I've had 4 downloads for a whopping $94.68.  So far, 2019 has been much better.  I hope it continues this way for the rest of the month and rest of the year.  2018 sucked as far as sales.  I sold $1178.76 worth of photography and footage just on Shutterstock alone last year.  I had 741 downloads alone on Shutterstock.  In 2017 I had 1153 downloads for total sales of $1638.17.

In 2018 I had a rough a 28% decrease in dollar value sales and downloads were down roughly 36%.  So I made $460.31 less on Shutterstock last year with 412 less downloads last year.  I increased my portfolio by about 3000 photographs and clips.

In 2017 I was selling on average of $136.51 a month of footage and photography.  In 2018, it dropped to $98.24.  An average loss of $38.28 a month or roughly 28% drop in revenue per month.  This I think is due to me not shooting as much as last year and the increase in competition since Shutterstock now accepts 1 out of 10 photographs rather than 7 out of 10 photographs when I first joined in 2014.

This is just one site that I use.  Pond5 and Storyblocks are two of my other sites.  It's much harder to sell on those two sites as I think they're much smaller stock sites and sales are less frequent.

On Pond5 I had $618.63 worth of sales with 7 sales all year.  On Storyblocks I had 3 sales worth a total of $99.03.  All sales are in U.S dollars so I get a slight conversion bonus when I convert to Canadian dollars which helps.

	2017 Sales	2018 Sales
Shutterstock	1639.17	1178.86
Pond5	587	618.83
Storyblocks	330.1	99.03

	2017 downloads	2018 downloads
Shutterstock	1153	741
Pond5	7	8
Storyblock	10	3

So as you can see, the only place sales and downloads increased is on Pond5.  Basically I only photograph and take footage of wild animals and landscapes.  99% of my portfolio is editorial free.  I don't like photographing people much.  I think for this year I will go to the Ottawa market more often and start photography people more.  Do some more editorial work in black and white and see if that starts selling more.  Thankfully I can be more inconspicuous with the Sony RX100 Mark Vi and its 24-200MM lens since the Sony RX100 Mark VI is an awesome pocket camera. 

Another month. Another year.

December 2018 was my third best month of all time on Shutterstock.  A lot of video sales propelled me to having the best month of the year as well.  Although the end of the month was a real disappointment with no sales for three days, I was happy with the month over all.

I hope 2019 is a lot better for photo and footage sales.  Pond5 and Storyblocks were down in sales.  Especially Storyblocks.  I have not sold anything there in months and I've more than tripled my inventory there in 2018 by adding more footage and adding photos there.  Pond5 was OK.  Sold a few hundred dollars worth of footage.  No photo sales, but that is to be expected.

April 2019 is coming up fast which is kind of scary considering I'll be moving permanently to Calgary.  At least I hope.  I need to find a job there first.  I only have two weeks left on this contract but I'm being told I'll be extended again.  I don't know for how long.  We shall see.  I'm hoping to get a permanent job in Calgary.

Windows 10 or any Microsoft operating system

Versus Linux, Mac OS, Unix, the Windows 10 operating system is a dysfunctional disaster.  It's a disappointment.  On my early 2013 MacBook Pro, the fans hardly ever ramp up.  Only when editing 4k footage, would the fans ramp up and run hot.  With Windows 10 running on my Asus laptop, just running Firefox the fans ramp up.  I can't wait to edit footage or photos on the laptop.  Windows basically is crap on a hard drive.  

I work with Windows 10 all day with my full time job.  It spies on you sending everything back to Microsoft.  It's the Google Android of the laptop/desktop computer market.  I've never had a problem with editing photos or 1080p footage on my MacBook Pro.  I cannot wait to get my Apple iPad Pro.  I think though with the bendgate problems with the iPads, I'll wait for the next itineration of the Apple iPad.  I can't justify a $2000+ product coming out bent out of shape from the factory.  No company is perfect but come on Apple.  The iPad comes out bent and it's a part of the manufacturing process.

I actually don't know if I even want the Apple iPad.  I have two decent laptops that can edit photos and footage pretty well.  Actually the MacBook Pro with Final Cut Pro X is pretty amazing.  I think this weekend I'll wipe the machine and do a clean install of Mojave on it.  Install all my regular programs and just use it to edit photos and footage.  Thankfully I got rid of the iMac.  That was an eyesore if I ever saw one.

I honestly don't know what 2019 will bring.  I know by April I do not want to be in Ottawa and Ontario.  I want to be in Calgary and be living close to the mountains.  I want to take two weeks and head down south thru Montana, Utah, Colorado to Arizona, up thru California and see the coast.  I would love to do photography and shoot some footage out there.  That is my goal for next year.