Thank you for your interest in Atomazul Media and for checking out our website and blog! Let me tell you a little bit about myself:
In addition to being a stock media creator since 2010, I earned an occupational certificate in audio recording engineering from Los Angeles Valley College in 2005 and have been a musician since 1992. I've seen a modest amount of "success" with a few of my music projects, played a few big shows, won some contests and awards. I have held (to the best of my memory) at least 18 different day jobs in a variety of fields since 1994, generally low level stuff from warehousing, pizza delivery, and washing windows, to high end audio equipment salesman, recording engineer and batching raw organic herbs for a major vitamin manufacture. Also, I was briefly a roadie for Dick Dale, which, um, didn't really end well. I've quit some jobs, been fired, laid off, let go, promoted, praised, loathed, loved, etc. This range of experience has given me what I believe are well thought through ideas and opinions about working relationships. Views that can many times be directly related to some aspects of microstock, it's creation and choices we have to make money from it.
We have a lot of options that we can utilize to get our work out there and money in our pockets, but there's a lot of factors to consider when making these choices. And while ultimately most of us tend to lean to the idea that dollar signs are priority one, there are decisions we make that can contribute to the strengthening of this industry, or to it's demise. Sometimes we need to make the hard choices NOT to sell our content through some successful companies that may sounds tempting on the surface, but are really built to take your hard work and consistently lower it's value and lower OUR share of each dollar earned from the sale of that work. And if you or I don't like, they'll just as easily kick us to the curb with the expectation that 1000 more are right behind us ready to fill in the gaps. These companies, or "bastards" as like to refer to them, need some checks and balances from the little guys, and if enough little guys stand together, then maybe we can affect change for the betterment of ALL of us.
I have read a LOT of forum posts on Shutterstock, iStock, Pond5 and Microstock Group Forums (among others), and I've certainly learned a lot from a variety of really bright and helpful fellow artists. I am so grateful that this practice of creating unique artistic content and having people find so many uses for it has become more and more my main source of income. But, I keep finding myself drawn to to the idea of trying to help improve some of the negative aspects of this profession. So through this blog, I hope to accomplish this by articulating my thoughts on the good and bad aspects of microstock, and hopefully help guide some others opinions in the process. Thanks again, and let me know what you think!
-Adam
In addition to being a stock media creator since 2010, I earned an occupational certificate in audio recording engineering from Los Angeles Valley College in 2005 and have been a musician since 1992. I've seen a modest amount of "success" with a few of my music projects, played a few big shows, won some contests and awards. I have held (to the best of my memory) at least 18 different day jobs in a variety of fields since 1994, generally low level stuff from warehousing, pizza delivery, and washing windows, to high end audio equipment salesman, recording engineer and batching raw organic herbs for a major vitamin manufacture. Also, I was briefly a roadie for Dick Dale, which, um, didn't really end well. I've quit some jobs, been fired, laid off, let go, promoted, praised, loathed, loved, etc. This range of experience has given me what I believe are well thought through ideas and opinions about working relationships. Views that can many times be directly related to some aspects of microstock, it's creation and choices we have to make money from it.
We have a lot of options that we can utilize to get our work out there and money in our pockets, but there's a lot of factors to consider when making these choices. And while ultimately most of us tend to lean to the idea that dollar signs are priority one, there are decisions we make that can contribute to the strengthening of this industry, or to it's demise. Sometimes we need to make the hard choices NOT to sell our content through some successful companies that may sounds tempting on the surface, but are really built to take your hard work and consistently lower it's value and lower OUR share of each dollar earned from the sale of that work. And if you or I don't like, they'll just as easily kick us to the curb with the expectation that 1000 more are right behind us ready to fill in the gaps. These companies, or "bastards" as like to refer to them, need some checks and balances from the little guys, and if enough little guys stand together, then maybe we can affect change for the betterment of ALL of us.
I have read a LOT of forum posts on Shutterstock, iStock, Pond5 and Microstock Group Forums (among others), and I've certainly learned a lot from a variety of really bright and helpful fellow artists. I am so grateful that this practice of creating unique artistic content and having people find so many uses for it has become more and more my main source of income. But, I keep finding myself drawn to to the idea of trying to help improve some of the negative aspects of this profession. So through this blog, I hope to accomplish this by articulating my thoughts on the good and bad aspects of microstock, and hopefully help guide some others opinions in the process. Thanks again, and let me know what you think!
-Adam