Hello you! Sorry I’ve been away for a while, it’s been a busy few months. I’m excited to be back and sharing more EyeEm Market income reports with you though. Because I’ve been away for a few months I’ve decided to combine the income report for the last three months to make it easier to catch up.

I hope you’ve had a great and successful few months on the EyeEm Market? Let’s get in to it…

Latest goings on in February

February was a busy travel month for my girlfriend and I, spending time with family in both Denmark and Dubai.

We had been to Denmark just a few months before but this time we were venturing out of Copenhagen and to Ærøskoping. Of course I had my camera in hand so that I could capture the memories on the vlog, get some shots to share with the EyeEm community and of course add a few more images to my EyeEm Market. The trip was amazing, Denmark was amazing and the winter wedding was amazing. You can check out the vlogs below and see for yourself how wonderful it was.

After the winter wedding we headed back into Copenhagen for a couple of days…

Then it was back to the UK for 6 days short days before jetting off to Dubai.

I’ve been to Dubai a bunch of times before and it has always been my first love when it comes to travel. I’d never really been abroad before – aside from one time Jade and I booked a random trip to Spain when we were young and had no idea what we were doing – but Dubai has always been the first ‘wow’ travel moment.

I remember falling in love with the skyscrapers, the sunsets and the colours of the buildings. Everything seemed to be in different shades of gold – I was hooked!

The last time I was in Dubai was before we moved to Thailand, so that would have made it at least 4 years ago. Heading back to Dubai was really exciting, especially now that we were older and were able to afford to do more with our time there.

Another reason why Dubai is special for me is because some of the first photos I had that were selected for the EyeEm Premium Collection were taken there.

So we spent our week in Dubai living a little larger than we were used to and had a really great time.

Latest goings on in March

Alright, so if February was the month of travel then March was the month of being a real grown-up. I’d mentioned in our EyeEm Awesome Facebook group that things were going a bit slow because Jade and I were busy buying our first house. Everything – aside from work that pays the bills – had to put on the back burner while we figured out this house buying stuff…

If you’ve ever bought a house before then you likely know just how confusing, intimidating and silly it can be. From arranging house viewings with agents to trying to decipher the legal talk of mortgages, buying your own place isn’t easy. But (!!!) as I write this now at the end of April we’ve found a place that we like, are well on our way through the necessary paperwork and are hoping that we will finally have our own home soon enough.

So what does this mean for my photography and this blog? Well since moving back from Bangkok in August Jade and I have been living with my parents (who are awesome!) while we save up for deposits and find a place to live. In Bangkok we had our own 2 bedroom apartment between us and since moving back we are basically living in just one room. Space is an issue and everything feels just a little bit too cosy.

When we get our own place we will be able to spread out a little bit again and design our life and our space around us. This means that I’ll have room to take more photos of things, more space to think or edit and just a better sense of fitting things in. For us, more space means more organisation, more freedom and more opportunity to get things done.

So March has been a bit hectic because the house hunting has to come first. Once this is locked down we can actually focus on things that we want to do, like – you know – actually have a social life. 😉

And finally…

Latest goings on in April

As I write this now I can’t believe that it is almost the end of April. Not only that but it also means that one third of the year has gone too! It’s crazy how quickly time seems to fly by and I guess you notice this more when you turn another year older.

Yep, I had my birthday this month and now, at 29 years old, I feel more confident in myself and my abilities. So what does that mean for my photography? Well, it simply means that I’m not second guessing myself when I edit anymore. I used to look back at some photos and was like ‘what was I THINKING?!’, but I’ve become much more forgiving. We take photos in the moment so why not do the same with the edit? Instead of editing images and then leaving them on a hard drive because I think I could do better I’m going to set them loose and see what happens.

The numerous projects that I’ve been working on have also been culled and for the rest of the year I will be working more on the ones that matter, and that includes EyeEm and this blog.

Whilst I was taking stock of the projects I have been working on I considered branching off this blog in to its own site. Ideally my personal site (brettworth.com) will become a portal to all of the other things I am working on as well as some more personal blog posts.

Over on my YouTube channel I’ve had a bunch of people ask me to write posts about how to find work in a foreign country, how to move abroad, what I do for work and other recommendations. The problem I have is that none of these posts really fit in to the direction I wanted to create for this EyeEm focussed blog. So, perhaps the smart thing to do would be to create a new blog for all of the EyeEm content where you and newcomers can easily find what they are looking for without stumbling across posts which don’t relate.

So the idea is that over the next couple of months I will move all of my EyeEm blog content from BrettWorth.com to a new site called OneEyeClosed.co.uk. Stay tuned for more info on this!

Still To Come…

Back in January I shared with you my intentions for this blog and talked about how I’d like to provide more EyeEm related content for you. I’m still working on this and will be bumping it up to the top of my to-do list once Jade and I are moved in to our new place.

In terms of content here’s what I have in mind –

• Interviews (like I mentioned in January).
• Reviews of editing software; the EyeEm editor is great but there are also other free and paid editors which can enhance your photos further.
• EyeEm Market opportunities; as a website designer I often look for stock images for sites I am building for clients. What I’ve noticed is that there are some pretty big gaps in the EyeEm Market portfolio of images that are just waiting to be filled! Stock libraries such as Shutterstock are full of great quality images for certain tags/keywords but are a little bit too clean or professional. When you are looking for something more authentic the EyeEm Market is the place to go, but not when the content is in short supply… I’d like to round up some of these opportunities each month and share them with you.
• Tutorials; for those of you who are new to EyeEm I’d like to give you a quick rundown of some of the features. Simple but useful.
• Editing sessions: Now, you know me and you know that it usually takes me a while to upload my shots, but for the last few months I’ve actually been saving them. I’d like to show you in real time how I edit my images whilst talking about my process and why I do it in this way. My editing is nothing extraordinary but hopefully you will get some useful tips and insights from why I do things as well as how. I may also try to get other EyeEm users on board and have them share their editing sessions with us too.
• More community involvement! Our Facebook group is really starting to come together now and each week there are interesting questions and discussions taking place. A lot of the questions are similar but that is absolutely ok! This group is all about the freedom to get feedback on any thoughts you have about EyeEm, the market and the community. It’s awesome that there are regular Q & A’s going on in the group and to see everyone get involved. It is also great to see other people getting sales from the EyeEm Market too (and this will help me find people to interview so that you guys can learn from them). Great things are happening here and I’m excited to see where this group goes.

So that’s just a little bit of what I have in mind. It will take time to bring it all together but I’m hoping that as a resource it is fun, informative and (most of all) useful. If you’ve got any ideas about what you would like to see then please do leave your comments on this post. I always say that this is our community and I really mean that, if there is something you’d like to see included in these posts or any upcoming features then let me know.

EyeEm Guest Blog

In the last #EyeEmPaid post back in January I also mentioned that I had been asked to write a guest post for the EyeEm blog. Team, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry it is taking me so long to get this done! The post is still in progress and when I find some free time I will get that sent over.

For everyone who is waiting to read this then I apologise but please have patience, it’s coming but I’m just really busy right now.

One of the things I’m really looking forward to about having our own space again is to be able to work into the night. It’s hard to get into the groove of a late night writing session when you spend most of the day (and night) in the same bedroom. The EyeEm guest post is going to be one of my top priorities once things have settled down and I’m really excited to share that with you.

Thank you for being so patient, for supporting these posts and (for those of you who are part of the Facebook group) for supporting each other!

 

OK, let’s get into it…

 

Lessons Learned In The Last 3 Months

I’ve said it time and time again but… I’m going to keep saying it:

The EyeEm Market is a great way to generate passive income!

Seriously, If you look at the photos that I’ve sold over the past few months what do you notice? What I notice is that while some of them I think are really great there are also some which aren’t really that special. While I personally love the photo of Jade standing in front of Mount Fuji I think that the photos of flowers are just fine. I have memories attached to the images, I know when and where they were taken, but as photos I doubt you’re going to see them in an art collection.

Now, that’s not to say that they are bad photos – not at all – sure, they might not be the kind of images which really impact or connect with me but they are ideal for buyers. The light, washed-out image of the flowers must be my all-time top seller (in terms of amount sold and not amount earned). Whenever I get sales it seems to always be in there somewhere! I never would have thought that something so simple would be so useful to buyers.

Have you been following me on EyeEm? If you’ve been with me for a while then you might also notice something about the photos sold over the last few months (and many more months before)… They are all old images. I’m fairly certain that all of the images sold since February have been at least a year old. I’m still reaping the rewards of images which I uploaded that long ago!

My lifestyle is still a bit up in the air but that hasn’t stopped the sales. Sure, there may be months when there are low sales but that’s just the market. We can do everything we can to make our images enticing for buyers but ultimately the buyers decide what they need.

EyeEm is something different, something special; it is both a community and a stock photos library in one and finding the balance within your own work is left entirely up to you. If you only want to shoot photos for the Market then you can, you can have hundreds or thousands of photos which are just for buyers, or you can have photos which mean something to you… or you can do both. I fall into that last category and I like it that way. How do you like to work? Who are you working for?

There’s no right or wrong answer here, all buyers really care about is great, unusual, unique and authentic images that fit their message.

Find your own balance and enjoy the ride.

Until next month, happy shooting!