Are You in a Rut?

[Ed Rooney]

I am. I keep revisiting the same subjects, recapturing them. For example, I have 18 images in Alamy of Tommie Steele's Eleanor Rigby statute. I pass it almost everyday, and I like it. I like the song too. These Eleanor images were not shot and submitted as similars—not intentionally, not exactly. I've been living in Liverpool for two years, and I keep passing the sad bronze lady and humming the lyrics in my head. 

 

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/stolen-echo-newspaper-plaque-eleanor-17387961

 

In this long lockdown, our worlds have shrunk. I find myself covering the same three-mile area again and again. But . . . I have continued shooting.

 

How are things with you?

 

Edo

Edited May 12, 2021 by Ed Rooney

[Allan Bell]

I know what you mean Edo it becomes a little bit soul destroying not being able to get further afield for some different images.

 

During the lockdown when in its' most prison like I limited myself to my village only, going for walks most days, found it very limiting. Lots of photos to keep my hand in, some uploaded to Alamy, some waiting in QC still. Lots of same/similars deleted.

 

In the last couple of weeks I have been to Lincoln City twice and there are around 80 + images awaiting QC from there. Also went to Mablethorpe to get some sea air and take different images again. Did not stay too long though as it was getting crowded and hardly anyone was wearing a mask in the congested areas.

 

Drove into the Wolds this morning to get different images of countryside but only 20 waiting processing.

 

To keep me occupied during lockdown I was going through back images and selecting some for further processing to put onto PHOTO4 ME (wall art site). Sold one already.

 

Allan

 

[Colblimp]

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find newsy stuff to shoot within an hour to an hour and a half drive from where I live.  Newspapers seem to have all the COVID pics they need so it's a struggle to motivate myself to go out and shoot.  With all that said, I've fishing, court and house shoots tomorrow, so ignore what I just typed lol.  🤣

[Michael Ventura]

I am in a rut of sorts.  Fortunately, the magazine work has come back to pre Covid levels but I am in a rut for shooting stock, just not as motivated as I used to be.  Maybe a combination of age and prices the we are getting for our efforts.  So most of my stock these days are only coming from magazine shoots that may have some stock potential. 

[Bill Kuta]

I've only put up about 40 shots this year (most of them from a recent getaway to a son's Ocean City condo), but that continues a low submission rate due to pricing (and pandemic restrictions).

 

I've spent a lot more time during Covid revisiting my slides. Digitizing them with a DSLR is quick and painless, and Lightroom with Topaz Denoise AI (and sometimes Sharpen AI) can yield very good results for Alamy archival or even regular stock. Also found a photo-artifying program I like (Fotosketcher) for applying art effects for a POD site.

 

And thanks for the ear worm, Edo (...darning his socks/in the night/when there's nobody there...). I'm famous within my family for humming/diddybopping whatever song I just heard a snippet of, or read a reference to, etc. I'm an organic jukebox, just press a button.

[Allan Bell]

I use "Topaz Impression 2" for suitable images to load to POD sight.

 

Allan

 

[Bill Kuta]

3 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

I use "Topaz Impression 2" for suitable images to load to POD sight.

 

Allan

 

Yeah, I've used that one too. And others. I find it easier to fiddle with the controls on Fotosketcher (& it's free). 

[Jill Morgan]

When you live on a farm and are surrounded by empty fields (well, one has a horse in it) being inventive it tough.  I have uploaded mostly bird images and am getting repetitive with the Blue Jays.  But they do seem to be an expressive bird.  Got the new lens and new camera and I am anxious to get out and shoot something else besides birds, but we are in lockdown here in Ontario, so very few options.  Might wander to one of the Provincial Parks and see if I can find anything interesting.

 

Jill

Edited May 12, 2021 by Jill Morgan

[Cecile Marion]

Most of my photographic opportunities in the last year have been of local wildlife, mostly alligators and birds, but I’m getting ready for an adventure to the big city. Hopefully the trip will feel inspiring and rejuvenating. I’m just not quite sure what to expect at this point.

[Allan Bell]

23 minutes ago, Bill Kuta said:

Yeah, I've used that one too. And others. I find it easier to fiddle with the controls on Fotosketcher (& it's free). 

 

Fotosketcher is for Windows. I note there is an experimental program in development for Apple so will have to wait for it to come out.

 

Allan

 

[Betty LaRue]

I have been trawling through my exterior hard drives. I deleted most of my images if I thought they weren’t good enough. I kept the best.

Many of these older images didn’t hold up well to the upsizing we once had to do. They hold up well at native size, and even better, reduced.

It’s been fun for me, because most of these are from road trips that I’m enjoying remembering. Some I rejected back then had blah white or dull, cloudy skies and the sky replacement tool makes all the difference in the world. Even so, I’m only plucking a few of these from a shoot. I find that in the ensuing years after I took many of these images, I have a better idea of what a good stock image is than I did when starting out. After all, in the beginning,  I deleted everything I took with people in it because I thought I had to have releases. A few were outstanding. I took them because they were there. Photographers have that compulsion, you know.

I looked at the images, appreciated, deleted.

Boy, was I ignorant.

There are a few decent ones to discover. Until I finish with these, I see no need to get out and beat the bushes looking for things to shoot.  That said, when something presents itself to me these days, I shoot it.

[CAROL SAUNDERS]

Yes I feel a bit stuck.....I like to have a holiday or 2 to look forward to, I'm talking international travel - that's probably not going to happen this year which I get quite down about.  On the other hand, it's made me appreciate more what I have locally.  We have a beautiful Cathedral here in St. Albans - one thing I've always struggled with is photographing inside a Cathedral so I've had a couple of goes.  There has been a beautiful glass angel wing sculpture there for the last few weeks made of 160 pieces of handblown glass hopefully this link works.....

 

https://www.layneroweglass.co.uk

 

Hope my few images have done this justice..

 

The Cathedral also has a lovely cafe albeit outside at the moment, the coffee and food is good and from 17th May I will look forward to sitting inside especially on a windy cold day.

 

Carol

[Matt Ashmore]

I did go through the doldrums a bit at the start of the year but am enjoying taking quite a few photos at the moment. I am fortunate to have a garden so have been enjoying photographing some of the spring flowers. This does mean that I tend to end up taking the same photos every year, a bit like Ed's Eleanor Rigby.. but this year I have a set of cheap extension tubes that I didn't have last year which allows me to play and take photos that are slightly different to what I have done before.

[John Mitchell]

Yes, lately I've been somewhat stuck in a groove, stuck in a groove, stuck in a groove...

 

That said, there are always new subjects to be found. Question is -- who might be interested in the images? Every once in awhile I come up with a fresh shot that is destined to license. However, my older (and just plain old) dependable resellers still comprise the majority of my sales. Sometimes I feel that I should just kick back and relax at this point (not that I'm ever really busy these days). After all, submitting images to stock agencies is supposed to be about earning "passive income." Or at least it used to be before the photo world became obsessed with more, more, more.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by John Mitchell

[NYCat]

1 hour ago, CAROL SAUNDERS said:

Yes I feel a bit stuck.....I like to have a holiday or 2 to look forward to, I'm talking international travel - that's probably not going to happen this year which I get quite down about.  On the other hand, it's made me appreciate more what I have locally.  We have a beautiful Cathedral here in St. Albans - one thing I've always struggled with is photographing inside a Cathedral so I've had a couple of goes.  There has been a beautiful glass angel wing sculpture there for the last few weeks made of 160 pieces of handblown glass hopefully this link works.....

 

https://www.layneroweglass.co.uk

 

Hope my few images have done this justice..

 

The Cathedral also has a lovely cafe albeit outside at the moment, the coffee and food is good and from 17th May I will look forward to sitting inside especially on a windy cold day.

 

Carol

 

2FKHWE5 looks just right to me!

 

Paulette

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, Matt Ashmore said:

I did go through the doldrums a bit at the start of the year but am enjoying taking quite a few photos at the moment. I am fortunate to have a garden so have been enjoying photographing some of the spring flowers. This does mean that I tend to end up taking the same photos every year, a bit like Ed's Eleanor Rigby.. but this year I have a set of cheap extension tubes that I didn't have last year which allows me to play and take photos that are slightly different to what I have done before.

 

Those cheapo extension tubes are worth much more than their weight in plastic. I use mine with an 18-55 kit lens and get surprisingly good results. They're also easy to carry around.

[Bill Kuta]

Alan, thanks for reminding me about Topaz Impression 2.  Mine got replaced by Studio when I reinstalled software after clean installs of Win10. But the Impression portion of Studio is a mere shadow of the full Impression program. 

 

I signed onto my Topaz account and found I was able to do legacy downloads of Impression 2, and apply my license key, so I have it back on both of my photo-processing computers. I like the effects more than I remembered (I might not have tried vn 2 very much), so I'll be using the program again.

[Phil Robinson]

In a way lockdown has helped with not being a rut - though maybe I'm now just in a different one. Formerly travelling to London twice a week to photograph things - when things were a thing - I had to find new things to photograph. Wildlife, studio stuff, experimenting with Redbubble print-on-demand-arty-stuff, graphic design rather than using a camera. I have always been thinking that I should diversify and lockdown gave me an opportunity to try out new ideas - even writing music (no, not a great success).
Things are now sort of back to normal and I'm back to my old rut, though the novelty hasn't quite worn off yet. 
I do think I have enough pics of people wearing facemasks now....

Edited May 12, 2021 by Phil Robinson

[wiskerke]

Alamy wants us to do this:

https://twitter.com/alamy/status/1392389342920953856

Or at least to make photos of it: the lightbox from the tweet.

 

wim

Edited May 13, 2021 by wiskerke

[PuffinsPictures]

Yes. Part travel restrictions, part being increasingly stuck in front of a computer unable to go out, and part that my old haunts for nature photography have been completely overrun by people who discovered the great outdoors the moment they were told to stay home. Plus although I have a job covering live events, there aren't many even if I could step away from the computer more.

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by PuffinsPictures

[John Mitchell]

11 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

Alamy wants us to do this:

https://twitter.com/alamy/status/1392389342920953856

Or at least to make photos of it: the lightbox from the tweet.

 

wim

 

Only 13.4 K to choose from at the moment, but I guess there is always room for a few more thousand.

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by John Mitchell

[gvallee]

Yes, I am in a rut. Here and here. 

[MizBrown]

Went out shopping for a new washing machine and didn't take photos.  I have some small household items that I can take photos of to replace some in Alamy already, and some that I can take of things I haven't photographed.  Still haven't caught one of a cat licking his or her butt or of a cat box (recent searches involving cats).   One friend has decided not to take the vaccine because he doesn't trust governments.  Meanwhile, Nicaragua has begun using the Sputnik 5 vaccine as well as the Covishield from India and will be producing a Cuban vaccine at the facility that Russia built for the country.

 

My new washing machine has leaking hoses, which may be from damage done to the house faucet that my helper pulled an earlier hose out of rather than unscrewing it, then using pliers to get the rest of the connection out of the faucet .  So, Teflon tape, a new faucet, and some pipes to build a drain stand pipe need to be purchased tomorrow. 

 

Another friend has a similar machine and sent photos of how he set up his.  Need to level it with something ceramic or masonry, not wood or styrofoam.  My refrigerator is set up on stacks of ceramic floor tiles.

 

I've taken some new and gone back and reworked some old, about the same as everyone else here. 

[Bill Kuta]

3 hours ago, wiskerke said:

Alamy wants us to do this:

https://twitter.com/alamy/status/1392389342920953856

Or at least to make photos of it: the lightbox from the tweet.

 

wim

 

I don't see any images of seniors taking stock photos (well, not in that lightbox). Or would that be like the media covering the media?

[wiskerke]

3 minutes ago, Bill Kuta said:

 

I don't see any images of seniors taking stock photos (well, not in that lightbox). Or would that be like the media covering the media?

 

Not even selfies!

Let's try this link once more, I don't know why it keeps messing up.

John Mitchell's link has lots of selfies and older people taking photos.

 

wim