Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

Yay! Getty have selected five more of my photos for inclusion in the Getty Images Flickr Collection! While it's true that I haven't made a sale yet through this system, I feel that that Getty is capable of reaching a much larger audience than I ever could, and eventually I'll reap the benefits. These are the photos they've chosen this time around:

Fire: this is a simple little shot of a bonfire that I took at a party last December - the high shutter speed (1/1250th of a second) does a good job of freezing the licking flames in time.

Nom Nom Nom: This is one of our pet gerbils enjoyig a little snack in her cage, taken with my 70-300mm lens from a distance. I really like the shallow depth of field in this, which - for once! - has focussed on exactly the right place.

Folds II: One of my abstract shots from the Painted Hills in Central Oregon. I'm ecstatic that they've chosen one of these, because they really are one of my favorite series of photos.

Washington Bound: A shot taken from the passenger seat of our car as we drove across the Astoria Bridge from Oregon to Washington. I've always really liked this shot because of the combination of sharp detail, motion blur and even the rain on the windscreen.

Lunar Eclipse, 20th February 2008: Yes, yes, yes! If this isn't a saleable image, then I don't know what is! I put a huge amount of work into this composite image, and I really think it shows.

Interestingly, the last two images are being marketed as Rights Managed shots, rather than the more usual royalty-free model. This means that each and every use of the image by a client is negotiated separately, and often for more money per use... we shall see what that brings!

The titles of each image above links to the relevant photo in my Flickr stream. See also my previous post about the first images chosen by Getty Images.

P.S. Getty also just sent me an email saying that I'm allowed to choose five images that I would like to send to them for inclusion in the collection, and I'm somewhat stumped so far. Any ideas?

Posted in: chaosboy, flickr, photography on May 25, 2009 at at 9:51:00 AM 0 comments    

Recently, Flickr – the fantastic photo-sharing service and community that I've been using for the last few years – announced that it was entering into partnership with Getty Images, one of the world's foremost stock photography sites. Together, they're working on The Flickr Collection, a library of rights-managed and royalty-free images derived entirely from the millions of photos that are on Flickr.

Over the last few weeks, Flickr and Getty have been sending out emails to select Flickr members, asking them to contribute images for the launch of the collection in March. So I was pretty excited to receive my email on the weekend asking for my participation!

Now, let's just say that I have a lot of experience with stock photography, both as a designer (buyer) and as a seller. Most stock photography sites out there (iStockphoto, Shutterstock, etc.) are what are known as "micro-stock" libraries, where photos are sold extremely cheaply and contributing photographers receive a correspondingly tiny amount of money per image sold. Getty is not one of these sites – it's world wide, almost ubiquitous within the design industry, and sells photos for what they're worth.

I've tried to sell photos through these micro-stock sites before and haven't had any luck at all. Finding and submitting an image that they feel they need and meets all their quality guidelines seems to be almost impossible, and I've usually given up in disgust shortly thereafter. I've had much better luck with people simply finding my photos on Flickr and entering into negotiations directly with me. So, hopefully, this new Getty Collection will take that success and multiply it by Getty's ability to promote their photos... if they actually accept my shots!

Because all I've done so far is upload the images that Getty is interested in to their servers for review. So I still don't know whether they'll accept any of them, but I'm hopeful that at least a few of them will make it through. Then, as the service expands, maybe they'll pick up on some other images hat I think are worthwhile.

In case you're interested, here are the seven images that Getty initially selected for review...

Ampelmann! One of my favourite shots, but I declined to nominate this one for a few reasons. Firstly, I don't have a high-resolution version of this shot (I was new to digital photography when I took this shot and only kept the final, Flickr-sized version of it for some reason), and it also contains copyrighted elements – the Ampelmann itself and the Dorling Kindersley map which it is sitting on.

Houses, Burano: I'm kind of surprised that this was selected, truth be told. It's a nice, colourful shot of an interesting location, but I don't think it's particularly wonderful.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Kiss: I'm also not submitting this one, for the simple fact that I didn't take it! This beautiful shot – of us – was taken at our wedding by Linda, Russ' wife... which kind of precludes me from submitting it as mine!

The Perfect Kiss: Christine and me sharing a smooch. Still deciding whether or not to submit this one... it's a very personal shot, plus the model release forms are a bitch to fill in!

Boats, St. Ives Harbour: This has always been a favourite of mine. I love the gentle curve of the boats as they recede into the distance.

Through The Grass: Another good one! Taken in Yellowstone National Park, I only hope that the quality of this pic is good enough – it was taken with my little Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot, which only takes 5MP pictures and they tend to be a bit JPG compressy...

Venetian Sunset: One of my most absolute most favourite photos ever! The colour really was like this on the day I took it – from the back deck of a vaporetto returning to Venice from the lagoon islands – and the little Nikon film camera I was using at the time (thanks, Dad!) somehow managed to capture it perfectly!

Winding Path: Paths are obviously in demand at Getty Images! I really like the curving composition and subdued colour palette in this image.

That's it so far! Hopefully some of these will make it through, and then maybe more in the future!

Posted in: chaosboy, flickr, photography on February 4, 2009 at at 8:57:00 PM 0 comments    

Fairlight Baths
Originally uploaded by Senex Prime.

I had breakfast on Sunday with two very good friends on mine, John and his wife, Nicole. They treated me to a fantastic feast at Manly and then we walked around for a final photographic essay of the area. This shot of the Fairlight Beach Baths sums up so many of the things I love – and will miss – about Sydney... the outdoors life, beautiful weather even in May, the Harbour, the Heads... all of it! As much as I'm looking forward (and I am looking forward to it!!!) to being with my Christine and exploring Portland and America together, there is no doubting that I'll miss this amazing city of mine.

Posted in: chaosboy, flickr, photography, Sydney on May 6, 2007 at at 11:51:00 PM 0 comments    

Her Mark
Originally uploaded by Senex Prime.

I felt like being creative tonight... so here's a glimpse of the tattoo that I had done at the same time as Chaosgurl's engagement ring. On days when I feel that the distance that separates us is just too enormous, I always look at this and am reminded of her...

Sorry for being so soppy, but that's the way it is :-)

Posted in: chaosboy, chaoslove, flickr, photography on March 6, 2007 at at 3:47:00 AM 0 comments    

Seacliff
Originally uploaded by Senex Prime.

CB: With the growing realisation that I'm not going to be here in Oz for much longer, I've made a conscious effort to get out and see all those things that I've been meaning to look at for a while - before I'm not able to.

This thought is what dragged me out of bed at 5:00 in the morning on Sunday to go and see the remarkable Seacliff Bridge on the Illawarra Coast south of Sydney. This new bridge replaces the section of Lawrence Hargraves Drive between the towns of Coalcliff and Clifton, a short stretch of road that was under constant threat of rockfalls and landslides from the unstable cliff face above.

What followed was one of the most perfect mornings of photography I have ever had - a beautiful sunrise at Stanwell Tops, followed by glorious morning light at Coalcliff Pool and on the bridge itself. Five minutes after I crossed the bridge, the clouds closed in from the south and the rest of the day was very wet and grey. Well worth getting up early for! Check out more photos from the day on my photo stream on Flickr!

Posted in: australia, chaosboy, flickr, photography on March 5, 2007 at at 3:00:00 AM 0 comments    

CB: This is really just a test of Flickr's "Blog This!" command, but I regard this picture as one of the best architectural shots I have taken, so I thought I'd share it! Photography is something I have really got into over the last couple of years, my creative outlet. I currently use a Canon EOS350D (or Digital Rebel XT for the Americans out there!) with two lenses: a 17-85mm and a 70-300mm telephoto zoom. Great kit! I also have a super compact Panasonic Lumix TZ-1, which I carry with me almost every day. A great camera for its tiny size.

And if you don't know what Flickr is, I heartily recommend it as one of the best photo sharing community sites out there, well worth checking out!

Posted in: architecture, chaosboy, flickr, photography, united states on February 8, 2007 at at 3:03:00 AM 0 comments