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Almost Five Years In

September 1st, 2019

Well, it's been quite some time since my last blog post. I've been a "participant" on Fine Art America for nearly five years now. To say I'm happy with the experience would be a huge over-statement, yet I still feel like if I could just flip the switch in some way, perhaps things would be different.

At one time, I had nearly 900 pieces in my gallery. I read a post saying that you should only put your very best on. So, I tried to be honest with myself. I looked at each photo and asked myself, "is that really a marketable image"? Would I personally hang it on the wall"? If the answer was "no", or "probably not", I deleted the image. I felt bad erasing many hours of work but that was the advice of somebody who claimed to have lots of sales.

Well, it did nothing to improve my sales. Over the last four years, I would say I might be a little bit ahead (total sales - annual membership to FAA = a positive number anyway) but it's barely been worth the work. Yet I do see some folks with very good, massive galleries, do make some sales and probably make money.

But yesterday, I spent some time adding some images to my butterfly gallery. I've been on a Big Year of sorts trying to see how many species of birds, butterflies, etc., I could chase down, photographing as many as possible. So I have LOTS of good images to upload over the next months. But I also took the time to look for some local artists/photographers to connect with. I did an artist search by distance from me. It seemed that there were lots of local, or nearly local artists. But then I went into their galleries and looked at their most recent work/submission. Most of them had not posted any new work in months, even years. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that those artists had had the same experience I've had... that it's barely worth the effort.

So, I'm not one to give up and I'm committing to a renewed effort on FAA. I'll update my gallery by posting more images. My 2017 relocation from the midwest to Colorado has allowed my portfolio to acquire a western flavor and that's never a bad thing. My ability to travel more in the last years should aid in acquiring some nice images. But, we'll see. It does seem like FAA needs to rethink where they are. Perhaps they need to flush out a good portion of the inactive galleries giving those artists who are working hard more exposure.

Either way, I'm here to stay. I'll look into other tricks, work on being more social, more active, perhaps working on a different editing style for FAA content, etc. I just hope the work I'm committing to has some payback.

My First Sale

February 20th, 2015

Well, after 3 months I'm happy to say I got my first sale. It caught me totally by surprise. I was beginning to believe that I had to be more involved with following, commenting, liking, faving others photos in order to promote my work. So maybe this is one of those good news/bad news things. The good news being that I got a sale, the bad news is that I might start thinking that my portfolio is strong enough that I don't need to spend much time promoting myself and ultimately shoot myself in the foot.

I'm wondering whether FAA is a good venue for selling microstock. In looking at the various search functions, I'm not able to see where a potential buyer could come onto FAA and search for images being sold as microstock. Those buyers don't have all the time in the world. So to expect them to come online and open up dozens of potential images looking for the one image that can be purchased as a microstock is not something they're going to want to do. I guess the same goes for Rights Managed photos. Until FAA creates a menu item that allows them to search specifically through the microstock and/or Rights Managed images, it seems like it would be a waste of time to upload images in hoping to get that type of sale. I'd love to hear differently if I'm wrong though!

For now I'll just sit tight and give thought to how I can build a stronger portfolio, perhaps get involved with a few more groups, comment a few more times, etc. and see how things go.

The Beginning

November 21st, 2014

As of a few days ago (Nov. 16, 2014 to be exact), I decided to take the plunge into Fine Arts America hoping to get some image sales. I don't know what's in store for me and I already feel extremely overwhelmed. I'm not sure whether it's good to be in multiple groups, participate strongly in a few groups or maybe it doesn't matter at all. I don't know! Right now, I'm concentrating on adding my images to my portfolio. Most are already on my computer in their own folders, so it's not hard at all to just upload, title, tag and describe those that need it. Once I manage to get all my "personally approved" images on FAA, I look forward to getting to know my way around more. I think it will be lots of fun once the initial uploading is behind me!

Beyond the physical work of uploading all my images, one of the first tasks I'm assigning myself is to explore ways I can challenge myself to expand my photographic creativity. There was a time when all you had to do was put a camera in my hands and I'd start exploring the room (or the world) around me looking for what could be photographed. Now I have the expensive cameras sitting near me and I keep thinking about where my next great travel destination will be so I can take some photos! I've lost something along the way and I want to try and get it back.

I'm looking forward to an interesting journey!