So much potential

There is so much potential in arial photography and arial footage.  I am kinda glad that I have a little bit of time off between contracts that I get to go out with the drone for a few flights and take photos and footage that I wouldn't have a chance to take while I am working.  

Drones have really taken off in the past 2-3 years.  Excuse the pun.  For small time photographers like myself who go out after work and on weekends to shoot stills and footage a drone like a DJI Spark is a God send.  It's not exactly cheap but it's not overly expensive either.  If I did not have this drone I would be land locked doing the same old photography and videography.  The drone allows me to see things from a different perspective and that is what photography is all about.

Drone flight

Solar farm near Arnprior, Ontario

I am planning on flying my drone again today.  I hope I don't lose connection with the drone for a whole 7+ minutes like I did yesterday.  I have the video and you can clearly see from my body language that I am more than mad and miffed because it is a good little drone.

Death from above

So I took this picture of the Mississippi in Pakenham, Ontario over the Mississippi River and started a video.  Roughly 5 seconds into said video, I lost any and all contact with my DJI Spark drone.  Most harrowing 30-44 seconds of my week and it's only Monday.  I know it's a beginner drone starting at $499. But to me, that's still a lot of money.  I'm planning to upgrade my drone next year to the DJI Mavic Pro 2 when it comes out.

I am just relieved to have my DJI Spark back safe and sound.  It's actually a lot of fun to operate and it's easy.  I've seen a lot of videos of drones crashing and/or what's called fly aways.  Thankfully I still have my drone.  I'm planning to fly it a lot more and take more pictures and videos with it.

The DEATH of a drone (Almost).

So I decided on my lunch break today to go fly my DJI Spark drone.  In the 2 weeks that I've been flying it, I never had a problem with it.  Until today.  I've flown over forests, fields, rivers and lakes.  Today was one of those days that I was flying over a river.  The Mississippi River in fact near Pakenham, Ontario.  I was on the maiden flight today when at about 200 feet away and 300 feet up, I lost any and all connection to the drone via my remote control and phone.  Nothing.  No visual on the phone.  No connection.  Absolutely nothing.  I'm gazing up at the sky and it's not in sight.  I stare at my phone.  No signal from the DJI Go 2 app.  Absolutely nothing.  I'm scanning the sky, the horizon. I'm listening to see if I can hear it.  Just the rush of the water.  All of a sudden, off in the distance I hear a plop.  Like something hitting the water and sinking waste deep into the river.  I'm 110% sure that was my DJI Spark.  I'm scared.  I'm pissed.  I'm mad beyond mad.  I try and connect to the drone.  Nothing.  I'm about to shut my remote and head off home when all of a sudden, about 30-45 seconds after losing all connection to the drone, my feed comes up and I can see myself on my iPhone 8 Plus screen from about 300 feet up.  I see me.  I see my car.  I feel so much relief.  

How the f can I lose contact with the drone for 30-45 seconds?  I swear I heard it plop down into the Mississippi. I was 110% sure I lost it. I rebooted the app.  I hit the come home button like a jack rabbit repeatedly.  That 30-45 seconds was maddening.  If I was over a field I at least had a chance of finding it and bringing it home with me.  But over a river?  Not a chance.  If it did drop into the water, it was a goner for sure.  I don't know what caused the drone to lose connection with my remote.  The app didn't crash.  The phone was on full battery.  The only thing I can think of is the wind or an app malfunction.  

All I can is that I'm glad I have the drone back and safe with me.  I'm just editing the footage I shot yesterday and today.  Hope to have it up soon.

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.

The Perseids were a bust but...

...I did get to fly my drone some more.  I am more and more confident flying the drone farther distances and higher heights.  I've uploaded 9 of the clips I shot yesterday to Shutterstock and they've all been accepted and are available for sale here.  I've uploaded them to Pond5 and Storyblocks but those two sites take forever to review footage.  I think I have about 10-12 more clips to edit and they will go up on Shutterstock and the other sites as well. 

The 2018 Perseid meteor shower

The 2018 Perseid meteor shower this weekend meaning Ottawa is either going to get severe thunder storms or heavy snow fall.  I actually just looked at the Clear Sky Chart for Ottawa and guess what?  No rain, no snow, no clouds.  Which means I'm going to take a few photography friends, drive out into the country and go do some photography.

I'm also going to shoot some drone footage today and tomorrow as it's supposed to be a nice weekend.

Timelapse from today

Since my contract ended early due to shortage of work and looking for work on a Friday, I decided to give myself a break and have some time to relax I went downtown to shoot a time lapse of Parliament Hill from the Quebec side.  There were a lot of nice and fluffy clouds.  The clip should be up and approved soon on Shutterstock, Pond5 and Storyblocks.

Subscription versus ownership

Oh Adobe how you had me before the subscription service.  I was a big Photoshop and Lightroom user.  Now, not so much.  ON1 Photo Raw 18.5 and Serif' Affinity Photo are my software packages of choice.  Just as feature rich, just as if not more stable, ON1 Photo Raw 18.5 and Serif' Affinity Photo are the software of choice of hobbyist, semi-pro and pro photographers photo editing software.  Starting at $9.99US a month just for Lightroom and Photoshop and ending at $82.99US a month for all the software plus Adobe Stock is just not worth it.

When I was using the $9.99US option with Adobe, I just used Lightroom for 99.9% of my edits.  Lightroom was just fine.  I never went into Photoshop at all.  Maybe once ever six months to see some new features.  But that was about it.  Paying $9.99US was just not worth it.

I had asked some of photography buddies to see what they were using.  90% were using ON1 Photo Raw 18.5. For $99.99US (as of this time) you get a pretty damn good Digital Asset Management tool.  You get a discount on it now as well her for a grand total of $49.99. So basically this is what you will pay for Adobe in 5 months in a one time payment.  I'd say that's a lot better.  And you own the license to the software.  With Adobe's Creative Cloud, there is no license.  Everything is stored in the cloud as far as licensing goes.  You can still store your photos locally on your hard drive along with the programs.  But as soon as you stop paying for the subscription, the majority of the program stops working.  

ON1 Photo Raw 18.5 has a slight learning curve but I seem to pick it up easily.  All the concepts are pretty much the same.  Just the interface is a bit different.  Both ON1 Photo Raw 18.5 and Affinity Photo are great, proven programs with pretty much the same features as Photoshop and Lightroom.  If and when Serif comes out with a Digital Asset Management software, I will be switching over to that.

Now I gotta pack up my stuff so I can go fly my drone so I can edit more videos.

Passive income from photography

I primarily sell on 3 microstock agencies that are actually worth the time.  They include:

• Shutterstock
• Pond5
• Storyblocks

Granted, I sell more photos than I do footage but when I sell footage, it makes me a lot more money. If you asked me 4 or 5 years ago if I would ever do footage, I'd tell you you're crazy.  I remember being at my favorite location to photograph animals.  I had taken the day off from work.  The light was just amazing.  At that time I was using a Canon EOS 6D and a Sigma f5-6.3 150-500MM lens.  I shot the video just to see if I could and see if it would actually sell.

I got home.  Dumped all my files onto my computer.  Edited and uploaded everything to Shutterstock and luckily it got accepted.  I believe it was a few weeks later that it actually sold.  And it has been my best selling video since.  You can view it here.

So now I only upload to the above mentioned sites and it's been great ever since.  You too can sell photos and videos as well.  Shutterstock is by far my best website where I sell my photos and videos.  You can sign up here and start today.

Loyalty

To family and a few friends.  I can count on one hand how many loyal friends I have.  At times I don't think I even need hands to count the amount of friends that are loyal. Today I feel like I can only count on my family and my girlfriend.  I'll pick myself up by doing some photography.  That always cheers me up. Because photography is awesome.

Image theft in the age of Google.

As a photographer who sells his product on several micro stock sites and thru my own website, image theft and unauthorized image reproduction is the biggest threat to my business, my livelihood and my number one income online.  

One has to ask themselves.  Why do people steal someone else' photography?  The answer is quite simple.  Because they can.  People will steal and claim it as their own.  They bought the camera, they went to school and got an education in Photography and image editing.  They bought the computer, learnt Photoshop.  They're the one that took and edited that really good photograph.  

When I see one of my images being used by someone else who claims it as their own, it hurts me more financially than emotionally.  Of course I get insulted and mad that someone takes credit for my work and makes money off of my hard work.  I do a lot of nature and landscape photography.  On a regular trip to take animal photos, I travel at least an hour out of the city to see if I can try and get a photo of a moose or a bear or a deer or some bird I've never seen before.  Before I even enter my vehicle, I have to make sure my batteries are charged for my camera and camcorder.  I have to verify all my equipment works.  I have to pack it up and make sure I have all of it before I go.  Then there's the gas to get to where I'm going. Wear and tare on my vehicle, gas for the car.  If I go out, I'm probably eating breakfast, snacks during the day.  There's also my time.  That is exactly what you're stealing.  Image thieves can be high school students to multi-billion, multi-national corporations.  They are in fact one and the same.

Google and other search engines are the greatest threat to online piracy of pretty much anything and everything.  I can google my own name and hundreds of my own photographs and videos come up and all I have to do is right click on the image and I get a high definition image downloaded right to my computer hard drive.

As I upload to places like Shutterstock, Pond5 and Storyblocks, these agencies have or should have a legal departments to protect themselves and their contributors like myself from image theft.  But what if you post to your own website like I occasionally do.  There is code out there you can place on your website that will disable the Right click functionality of a users mouse so they cannot Right Click on your image and download it.  I've placed it on my website.  

What legal recourse do you, as an individual have to fight image thieves?  Litigate, email campaigns?  All take time and money right?  You can start a take down notice through the DMCA.  I haven't used it yet but I'm pretty sure it's the fastest and easiest way to start besides emailing the company, user or school using your work for financial gain.  

Value your work and go after the people and business' who steal from you.  It is your livelihood.  It is your passion.  Take care of it.

No Social Media

I finally shut off my Facebook account today.  Instagram and Twitter were completely useless as far as marketing my services go.  Never ever made money with social media.  All I got was trolls and spam email and requests to send money to someone in Nigeria.  

Those platforms never really did work as I only upload my photography and footage to sites like Shutterstock, Pond5 and Videoblocks.  I've recently started to blog in the hopes people find my photos and footage appealing.  I think it also helps people to know me a little better.  

Facebook and Twitter for me were very polarizing.  Especially over the past decade or so with what's come out about Facebook and Twitter, with what they've being doing and trying to do in recent elections.  There is a lot of fake news and a lot of propaganda which is dividing people against each other which does not help.  I don't want my blog to be about politics, censorship or anything of that nature.  I want my followers to be constructive when criticizing my photographs or videos.  Don't make hateful or offensive comments.  It does not add to the discussion but rather detracts.  I am open to ideas.  Good and bad.  I am willing to help and learn.  I want to teach what I know.  I want to learn from other people.

I find social media makes people very anti-social.  Smart phones are making people not so smart.  Growing up, we did our own research.  We did not have Google.  We actually read books.  That's where we learned from.  Now you can find everything on Google or YouTube.  Well almost everything.  I hope that people actually use less and less social media.  I hope people instead go for walks and drives out into the country.  Take their cameras and camcorders with them.  You actually have a device that fits in your pocket that does both.  Actually talk to each other.  More importantly listen to one another. 

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.

Fort Henry, Ontario - Arial view

Just one of the videos I took over Fort Henry when we were in Kingston, ON over the August long weekend.  The drones are a lot of fun to fly but I fear losing it.  I try and keep it in visual site.  I think next year I will upgrade from the DJI Spark to the DJI Mavic Pro just so I can take better video with the drone.  The DJI Spark takes really good videos but I want something better.