It is this time of the year. You go to farmers market other grocery store, and bring back some cucumbers. But those small, traditional ones. You put them in a jar, pour some boiled water, add spices- like dill and salt, and wait three days. Well, if you are patient. It might happen, like in my parents house, that there is hardly anything left after two days .

In US, croissants are a very popular breakfast item. In Poland, they are made quite often from a different type of dough, and usually filled with something. Those were filled with a fruit jam, so I figured pairing it with a fresh fruit, which my father in law brought along from the grocery shopping, will create a more interesting image. It was a fun shooting session and very tasty snack afterwards .

Another shot from the garden series. I started from taking several shots of gooseberries on the bush. But I wanted something more “creative”, and more like food then nature shot. The gooseberries were still too hard to eat, as they are still ripening in the June sun, but I got permission to pick some fruit for my photo project. I found this small bowl with green flower pattern on it in the cupboard. At first, I thought it might be too decorative, but then I figured it will match gooseberries green color, and it may actually work. Especially that I chose to use the garden wooden table as a simple backdrop. The biggest problem for me was to make the single berries outside the bowl to look naturally dropped, I completely don’t have the eye for that… But here is the resulting image, with just a bit of my typical post-processing- Clarity, Vibrance and Vignette.

The fruit trees and bushes in my father-in-low garden are ripening already. Quickly, for me, but the truth is it is about time. The summer is here, we had summer solstice last week, and the vacation time in Poland started. I remember picking currants in my grandma’s orchard when we were coming there for summer vacation, and eating fruit straight from the bush. In fact, it was the only way I would eat them- somehow in a bowl you can feel better how sour they are!

My image of strawberries on colander seems to be doing quite well on few of stock agencies I submit images to, so I decided to go with the blow. In Poland, quite different then in US, the fruit are far more seasonal. When a fruit is in season, there are people selling it outside stores, freshly picked from their gardens. Or so I want to think . In any case, right now seems the strawberry season is winding down (and so the prices), but the cherries just showed up. I made similar set and shoot some images.

I am still trying to sift through all the studio and outdoors images I took last week at my parents place. Quite a collection.
The image I chose for today’s post is a composition I build around a nut cracker I found in the kitchen. It was shoot in a simple studio I set up on a glass porch. I had one window covered with a large, white sheet of paper – here I was placing my subjects. Another window, on the left of the set-up, was my main light source, through diffuser. With a silver reflector from the front, for which I was adjusting the position for each composition, I was able to fill in missing light for most of the day, making for an easy shooting on the tripod.
The jury is still out on which I prefer- strobe or natural light for my studio food shots. So far, I vary it depending on location I shoot and time of the day. And I think I am pretty much on the same level of acquaintance with both.

There was this basket sitting under the table in my mom’s kitchen, which gave me the idea for this scene. We went out and bought a big bag of veggies, and actually tried more then one combination. But for this one, I had more props in mind. I found a bottle of olive oil and red vinegar in the pantry, and positioned them so the labels cannot be seen (with stock in mind, and to save on cloning). So, with all ingredients in one place, time to make a salad!

Rummaging through endless items around my parents house, I found this old jug. Looked crappy, at first sight. And that I figured was the beauty of it. I was trying first photographing it on the concrete stairs. Good idea, but not perfect. And my husband suggested to see if the grass wouldn’t provide a better backdrop. Which it did. It turned out to be better even then a field of wild strawberries, where I tried as well.

Another month is coming to an end, so it is the time again to look back at my stock business. It was a very successful month for me, maybe not in the scale and earnings, but certainly in the progress I made. I am selling very systematically on Shutterstock. Since they finally accepted me in middle April, I sold already 12 images. Not much, but I am still to get a sale on iStock or Bigstock. Also, I started submitting to Fotolia just in May, and I have already two sales scored.
As I mentioned before, you got to love Suhtterstock subscription program. But I really have very ambiguous feelings about them. First, I read yesterday here some critical view on the vicious cycle you can get yourself into. And it kind of makes sense. With all the troubles I had with “getting in” and being able to submit beyond trial batch, I expected them to have the hardest criteria out of all stock agencies I submit to. These are iStock, Bigstockphoto, Shutterstock and recently, Fotolia. But it happened to me today for the second time that Shutterstock accepted the whole submitted batch, and I generally get more images in there then for example in iStock. I also used to have far more images being accepted in Bigstockphoto, but recently, they seem to be the pickiest.
A grand summary- I have 66 files with Fotolia, 60 files with Shutterstock , 55 in Bigstockphoto and 29 in iStock, mostly because they are two batches behind.
That’s another thing- the review time. iStock is by far the worst, I am getting feedback in a week, sharp. I submit Friday evening, I will start getting decisions next Friday evening. Fotolia is not a master speed either. But Bigstockphoto and Shutterstock update my portfolio with new images after barely 2 days. Or less. I just got decisions from Shutterstock in images submitted yesterday in the morning.
Being on forced vacation, I am getting ready a batch of 10-15 imags a week. Good, but I thought I might do more. It is not that I am not picking up the camera, but I spend a lot of time photographing flowers for example. I don’t have spots to photograph flowers around my home, and here they are just everywhere. And I don’t submit those to stock at all.

Another simple mini-studio food shot. Again, after finishing serious work for the stock submission, I went to play with Lensbaby. Indeed, setting camera with Lensbaby on the tripod helps to get sharp image, and let’s me pay attention only on focusing (with camera in hand, I change my distance form the subject). I also used the tip I picked up recently (and cannot localize the link right now) to check if what I want is indeed as sharp as I hope by magnifying the image at the back of the camera to extremes. It worked quite well.