I noticed an entry in my journal on July 19, 2009: “69 photos on Shutterstock!” What a coincidence because today I noticed that, with the photos I submitted from the Chelsea Sounds and Sights on Thursday Nights event I photographed last week, I just passed 2,000 photos at Shutterstock. I’m thinking of what I thought of those who had that many photos, good to reflect that I have indeed come a long way…
Some of my favorites Chelsea Sounds and Sights photos are:
As for the photos that are on Shutterstock, these are some of the best sellers of all time:
- I’d had my eye on the UM diag flagpole for a long time, so one weekend when I knew the sky was the perfect shade of blue I spent hours and took literally hundreds of photos of the flag to get a cool one of the flag flapping yet also showing most of the 50 stars, and it totally paid off:
(As a side note, a similar photo with the flag at half mast I took another day is ranked 7th)
3. For this one I again hung out on the UM diag forever and captured this squirrel on the sidewalk, then removed the sidewalk on Photoshop to isolate the squirrel – the “shadow” is portion of the sidewalk I didn’t remove:
You can see other photos of my squirrel phase here.
4. A “silver lining” situation. I walked too long with the wrong sandal, leading to his “perfect” blister, which has appeared on many toe blister treatment websites:
8. I waited around for the boat to get to just the right position to balance the Muskegon lighthouse:
15 and moving fast: A few years ago I decided my photos were good enough that I could use them to provide the world with positive photos of Detroit and other Michigan cities, including this one of the Spirit of Detroit:
For my current set of Detroit photos on Shutterstock click here.
Altogether I’m very proud of how far I have come, little by little, step by step, as I mentioned in my recent article about photographing a roller derby bout.
Best wishes on your photography adventures!
Susan Montgomery Photos 