An inexperienced photographer might find it very difficult to properly direct a model for great poses that will enhance the model’s presentation, showing her best face and figure, and most importantly convey the photographer’s message. Here you can find some resources which can be really handy when you’re shooting in a studio/outdoor with your models.

The first one is Photography Posing Secrets ebook by Malcolm Boone. The ebook is a newly released practical resource for creative posing that will quickly show you clear and comprehensive practical steps to produce and communicate a pose for any situation. Read this if you want to improve your ability to produce and communicate posing ideas that will lift your portraiture to a higher standard.

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September’09: US$ 3,786.91

Total Revenue from Microstock in 2009: US$ 26,655.95

It’s now easier than ever to earn extra money from your images by selling them online via micro stock photography sites such as Shutterstock, Fotolia, Dreamstime and many more (please keep reading to find out how much I earn from each stock photography site)..

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It goes without saying that to be successful your shots need to be ‘good stock photographs’ and available in high resolution format. But presuming that all this is in order, how do you maximize sale ability?

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Pixmac is starting a unique promotion – offering all contributors an opportunity to get money for their pictures even before they´re sold. From 1st February 2009, all contributors who upload their pictures on Pixmac will get a 500 USD sales guarantee for 2 years for every 500 approved pictures. If you want to get the cash immediately, you can choose the option to get 100 USD for every 500 approved pictures – before having had any sales. Portfolios preferred include high quality pictures with people or isolated objects on a white background. This unique opportunity lasts until 28th February 2009.

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In this episode, Stock Photographer - Yuri Arcurs - shares some great tips on how to get that natural, genuine smile and full laughing smile - and the importance of freezing between the shots to get crisp, sharp images.

Stock Photographer Yuri Acrus shares some tips on how to choose and communicate with your models

To be serious about stock photography I need white background photos (food shots, everyday objects and things like that). I have a soft box that came with a couple of tungsten lamps. The softbox is 16″ square, open in the front, white sides, and I velcro the background sheet to the inside. I set this up for the first time last night with the lamps aimed through the fabric on either side, and took some test shots. They’re terrible. The background is not white, but pink and shadowy, it looks like an interrogation room, I think the box may be too small to photograph an object as large as Indian corn (one of the things I shot), in short I need advice. If I need more lights how do I “blow out” the background in the box when the box is so small? Should I just forget the box and set up a background drape by itself and fix lights around it? There’s no need to load the test shots here, they look like I shot them with a polaroid camera on a grimy pillowcase in prison.

The tungsten lamps will need to be ditched - they smoke and smell after mere minutes and one doesn’t want to stay on. Cheap.

I need photos with that happy, clean, generic Steven Spielberg white in the background so all you see is that clean, evenly bright white behind the photo subject.

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SnapVillage, empowered by Corbis, today announced the beta opening of a fresh, interactive and innovative online marketplace for user-generated photography at http://www.snapvillage.com. The new website has no membership fees and is now accepting submissions from photographers anywhere in the world and offering image licensing in the United States.

Built from the ground-up after an extensive review and analysis of existing microstock sites and the rapidly evolving Web 2.0 and user-generated environments, the beta opening of SnapVillage introduces innovative advances in the submission, pricing, searching and purchasing of royalty-free (RF) photography that can be bought once and used almost anywhere for any duration.

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NEW YORK, NY – June 18, 2007 – Fotolia (http://www.fotolia.com), the first global online marketplace for micro-priced digital stock images, announced today the launch of Fotolia V2. This new version offers users both performance and feature enhancement, as well as two new features: a public API and the ability to distribute vector files.

“Our improvements have been designed around a combination of user feedback and the team’s vision for Fotolia’s continued expansion,” explains Oleg Tscheltzoff, co-founder and president of Fotolia. “We’ve implemented changes to the site based on feedback from some of the country’s top media buyers and from our community of photographers to ensure the best user experience across the board.”

Performance: Speed, Stability and Search enhancement

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Last update: Part III - Selective Control of Exposure (added on 15 June’07)

Steve Barnes, a professional portrait photographer and co-owner of Hayley Barnes Photography in League City, has written great tips on lighting for portrait photography. He writes about Behavior of Light, Controlling Exposure within the Camera, and Selective Control Exposure;

Click to enlarge

I. BEHAVIOR OF LIGHT

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Business2.0 Magazine has published an article on how the giants of the stock photo business (ie. Getty Images and Corbis) are being challenged by the “microstock” agencies.

“Unless they adjust to the new reality, however, the giants could find themselves in trouble. Getty (Charts) has been profitable since it was founded–last year it took in more than $800 million in revenue–but magazine advertising is in decline, as is the demand for its kind of high-end photos. During the past year, Getty’s stock price has taken a dive, dropping from $90 a share at the start of 2006 to just over $50.”

[source]

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- Sell your photos on Microstock Agencies