I am a stock photographer

No weddings. No portraits.  No family shots.  Only landscapes of nature and wildlife.  With my Sony RX100 Mark VII and my 2018 Apple iPad Pro.  No huge cameras.  No heavy laptops.  If I need to get closer to something, I walk towards it.  If I need to be farther away from subject, I walk away from it.  Easy as that.  I enjoy my independence.  I would rather be in my car with my camera driving to somewhere new.  Photograph something new.  Experience something new.

I honestly don’t need the latest and greatest anymore.  I am truly happy with what I have.  I have the best camera.  I have the best computer.  Why?  They are always with me.  I have decided to just do photography and shoot footage with the Sony RX100 Mark VII.  High quality photography and high quality 1080p video.  4K files are way too big and take too much time to process.  The 2018 Apple iPad Pro just flies through 1080p footage.  I keep learning about the iPadOS everyday.  Learn something new with it.

April 2020, I have decided to move to Calgary and be near the mountains.  I want to pay off my debt and just live simply.  That is my goal.

More Parc Omega photography with the Sony RX100 Mark VII

So I took a day off from work last week to go to Parc Omega for the day.  We got our first snow fall of the season and I wanted to photograph some animals in the fresh snow.  I’ve been trying to convince myself that I need a full frame, high megapixel camera and a really fast computer to do landscape and wildlife photography.  That just isn’t true.  I’ve been using my Sony RX100 Mark VII camera and a 2018 Apple iPad Pro with the 12.9” screen and a 512GB hard drive for the past six months to do all my computing and photography work.  If I didn’t say what equipment I was using no one would know unless they asked and I told them what I was using.  It is not the equipment, but rather the photographer.  Photography is pretty easy to learn.  Anyone can shoot decent photos.  You just have to have an eye for it.  You have to see the composition.  You just have to take the camera with you.

The above photo was taken at Parc Omega in Montebello, Quebec.  It was taken with the Sony RX100 Mark VII, edited on a 2018 Apple iPad Pro in Pixelmator Photo.  Literally just one click and voila.  Does not take much.

Photography with the Sony RX100 Mark VII

Got this resting male wood duck at Mud lake about a week ago.  I love my Sony RX100 Mark VII camera.  It’s small and compact and takes amazing photos and video.  It’s a perfect travel camera.  On my next few trips I will be taking it with me all the time.

My next goal is to get the Sony A7RII camera and the Sony f3.5-6.3 24-240MM lens with the battery grip.  I’m a small time photographer with a small blog and small portfolios on Adobe and Shutterstock so I’ll never get sponsored or have equipment sent to me.  One can only dream.  But I’m a total fan of the Sony line of cameras.  I used to shoot Canon for the longest time but I switched to Sony 2 years ago because of the technology.  Just love Sony cameras.

Shutterstock continues to impress

Now I know photography wouldn't make me rich.  It's a hobby for me that I make some money from. I'm more of a semi-professional as I make some money from selling my photos and videos on stock photography sites.  I sell on about 7 sites from 123RF to Videoblocks.  But my best site is Shutterstock.  In the last 8 months, my acceptance rate at Shutterstock has been incredibly high as I've added over a thousand images and videos to my portfolio.  Sales have been steady with my last month being my worst since October of 2015.  

Fotolia continues to be my second best site as far as acceptance and sales.  They unfortunately do not accept editorial shots or footage so they're losing out on a great number of photographs and stock footage.  

Shutterstock and Fotolia continue to impress me both.  I think they're the top of the top of micro stock sites.

My Shutterstock and Fotolia portfolios are available to view here by just following the previous links.  My own website is here if you are interested in any of my photography.

If you're interested in selling with either Shutterstock or Fotolia, just click on the respective links.

What a day at Algonquin Park

Got to the park at about 11:30am and within half an hour of getting there, saw my first of three moose.  Unfortunately, the first one was in deep brush so pretty much unseeable and unphotographable unless walking through a foot of water and about 30 metres full of brush.  The next 2 moose displayed amazingly well in clear fields along Highway 60 which runs the souther corridor of Algonquin Park.  Both got within 10 metres of the road stopping traffic along both sides.  Too tired to edit photos and videos tonight.  Editing will be done tomorrow along with uploading to various websites.

My eyes are really heavy so it's time for bed.

Algonquin Park

Heading up to Algonquin Park today.  Hope I see some nice wildlife.  Probably not, but it'll be a nice drive up and time time spending it in one of the most amazing parks in the world. And, best of all, the cameras are coming with me.  :)

The Canon EOS 7D

Got this shot of a Great Grey Owl a few years ago with my trusty Canon EOS 7D and the Sigma f2.8 70-200MM.  Honestly,  I think the Canon EOS 7D is a great wildlife, sports photography camera.  On a trip to Prague, Czech Republic in June of 2013 it was the only camera that survived of the two.  My Canon EOS 6D body did not make the flight from Ottawa to Prague.  Somewhere between Ottawa and Prague, the pentaprism dislodged from it's housing and was completely useless.  So back to shooting on a cropped sensor.

Anyways, we're gonna talk about the Canon EOS 7D.  Great, great action camera.  With the version 2 of the firmware it just kicked into an awesome action camera because of the number of shots you could get within a second.  The above shot was taken with the Canon EOS 7D and the Sigma f2.8 70-200MM non OS lens.  From what I remember it was a warm day that day.  Now a March day in Canada is not warm for anyone south of the Canadian border.  I think it was maybe around -5 degrees celsius with no wind, no clouds.  Just your typical Canadian spring day.

This was one of the better days of photographing the owls.   No winter snow storm.  It's actually pretty cool to photograph these owls in a cold snow storm with the snow falling down.  It adds some drama to the shot.

In this case I got the Owl coming in to get a meal on a little mouse.  I t think after it got the mouse and went back to eat it, we left as we knew that, that was it as far as it flying as it disappeared into the woods.  I to this day still remember this being one of my happy days.  Photography always makes me happy.