For someone who dabbles in travel photography and a bit of YouTube video production, the COVID-19 crisis was, to say the least, interesting to watch go down. It was painful to watch nomadic travel photographers have their lifestyles crushed by universal worldwide travel restrictions. For me, these are income streams that I don’t rely on to survive so the impact was annoying at the worst.
Interestingly, my stock photos at Dreamstime continued to sell. The quantity carried on with a little drop. The prices the photos were fetching did drop fairly noticeably. However, as the world economy starts to roar back to life, so do photo sales.
It certainly helps that once again, I am able to get out and snap some new content to keep the portfolio fresh.
12 Most Recent Stock Photo Sales At Dreamstime
The following gallery shows that last 12 stock photo sales for me at Dreamstime. The images have been cropped to fit the gallery format. For full-size versions, simply click on the individual pictures.
See more detailed descriptions at the bottom of this article.
High resolution versions of these images and other photos from the same day are available at Dreamstime. Want to earn cash from your own photos? Why not sign up for free with Dreamstime and start submitting now: Become a paid photographer!
Professional Photography?
Hardly. Out of the few thousand photos I have online with Dreamstime, many were taken with painstaking attention to detail in hard to get to locations and hard to get to times of the day. But, the 12 photos above are really nothing but snapshots.
In fact, two of the photos were taken with an older Samsung cell phone and edited with a free app. However, they were in unique places that took a whole lot of traveling to get to.
The airplane photos are taken in JPEG with a kit lens. Why? I take A LOT of aircraft photos. The main reason is for It’s About Airplanes and I need the quickest, easiest way to get the photos uploaded to the web. However, my library of airplane photos is quite extensive at Dreamstime and a good amount of my sales comes from these.
Why Would Someone Buy A ‘Snapshot’?
Who buys stock photos? I can pretty much guarantee you won’t these photos on a billboard or in a mainstream newspaper or magazine publication.
You would probably find them in a blog article, a business website, on a news website or on social media. Probably something small. Probably for something one-off that most would never see.
Just Far From A Professional Photographer Am I?
That question is subjective. You could argue that because I make money from photos, from websites and from YouTube that I am a professional photographer.
However, I have no formal training (only about 10,000 hours of instructional videos on YouTube). My equipment is mid-grade. My post-production software is mid-grade. I have a wide range of lenses and other peripherals but they are, with exception of a few OEM products, mostly aftermarket.
But, I push that equipment to their limits. And, I simply get out there. Early mornings. Late nights. Less than glamorous locations. Less than glamorous conditions. Document it all and see what works.
About The Photos Above
From left to right, top to bottom…
Main Street in Brampton, Ontario, Canada Looking South
Pretty basic shot in downtown Brampton, Ontario. The location is just at the bottom of the steps to the GO/VIA Rail station. I was simply playing around with a new at the time Canon 50mm prime lens. Just a straight forward snapshot.
Tall Buildings And Rail Museum In Downtown Toronto, Ontario
When I’m out with the kids, I usually don’t drag around the full camera kit and tripod. But, I often do have the camera with me. One of the favourites is heading into Toronto and watching trains by Union Station.
Not far away is a train museum. At this spot, 99.9% of the people are looking the other way and photographing the CN Tower and Rogers Centre. If you look to the east, these condos make a great photo in the afternoon light.
It should be noted that a good part of selling stock photography is properly keywording your submissions. It’s a tedious job but it can make all the difference in the world. I believe this photo is successful because of the use of ‘condominiums’ and ‘downtown toronto’, along with several variants in the keywords.
Signs signs
Everywhere there’s signs
Fucking up the scenery
Breaking my mind
Do this, don’t do that
Can’t you read the sign
It was true when The Five Man Electrical Band sang this song in 1971. It’s true today. There are signs everywhere. Signs can be newsworthy at any time. The more signs you add to your portfolio, the more chances you have of making an editoral sale when something goes down.
This was a simple shot of a TTC sign at the Long Branch transit terminal. At this location, there is a GO Train Station adjacent to the western extent of streetcar service in Toronto. At this point, you can transfer from the TTC to Mississauga Transit to continue your journey west.
A Large White Pine Tree Captures The Early Morning Light
Taken while capturing footage for a YouTube video kayaking on Nogies Creek at sunrise. In other words, a little multi-tasking. There’s nothing like the view from a kayak or canoe in that early morning light with mist still hanging around on the surface of the water.
This location is northwest of Bobcaygeon, Ontario, near where we have access to a trailer in the summer. Several photos taken from the kayak in this area have sold.
Here’s the video from that morning:
(If you like what you see, please give it a ‘Thumb’s Up’! We are always forever grateful to new subscribers to the channel.)
Dundas Street West Sign In Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Again with the signs. But, you see with two out of 12 being simple signs that there’s something to it. This was taken while stopped at a red light during the capture of footage for another YouTube video. This one was a street tour of the full length of Dundas Street in Toronto from east ot west.
See that video here:
Brampton, Ontario: George Street Southbound View
Same visit as the first photo above. Pretty simple shot of a downtown street in Brampton, Ontario, Canada taken from the platform of the GO Station. Brampton has been in the news a lot lately for its redevelopment in the downtown core and for its being the hot spot for COVID-19 in Canada.
Entering Northwest Territories From Alberta
Shot with a cell phone camera. Edited with Snapseed, a free app. Taken on a 2016 road trip from Ontario to the Northwest Territories with a return by Jasper and Banff and through the U.S.
it felt like climbing Everest when we finally crossed the border from Alberta into NWT. It was a long haul to that point and the trip was just starting.
C-GKEK: Air Canada Express Bombardier CRJ-200
One of my early aircraft photography submissions. I’d been taking pictures of airplanes for a long time at this point but, for some reason, had never thought to submit them for stock.
Crazy Skies Over Lewis And Clark Caverns State Park
This was on the return leg of that 2016 road trip. This campground in Montana was basically staging for entering Yellowstone the following morning. It turns out, I would have rather spent a week in this area than head into that iconic, overcrowded national park.
Once again, this is a simple cell phone shot edited with Snapseed. Yet, it was of the most often sold photos in my portfolio.
Bombardier Learjet 60 Private Business Jet Side View
The collapse of Bombardier’s commercial aircraft business has certainly helped to sell a few photos like this one. Just a simple private Learjet with all identifying markings photoshopped out to make it generic.
Air Transat Airbus A310-300 Side View
The classic Airbus A310-300. Until recently, Air Transat was about the only airline left that flew these commercially. Now, they’re all gone…
Air Transat, like all airlines, has been in the news quite a bit over the past few months. The name Air Transat has been tossed around a bit more than most as the pending purchase by Air Canada seems to have fallen through.
Air Canada Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Tail View
With Air Canada being the main customer at Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) and that airport being the closest to me, I’d be a fool not to have photographed and submitted images of the Canadian airline’s full fleet. And, I have.
