If you have been following my work for the past several years, you are probably already aware that I have been very involved with microstock photography. In fact, getting started with microstock is what jump-started my career in photography and photo-education. Back in 2006 I started shooting stock to motivate myself and focus on learning more about digital photography, lighting, and post-processing. I joined a handful of sites to start, but quickly realized that iStock was my best bet. It didn’t take long before shooting stock would become my full-time job, resulting in it also being a significant (if not entire) portion of my income.
In those days, iStock was a good place to be. The community was thriving, the site was improving, and we even had get-togethers called “iStockalypses” where we would have elaborate stock concepts and situations for each of us to photograph. I met some amazing people, made great friends, and seriously improved my photography. But then, just a few years ago, all of that started to change.