I love, love, love working with dancers. This is a new series of dance stock photos that you can license on Stocksy.
The model’s name is Joy Kidston, and makeup and hair were done by Nikkie Gatto.
Here are a few files from a new series of stock photos I shot last week of a woman working from home (in her PJs, because let’s be honest, who doesn’t?). The series is available for purchase on Stocksy. Today is also the last day to use the promo code “STOCKSY15” to get 15% off your purchase.
You may recognize this model, Dorothy, from another series of business stock photos I shot earlier this summer!
If you need to buy any stock photos today, use the Stocksy promo code “TUES” for $20 off! Today only!
I have a new (old) series of royalty-free Halloween stock photography in my Stocksy portfolio. This series was previously available on iStockPhoto, and features two adorable young brothers trick-or-treating.
See the rest on Stocksy.
These kids were the cutest, and I think it’s about time I did another shoot with them!
I have a Stocksy promo code to share! Using the code FREELOVE will get you $10 off your first purchase at Stocksy. Cool beans!
My friend and fellow photographer Stacey Newman and I did an experimental business photoshoot earlier this month. We wanted to create a series of raw business stock photography with natural lighting, so we got a group of awesome models (seriously, one of the best groups I’ve ever worked with) and had them work in an unstaged office setting. I put both of our sets of images in a gallery on Stocksy. You can see my images here.
If you haven’t checked out Stocksy yet, maybe start with a gallery I made of some of my favourite images from other contributors.
I added some aerial images to my Stocksy portfolio from a helicopter trip in Nevada.
This shot was curated (meaning the editors put it on the main page).
This is a shot of an unfinished subdivision, with the roads laid out but no houses.
This is an overhead view of Lake Mead.
I will be adding more images to this gallery soon. You can see them all here.
tl;dr summary: now you can buy my images on Stocksy.com!
When I left my job to pursue professional photography, I told myself I’d try it for 6 months, and if it didn’t work out, I’d find another desk job or maybe go back to school. I didn’t even call myself a “photographer” for the first year or so. My first business card said:
Jen Grantham
Photography!
I was scared of the title “photographer”, so I went around telling everyone I “do photography”, with a little exclamation point at the end to make it sound more casual. I was also terrified the first time I charged someone money for my services. Pretty funny to think about now.
I started selling stock photography around that time, in January 2009. And by “selling” stock photography, I mean that I made 84 cents in my first 3 months by uploading (let’s be honest: terrible) images like this:
I realized that if I wanted to make a decent income selling stock photography, I needed to do a better job. iStockPhoto was incredibly motivating. I posted in the Critique Forums, and other photographers gave me their – very honest – opinions about my files. iStock is fairly strict about the files they accept, but over time I was able to bring my acceptance rate up from 35% to 80%, and I actually started to see steady sales. It made me a better photographer. In September 2010, I qualified for exclusivity with iStockPhoto.
I’m happy to say that I did NOT have to quit photography after 6 months! Today I am doing photography full-time, and I have a beautiful studio and amazing clients.
But, on the stock front, things changed. Things are still changing. And although I still appreciate iStock dearly, it is time for me to make a change as well.
In February, Bruce Livingstone invited me to submit an application to his new agency, Stocksy. I did, and to my complete shock, (and even though I accidentally uploaded one of my application images twice) I was accepted. Browsing through the work of the roughly 100 accepted members (at the time), I was completely blown away by the quality of the images, and how different the work was from traditional microstock photography. I fell in love with not only the site, but the payment structure – artists get 50% of sales, 100% of extended license sales, and the company also pays 90% of their profits back to the artists at the end of the year. Awesome! I’m so excited to work with this amazing group of talented people.
Stocksy officially opened on March 25th, and I went to Australia a few days later. The day after I returned from my trip, I decided to end my exclusivity agreement with iStockPhoto. As of today, I’m officially an independent stock photographer! You can still find some of my older files, editorial files, and everything taken at an iStockPhoto event, here. You can find my newer files, and more creative work, here at Stocksy.
Right now, my portfolio on Stocksy is fairly small. One of the series I have up is my ballerina series, including some new edits:
There’s also a shoot I did on Valentine’s Day with this adorable couple, Erica & Jessica:
As well as a new series of studio portraits with this lovely model, Kaitlin:
I’m very excited for my Stocksy portfolio to finally go live, and for developing my photography with this wonderful company. If you buy stock photos, or just enjoy looking at awesome photos, consider checking out the Stocksy library.
In October, I went to Raleigh, North Carolina for an iStockphoto event. Nearly 30 photographers spent 3 days shooting at amazing locations around Raleigh, including Seven, Tucker House, and C. Grace. We shot everything from vampires to burlesque dancers to ghost children.
Here are a few nightlife / bar themed images from the shoot:
You can also have a look at the group lightbox to see images from all of the photographers who attended.
Earlier this year, I did still photography on a show for the W Network called “Backyard Inventors“. It was an extremely fun project, and I’m excited that I can finally share a few publicity stills.
The show premiered May 16th at 9pm, and it will play again on Sunday May 20th at 8pm. You can see the full schedule here. I’m definitely going to be watching, because I want to see the fates of a few of my favourite inventors! You can also keep track of the show on their Facebook page.
Here are a couple of my photos in the Toronto Star on May 1st.
Here are a few pictures from the May 1st protest in downtown Toronto. You can view the whole set on Flickr.
Here are some photos from the 2011 Toronto Zombie Walk. As usual, you can see the entire set on Flickr.
