Membership Loose Ends

Just some loose end announcements about various places I'm being assimilated into... All good news...

1) The GigaPan Systems Beta. The GigaPan system allows average people to take Gigabyte-sized panoramas via a special robotic device mounted to a tripod. Here are some examples of gigabyte panoramas. You can zoom in to unbelievable detail. I believe in this phase they are releasing a limited set of 1,500 of the devices to the public.

I had enrolled to in the Beta program earlier this year and have been on the waiting list since. However, I just received my "lucky you! you've been selected to be in the beta" email yesterday... Lucky me!


2) PhotoShelter Collection. Also yesterday, I received my "Congratulations, we've reviewed your application and welcome you as a contributing member to the PhotoShelter collection" letter from PhotoShelter. The PhotoShelter Collection is a stock photography company/outlet and describes themselves as follows: "We believe photography is an art and a profession, not a commodity. We are determined to restore diversity and freshness to this industry. We believe photographers deserve a level playing field and the majority percentage of their sales. Our community is open and growing by the hundreds every week."

PhotoShelter sets themselves up as a 'photography-friendly" competitor to the higher-quality stock houses like Corbis/Getty, and are not a microstock company. They supposedly give a larger chunk of the sale to the photographer, and seem to be making a run at marketing the community. Not sure how all that translates to sales, but the word is that a lot of microstock photographers are jumping from places like iStockPhoto to PhotoShelter for the higher income potential. Maybe people realize that selling photos for $1 is not sustainable? They are also open to working with more beginning-type photographers (like me) than the big guys like Corbis and Getty. Interesting world, this stock world is.

Had to jump through some technical and editorial/quality hurdles to get accepted. I guess I am "selling stock photos" now. Not much there but you can check out some the studio work and stock I put up for sale. Here's my PhotoShelter Collection address... http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/bwiederholt This is definitely a trial balloon for me but the stock arena sounds like a way to feed my equipment habit if I can consistently produce what people want to buy.


3) Bryan Peterson. Couple of weeks ago, received note from Bryan Peterson (see books below) saying I was accepted into his Commercial Photography course. Had to present a "portfolio" and write a little letter to get in to the course. Still time to sign up or not for that one, but it would get me practice and insight into what really sells as stock, and immediately opens the door for me with some other sales channels through Corbis and Fogstock.





The 4 Futures exercise helpedto shape my stance on stock photography, microstocks are really not a way to go for me; I'd rather raise the bar and try to compete at the 'superpro' level. Items 2 and 3, and possibly 1, above seem to best support some of the future possibilities in that post.