February 14, 2012
Semi-Pro
Splashed out a good chunk of money for my first DSLR for our engagement, upgrading for the first kid, then once again for the second kid. That's not even counting all those lenses and accessories that I picked up along the way. It's worth it to record the memories of our kids' birth and growth plus our own travels and life experiences, as mundane as they may be. But in strict accounting terms, the return-on-investment has been a big fat zero in the numerator.
Good old OCD, plus the fantastic FlickrExport iPhoto & Aperture plugins, allowed me to diligently caption and tag every single photo I post to Flickr. So in addition to the family-member views, I get the occasional Google or Flickr search hit. Some websites have requested usage of my travel images, but they were mostly scraping for free content and there's no compensation other than a link-back or acknowledgment.
But someone out there finally recognized my picture-making genius and was willing to pay for it! Received a message with subject line that started with "send us your invoice", which is an excellent way of drawing attention to your message, by the way.
We would like to use your photo in thumbnail size in our layout:
If agreeable, we pay SGD$50 per stock image in our [redacted] magazine Spring 2012 issue.
I whipped up a business-like invoice with a Microsoft Word stock template and sent if off without much expectation of actual payment. But a few weeks later I got a call from my bank asking me what to do with this wire-transfer of Singapore dollars. The handling fee ate up a big chunk of the money, but the reward wasn't in the money anyway. In fact, I kinda regret the electronic wire transfer and should've asked for a physical cashier's check for a keepsake. Or find someone in Singapore who can go by a Park Hotel to pick up a couple copies of the in-house magazine…
