iSyndica

Roberto is a microstock photographer and the author of the blog My Stock Photography. You can follow him on Twitter @mystockphoto

1. What was your first camera?

My passion for photography came late, contrary to most photographers, pros or amateurs. My first camera was an old second-hand film reflex. I still remember the sound of the shutter. It is one of the strongest memories I retain from those very first shots.

A few years later I bought a Nikon semi-pro film reflex and in 2003 my first P&S digital camera. Finally two years ago I acquired my first DSLR.

2. What do you shoot with now?

I shoot with a DSLR Nikon D40 with two zoom lenses and a brand new 'nifty fifty' 50mm f1/8. I'm planning to upgrade my body soon to a Nikon D90.

3. What do you like to shoot?

My favorite subjects remain the mountains and the people inhabiting them. You could say that I like landscapes in general. I derive a peaceful feeling from shooting great sceneries or snapshots that capture the local life. I love to photograph my "land", the Ossola Valley at the extreme end in the northern Italy in the middle of the Alps . My first pictures were dedicated to local sceneries: mountainous landscapes & cityscapes.

Selling my images on microstock has made me discover new subjects. Industrial and energy concepts are becoming attractive for my "camera vision". About 30% of my last stock production followed this subject, with some quite lucky series, such as wood pellets and marble quarries. I’m also planning some social network concept shots.

4. Where would you love to shoot?

Patagonia, Himalaya or any place in the world really. I also would like to shoot again, with a new photographic eye, in some of the gorgeous places I had visited many years ago: Peru, Nepal, India. If I could, I would shoot more, both for fun and for microstock.

5. Describe your perfect picture

Strong, balanced but not necessarily technically perfect. A picture is worth a thousand words so I’ll illustrate that with a picture from David du Chemin and one of mine.

I also like really soft images with soft light but giving a great feeling. 

6. How did you get into microstock?

I read an Italian newspaper article in 2006 talking about the concept of user generated content and mentioning iStockphoto. I really liked that kind of approach and I decided to try. The initial test was too hard for my craft and for my P&S 3MP camera: it was a great disappointment :-(

I then discovered Fotolia and Dreamstime, and begun to understand the mechanism of stock imagery.

With a bit of a discontinuous activity I've been contributing on a large number of agencies; more than 20 since the beginning. I should take the opportunity to thank iSyndica for letting me speed up my workflow: a centralized repository for my photos and in a few clicks my work is distributed up to 20 agencies; a great analytics tool and the new features to promote via social networks and the ability of tracking the photo submission status, complete a “must have” product.

I sold my first picture on Fotolia at the end of 2006 and what a great satisfaction! At the same time I started writing a little blog about my microstock experiences. This year I decided to push it a step further and Mystockphoto.org is now online. I hope to be a reference for all the microstockers, new ones or experienced. You can find news, press releases, tips, reviews, interviews, tools, stats about microstock and other photo marketplaces.
I'd like to point out a couple of interesting pieces:

• the Microstock for Microcredit project, a Kiva.org lending team, is a non-profit website that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur across the globe.
• Microstock in Sintesi (Microstock at a glance), is a monthly update of the microstock world news in Italian. I think it's one of the first attempts to build a periodical column in Italian about microstock. For the last edition: Microstock in Sintesi - Ottobre 09

7. What advice would you give to anyone doing microstock as a hobby?

Microstock is becoming harder and harder because of the presence of many pro contributors such as Yuri Arcurs or Andres Rodriguez. It's not an amateur micro-business anymore. Now it's a well established industry and I think we can apply the 20/80 rule: 20% of contributors are generating 80% of revenue.
But don't be discouraged! It could sound obvious but: contribute, shoot, learn, shoot, read, shoot. Find your niche that can give you a good Return Per Image and don't stop experimenting.

Discover Roberto's portfolio on ClusterShot