Oh Bonsai Rock. One of the most beautiful spots on one of the most beautiful lakes - Lake Tahoe. If you are a photographer who's visited the lake and did your homework, you probably read about and photographed this spot. It's often busy with photographers at sunset, and for good reason. The little pine trees growing on the rock have a tiny bit of dirt to dig their roots into. The trees have been on the rock for a long time but they don't have the space to grow very big. The water around the boulder can go nuclear with green, aqua, and blue colors when the light hits the lake at the right angle. It's a perfect little paradise.
One day, I was driving by in between photo shoots, so I decided to stop and check out how the beach and Bonsai Rock were looking. To my surprise these little pink flowers were blooming on some plants along the shore. They made the perfect colorful foreground to an already colorful scene. Shooting this was somewhat of a challenge in that there was a strong breeze moving the flowers. I wanted to be at an aperture of f22 in order to get the foreground and background in focus. This meant that I had to have somewhat of a slow shutter speed of 1/20 of a second. I had to wait until the breeze would stop for just a second. Many of the photos had blurry flowers but this one was sharp.
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Canon 5D Mark II with a 24-105mm lens set at 35mm. ISO 400, f22, 1/20 second.
I have sold a decent amount of prints of this image. But recently, I licensed the image to a calendar company that used it for the cover of a 2019 Lake Tahoe calendar. They have also licensed my images for previous calendars and other gift items that are sold at many of the local gift shops. I love this type of income. The image was shot in April of 2015 and I am still making $ off it. All I had to do was send a high res file and an invoice to them, no extra work on my end. Photographers, make sure your portfolio website has good SEO, they found me, I did not reach out to them. Photoshelter has great websites for photographers, it's what I use, here's a referral/info link: https://www.photoshelter.com/referral/SC9TH9ZX8F
Thank you for looking. Cheers!
Location tagged using @steemitworldmap. Look for the map link in the comments below.
Entry for @juliank's @photocontests - #colourfulphotography and #landscapephotography (I'm not sure if I can enter two categories at once, but I just did...)
Beautiful shot, Scott! How does it feel to know lots of people have your picture hanging on their wall? :)
Knowing that you're still making money off just one photo, makes me want to update my website once and for all and work on the SEO already. Being able to sell some prints would be ideal for someone like me who's currently holding the status of a "nomad".
Thanks for the good advice! :)
Thank you @voyagesofcarla2! It feels pretty good to be honest. I get even more excited when people visiting from outside of US purchase prints from the Vista Gallery and I hear that they will be hanging them in different countries.
That said, I still have to shoot tons of real estate photography and a bit of advertising/marketing photography for local businesses in order to afford living in a vacation town with a mortgage and car payment. I'm kind of jealous of your "nomad" status.
I'm not sure if you have the ability to sell prints through your website, but Photoshelter (link in the blog above) has some great back end solutions for being able to sell and ship prints through third party photo labs. They also have a great image licensing tool that is part of your shopping cart there. All things you could do while on the road. The SEO seems to be great but of course backlinks from blogs and other quality websites help that too. No, I don't work for Photoshelter, just a happy customer and fan.
Looking forward to following your adventures now. Happy shooting!
Thank you so much for the thorough reply, Scott!
I can only imagine how exciting that must be, knowing that people love your work so much that they decide to buy it and look at it every day. Hopefully one day I'll get to feel the same feeling too!
I am a bit of a nomad at the moment, however, don't be fooled. I'm not living like a Queen and I stick around Southeast Asia as life is easy and very affordable here. Photography is one of my biggest passions, though I haven't been able to make a living out of it just yet. The life of a photographer isn't as glamorous as we all think after all, is it? That said, at least you're working on something you love doing and that's what really matters.
I had a quick look at Photoshelter, which I had heard of before but never really took the time to check it out, and it seems promising. They seem to provide you with the full service: a platform to showcase your work and to sell it. I'll definitely look more into it and I'll work on my SEO as well.
Once again, thank you for the advice and I look forward to seeing more of your work on Steemit! :)
Thank you again @voyagesofcarla2! Yeah, definitely not as glamorous as I thought it would be when I started my photo business 18 years ago. Especially when summer/busy season comes around and I work many 10 - 12 hour days, sometimes longer. I wish you the best of luck with your photography adventure, and I hope you end up selling lots of prints, that's one of the best rewards as a photographer. Cheers!
amazing....
Gambar yang indah..
Terima kasih!
Congratulations, Your Post Has Been Added To The Steemit Worldmap!
Author link: http://steemitworldmap.com?author=scottshots
Post link: http://steemitworldmap.com?post=bonsai-rock-with-wildflowers-where-is-this-location-tagged
Want to have your post on the map too?
OK, so I'm realizing that the more locations I tag in a similar area, the harder it is to find my tags for the posts. Sorry @steemitworldmap, I have to post a google maps link too - Bonsai Rock Location
If you use the post link it will only show this specific post, so that should solve that!
The author link, shows all the posts you made, but if you made a few in relatively close vicinity they will cluster up if zoomed out, but the more you zoom in the more detailed the location is!
Hope that helps!
Ah, got it. Yes it seems to be working. Thank you!
Hiya, just swinging by to let you know that this post made the Honorable mentions list in today's Travel Digest!
Thank you and thanks for letting me know!
That's mighty kind of you resteem bot. Thank you.