So I feed a lot of my family snapshots into stock and its cool to see one hit a homerun.  This one of my son Brooks licensed for $2000 this month which was nice to see.  You can never rely on just one image a month to pay off, but when you have 1000s in the market, it has started to really payoff in a consistant level.  I am recharged to get out there and start shooting again.

thanks brooks!

My Brother was walking though borders the other day and pick this up for me.  I do not see to many of my stock images in use, so its always nice to get one as a gift.  Just in case I want to go on a day hike here in San Diego.

Bryan Dayton, a super long distance runner for a Nike shoot about 6 years ago.

had a new client tell me how much they liked a series of images shot with lucy, so we did another session last night!

Just had the pleasure of shooting Mikael and Jon's family and forgot how nice it is to just shoot for fun.  So, like last year, I am going to do a small limited amount of very casual family sessions...interested?  Send me an email!  jay@jayreilly.com and tell me you want me to shoot your family!  I will send you all the details, thanks!

Hi Everyone,

I just realized, i am becoming a better editor!  Kinda nice when I spend more time editing than I do shooting, unfortunately.  But I have been finding that with less time to shoot stock images, i have found that more important than shooting tons of great images, editing them down to  the right images is essential.  Therefore, with all that in mind, here are a few thoughts on a nice tight edit.

1.  have a strong sense of intentional use, concept of feeling from the shoot.  It should help you to select the images that best represent the intentions.

2.  Finding editing software that you enjoy and gives you all the editing features you need to wade though hundreds or thousands of images.  I have been using Lightroom 2 and love it.

3.  Go with your gut feeling!  Your first impression of the image is often times the best.  If you tend to dwell on them too long, its easy to find flaws that might otherwise rule out a great image.

4.  Find an editing buddy.  Share your shoots with someone that you trust their insight and whom might have a different take on your eye.  I have been outsourcing my wedding editing to a past client that has fantastic insight on what my clients might like.

5.  Shoot a lot, but keep the content diverse and interesting.  No fun editing tons of the same stuff.

6.  Define your style and look for it as you edit. 

Happy editing!  Here are a few from today's edits!

just been messing around with my olympus pen.

Well after years as a Getty Contributor via other companies and means, I finally got my first edit back on a submission I made about 3 weeks ago which was submitted as a direct house collection contributor.  I am excited to say that 100% of my selects were accepted.  I was pretty excited about that first sub and did not expect that return.  I am used to having editors look at my work and pick what they want to submit.  I have enjoyed working that way and still do but it was a fun challenge to edit my own work and submit what i felt was great stock.  The cool thing is how fast they make it online.  Within 3 weeks of submission and edit they are on gettyimages.com

On a less than exciting note, it was sad to see that Getty released a $5 sale on web use 170 pixel sized images.  Guess i take the good with the bad ;-)

its been like 2 weeks since we have seen the sun here in san diego, driving me nuts as a photographer.  funny think is that the news was talking that over the past 6 months, we have had less than an inch of rain.  so no rain or sun...but it finally came out yesterday, it was so freakin nice, i just wanted to shoot all dat, so instead i actually went surfing, and shot a little surfing.

so just for fun...

here is some causal shooting in maui.  most is either kihei or paia, just found scenarios.  yes that is a dog on the SUP.  i was digging everyone i found to shoot, pretty fun.  these are all direct right out of the camera, no photoshopping at all, not sure that is good or bad, just trivia ;-)

i have so many images and separate shoots from Hawaii, i am just gonna trickle a few in here and there... here are some super fit and fun Hawaiian chicks doing what they love to do.  coach charlie somewhere off to the side.  Maui is small enough that i would shoot someone that morning and there was a good chance i might run into them later that day... kinda dig that small town feel.

shot for fun, shot for spirit, shot for lifestyle.