3 February 2010

The demise of stockxpert.com as a going website has been rumored ever since the Getty images takeover of Jupiter Images.

The following notice has been placed on the SXP site: As of February 11, searching and downloading at StockXpert will cease. All SXP members can transfer their remaining credits to iStockphoto. SXP credits will be honored 1 for 1 at iStock.

Obviously Getty wants all microstock buyers to rush over to iStock for their purchases, and they're making it easy with the credit transfer. Unfortunately even with the 1:1 transfer, your credits are worth less at iStock. An large image that would have cost 10 credits at SXP will now cost 15 at IS (or 20 credits for exclusive images). Many buyers just can't afford to spend twice as much on images.

The question I'm getting from several photo buyers is where should I buy images now?

See the full post for a price and content comparison of the main microstock sites.

26 January 2010

If you're in Australia, (or London) you're probably well aware that its Australia day. Here in South Africa you'd probably never notice. Nevertheless I thought it was a nice occasion to post an older photo of Sydney Harbor Bridge, taken at night.

Photo: 31 May 2007, Olympus E500 + 40-140mm lens @40mm.

12 Jan 2010

When you're used to spending Christmas in an place where the schedule seems to revolve around shopping mall opening times, its refreshing to see the experience from a place where there aren't any malls, are hardly any shops and not much to buy elsewhere.

The transport situation was however not quite so refreshing. All the local buses seem to leave at about 4am in the morning, are invariably packed full and proceed along bumpy roads at a kidney-crunching pace. Despite the speed, frequent stops mean that the whole trip still invariably takes hours.

Leaving from Maputu at 4am, the capital, we eventually arrrived in Vilanculos - gateway to the Bazaruto Archipelago about 12 hours later.

The reward after such a long journey? Have a look at the full blog post to see!

Photo: View of Locals loading luggage onto one of many buses in Maputo, Mozambique. Olympus E30 + 12-60mm.

The Terracotta Warriors are the most famous element of a massive mausoleum complex built at the instruction of Qin Shi Huang the First Emperor of China. You may have also heard of one of his other big construction projects: The Great Wall of China.

It is estimated that there were over 8,000 soldiers, 100 chariots with 400 horses and 300 cavalry horses buried in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army near modern-day Xian in China.

According to one legend, the Terracotta Warriors were once real soldiers, killed and buried with Emperor Qin so that they could defend him from any dangers in the next life.

Irrespective of whether the legend is true, the terracotta warriors form one of the greatest feats of craftsmanship. The construction of the entire complex apparently involved 700,000 workers. Each soldier has individual facial features, expressions, and dress. No two soldiers are alike.

One of the main ways people earn money online is through referrals to products and services.

Often websites or blogs give opinions, reviews or endorsements of products because they are being paid to advertise the product or receive free samples.

Up until now you may have been under the impression that many of your favourite blogs are reviewing products simply because its what they do for fun and not because the companies selling products provide them with free samples or pay for advertising in return for a "review". You may even believe that when a blog expresses an opinion about something, this opinion is actually held by the reviewer. Unfortunately this is sometimes not true.

In the United States, a government body called the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is charged with protecting consumers from “unfair and deceptive acts or practices" in commerce. This body has released a new set of guidelines about how it intends to seek to enforce United States fair trade laws. These guidelines come into effect today (ie. 1 December 2009) and can apply to online activity including:

• what you say on blogs
• information posted on a websites
• online forum and message board posts
• Twitter messages
• Private communications

The aim of this blog post is to provide information about the new guidelines, to put some of it into plain English for readers, many of whom I'm aware are affected by this. Read the full text for more.

Cactus, cactuses or cacti - whichever way you want to describe them, there are a lot of them in Baja.

Mexico is the perfect place for a road-trip, or even better a road trip on a motorbike. Sometimes though you have to make do with what you've got. In our case a cheap Toyota that had seen better days.

Having set off on a road trip in a somewhat less than roadworth car I expected that it would be a trip with numerous stops along the way. I wasn't wrong.

I was however somewhat surprised that we cruised along for almost an hour without a hick-up, managed to stop for lunch and even get going again, still without incident.

Our next stop was on arriving at a scenic look-out point, and was to take a few photos. The going wasn't fast by any means, but somehow we managed to get through the day with nothing more than a few battery problems, and bunked down for the night in a small roadside motel

Coming into Mexico from the US is a bit of a shock to the system.

Its not necessarily a bad shock - its the kind though that made me feel like I was back to "real" traveling, where I couldn't speak the language and am not always too sure about the customs.

Tijuana is a border town that thrives on the trade created by many US citizens crossing the border to access cheaper prices in Mexico. This seems to be centered on cheap alcohol and a lower drinking age, pharmaceuticals, prescription glasses and prostitution. This mix of business doesn't present the best first impression of Mexico.

Once past the seediness of Tijuana, Baja California quickly started to look like I'd envisaged Mexico to look. Barren hills, ramshackle houses, Cactus, rocky desert and endless sunshine.

Compared to many other countries, the border procedures entering into Mexico are very relaxed. The border is a one way turn-style that lets you enter into Mexico, but not go back to the US. If you want your passport stamped or a visa you need to look for the immigration office and hope that its attended.

28 Nov 2009

There´s no doubt that Moscow is one of the world´s great cities. The signs of its bold past and intentions for the future can be seen almost everywhere.

Unfortunately after 7 days on a train, I only had 1 day to get a glimpse of the city. Despite a late night out on the town, I still managed to get up early, and fortunately even got a little bit of sunshine along the way!

The photo is of Saint Basil's Cathedral - one of Russia´s most famous landmarks, built for the Tsar Ivan IV of Russia. It is said that the Tsar ordered the architect to be blinded so that he could not re-create the masterpiece elsewhere.