5000

5 years and 6 months later.  I made it to 5000 sales on Shutterstock.  Should have taken me less than year.  LOL  But I will take it.  I have 15,261 photos and 1,544 footage clips on Shutterstock.  I should have started shooting footage a lot sooner.  Footage makes up about a third of my sales as far as dollar value goes.  

My next big milestone I would like to reach in the next year or so is get my sales to $10,000 so I get the final raise on Shutterstock.  I'm earning $0.36 a photo right now.  It would go up to $0.38 for the most basic of photos.

Tomorrow is my 44th birthday so this is a nice present to reach.  Hopefully on my 45th birthday I'll be over the $10,000 mark and the 10,000th sale.   Wishful thinking I think.

My most popular photograph

I was in Banff, Alberta when I took this photograph: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rocky-mountains-on-spring-day-615715556.  When I took the photo, I thought it was just a generic mountain shot.  The lighting was harsh since it was taken at mid day.  I did not like the photo in colour.  I converted it into black and white.  I uploaded it to Shutterstock and hoped that it would be at least accepted.  It was accepted a few days later and at that point I thought it would never sell.  At all.  Today it sold 3 times.  It's sold for a grand total of 225 times since April 2017 becoming my most popular photograph ever on Shutterstock.  I have it on my own website as well if you would like to purchase it and hang it on your wall:  http://josefpittner.photos/featured/14-the-rockies-josef-pittner.html.  This photo is the reason I want to go back to Alberta as soon as possible and get more shots like this.  I do miss the mountains of Alberta.  I miss being outdoors in the Rocky mountains.  I want to go to all the national parks in Canada and the USA that are located in the west.  I believe it is my calling.

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.