Photography, footage, vectors, music

If you need any photography, footage, music or vector art, please use the following link to buy whatever you need.  You can buy anyone’s photography, footage clips, music or vector art.  Not just mine.  Anyone’s.  Just use the following link: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Josef+Pittner?rid=1070795&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ctrbreferral-link

December 2018 = BME this year

December 2018 has so far been my best month this year.  The month and year are not over yet but I've sold more this month than most months combined.  Thanks to a few video sales this has been a pretty good month.

I am looking forward to 2019.  I think there will be a few massive changes.  I'm going to start looking for a job out west.  I cannot stand Ottawa and Ontario any more.  There is nothing to do here.  I loved being out west in the mountains.  I love nature and I love being out in the mountains.  The air is so fresh.  I love the mountain landscape.  I want to do some astrophotography in the mountains..  One of my goals is take a week or two off and just travel down to Arizona to do some road trip photography. I cannot wait to get out there.

That is all for now.

I am saving up

We are currently moving this week and moving is a pain in the ass.  I hate it.  I hate it so much we'll be moving in the end of March again.  But I think that time it'll be much easier as most of our stuff will be in storage and already packed.  In the meantime, we'll be able to save for rent and other stuff while we look for another place to live.  The girlfriend wants to move to Kingston, Ontario and I want to move to Calgary, Alberta.  So we shall see what happens at the end of March.

I'm currently saving up all my photography income for a new Sony RX100 Mark VI and a DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone.  I currently use a Sony RX10 Mark II along with a Sony RX100 Mark V.  I honestly want to go down to just one camera and I feel like the Sony RX100 Mark VI would be the perfect camera for me as I want to travel more next year.  Back in 2016 I was in Arizona for a a week and I fell in love with the state because of the scenery and the landscape.

I am trying to minimize the amount of equipment I try to bring on my photography expeditions.  I'm down to the Sony RX10 Mark II, the Sony RX100 Mark V and a Canon Vixia HF G40 camcorder.  I want to get rid of at least the Sony RX10 Mark II.  I still find the Canon Vixia HF G40 camcorder extremely useful.  I like the camcorder form factor for shooting video.  I can hook up an external mic to the Canon Vixia HF G40 camcorder.  I don't have to have a separate mic for the Sony RX100 Mark V as I shoot mainly stills with it.  I do some time-lapse with it as well.  With the Sony RX100 Mark VI you cannot install any apps from the Sony play store anymore like you can with the Sony RX100 Mark V.  I will be keeping the Sony RX100 Mark V when I buy the Sony RX100 Mark VI in March or April or whenever I make enough money for it from my photography sales.

If you would like to help reach my goal of buying a Sony RX100 Mark VI, please purchase some of my photography or videos at Shutterstock, Pond5 or Storyblocks.  There is also a donate button on my site.  You can also go to my other site here.

This has been...

...the worst year for photo and footage sales yet.  It's down 40-60% month over month.  Even though I've increased my portfolios by as much as 100%, sales have fallen dramatically.  I've been marketing my portfolios over the past year, shooting even more, sales have dropped dramatically.  I've tried to stay positive and add customers and contributors to Shutterstock, Depositiphotos, Pond5 and Storybolocks, that has not helped an iota.  Zilch, zero, nadda, nothing.  I don't know if I can market on Youtube.  I hate being on camera.  I don't like self promotion as far as filming myself. 

I don't know if anyone is actually reading this blog or if it's just bots that are hitting this place.  Traffic is not increasing.  I'm not getting any responses to my blog entries.  I know not to quit and post regularly.  I know I have a small blog.  I'm hoping to grow it and make some decent money of off it but the ROI doesn't seem to be good right now.  I think it might take 2-4 years of me doing this for basically free with no return on investment.  I only pay for my domain name which is about $4 Canadian a year.  Blogger is free.  But my time is not.  That is the real pisser right there.

Back in 2010, I was diagnosed with cancer.  I went through one operation in 2010 and another one in 2011.  In 2015 I went through a divorce so I value my time very much.  I know you don't get any of it back which is why I have a lot of self doubt about doing this.  If it's worth my time.  I finally have a job I enjoy but again, it's a contract.  So it will come to an end at one point.  My girlfriend and I are moving at the end of the month to a cheaper place to save up some money so we can move out west to Calgary.  I was in Calgary for 4 months last year and I fell in love with the west.  I fell in love with the life style, the mountains, nature.  Alberta is so much closer to the American west as well.  I'm hoping that if we do move out there to take a few weeks and do some travelling and photography out there.  I love being out in the mountains and in nature.  I love doing photography and videography out there.  It's so peaceful and nice.  I'm hoping to get contract work or a full time job out there so I can support my girlfriend and I.  We both want to travel and we both love being out in nature.  I'm hoping it works out for both of us.

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.

I have to go back

This place is just so amazing.  The American Southwest is completely mesmerizing.  I went there 2 and a half years ago.  It was about 10 months after my divorce.  I was not in a good place emotionally and I just needed a break from work and everything.  I've never been on a vacation by myself to anywhere.  I just needed a place to relax.  I had two choices at the time as I remember.  Either go to Arizona or California.  

In California, I wanted to go on the Pacific Coast highway for a few days and I wanted to go see a couple of the national parks.  I remember watching several YouTube videos and seeing all the homeless in San Fransisco and Los Angeles.  That alone swayed me to go to Arizona.  One of my profs in college went there and I remember seeing his pictures of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley.

Needless to say I made the right decision.  I instantly fell in love with the state when I landed in Phoenix.  I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.

Lets just say even with the louse cold weather I had an amazing time.  It's an amazing wonder to see in person.  Never seeing it before and walking up to the cliff to see the majesty of the Grand Canyon is a once in a life time experience.  I only spent about 6 hours at the Grand Canyon but what six hours those were.  I am hoping to go back very soon to try and recreate the experience.  I would suggest that you go there as well as it should be on anyone' bucket list.

FInally, I see ads!!!!

Well it took forever but I got all my Google accounts cleaned up.  Closed a myriad of accounts and services.  Forwarding my domain to the blogger site.  Correctly setup Google Adsense on the blog.  Correctly set up Google Adsense account, Google Analytics etc and for the first time, the website is able to display ads on my own, personal website.

From now on I hope to post daily or every other day and raise traffic to the site and all my various photo and video portfolios so that I can expand my photography business.  I live and breathe photography.  I am constantly thinking of what I want to photograph next.  It's an amazing hobby that gets you out into your city and local nature around the area you live in.  It's a great experience to explore and capture memories.

Still adding photos

Still going thru my photos from my trip to Arizona and I keep finding more and more photos that I like.  I'm of course adding them to my Shutterstock portfolio and my own personal website.  Arizona is certainly a beautiful state with extremely nice people.

It's been a while

Well 2017 is here and what a year.  Got a new girl in my life, work is going well and finally doing more photography.  Finally.  Busy, busy, busy.

Been a busy few weeks!

So several weeks ago (three to be exact) I went on a solitary vacation to the state of Arizona.  I have never been alone anywhere.  I was always with either a friend, family member, ex-wife etc.  I was never alone with a camera anywhere.  I needed this trip to clear a few things up.  I wanted to be alone to think, clear my head and do some photography.   I think this particular image says it all for me.  Life's a journey, not a destination as the song says.

It was an awesome vacation with just a few hiccups.  But what vacation and life in particular don't have a few hiccups.  I got what I needed.  It was an awesome time to regroup and collect my thoughts.  I now know what I want out of my life and it's time I go and grab it.

Oh by the way, I missed Forrest by 5 minutes!  ;)