Getting spring flowers ready!

I'm buying like crazy all of these flower bulbs from all the garden sales that were -30% couple weeks ago and today they were -50%. Spend 100€ just for spring flower bulbs! For me that is a lot at least.


While I was going crazy with the sales in Plantagen, I saw this polyprophene/styrox pot that is freeze resistant and they have this huge flyer that shows how to place different species of flower bulbs in this one pot, starting with flowers that flowers earliest of the year and place on the bottom the last sprouting ones.

I know that it's in Finnish but it says that your pot should be at least 40 cm high and freeze proofed.

Place small rocks for the bottom to make drainage working.

Use flower bulb species and colors that you like. Place bulbs layered, starting at bottom from last sprouting ones to the ones that sprout earliest, like I explained already above.

You can plant on the top also plants of the season. Just remember to remove them before spring.




Here are some of the flower bulbs I planted on half way. I used mixture of garden soil and peat with nutrients in it.

I know that those look just like popcorn!












On this picture is some of the flowers that I planted on the pot. I just chose on the shop flowers that looked nice and had some sort of variety between them, but I just love purple, so that is the winning color theme here...

I placed on the bottom 2 lilies, then five and five two different kind of tulips, then this flower that I have no idea what it is but looks cool in the photo (kinda like snow bells), it is fritillaria meleagris and I plant 20 of them and you can see them planted on the picture above. After those I planted hyacinths (1/3 was rot) and for last (meaning for first bloomers at spring) those about 20 crocus.

I will go ask if I get new package of hyacinths to replace that rot bulb. While I'm going there my mum asked to buy for her that same setup and some different flowers. She will use my left over bulbs too, because some of those packs where big with even one having 45 bulbs in it.
I will check too if they have some even earlier blooming flowers there to place on the bottom, because I left there over 10 cm of space to spare. And I'm addicted.


I'm not gonna even go to explain what I planted on all around my yard. Or maybe I will tell you anyway after all. I placed probably almost one hundred bulbs in eight different spots and hope that moles don't eat all of them.


I so can't wait for the next spring! For other reasons than flowers too, like longer days and warmth as for beginning.

If you have tried this or have any questions, please feel free to comment below!

My new camera pack for travel

Think Tank airport commuter backpack

Yayy, I got my new camera backpack today and it is amazing. It is from Think Tank, which is known for their super sturdy quality, which is made for professional photographers.

Reasons why I got this not so cheap backpack is air travel. Many of you probably know airlines strict restrictions for cabin luggage and those of you who carry photography equipment know that you don't want to check them in. Because lets face it, they probably will break something and you will not get a dime for airlines if that happens.

So back to this backpack. It is Think Tank airport commuter backpack which should met most airlines dimensions for cabin luggage. It takes all my photography equipment, including my drone, which is second reason I bought this, because now I can take my Mavic with me everywhere in the world.

Of course a lot of gear means a lot of weight.

So I tested it with my camera Canon 6D, three lenses, heavy 10" tablet, chargers, transmitter, flashlight and other staff I might carry with me and it weighted "only" 9kg, so not too bad. Of course depending where I will go, I will only take what I need with me and point is to fly only with this backpack as hand luggage and save that expensive check in payment.

Weight will be a problem if they decide to weight it at some point. Hand luggage weighting is rare and usually you can get away by what I read, just explaining that you're a photographer and there is no other way for you to take care of your babies.

So this backpack is sturdy, gorgeous and it takes all my photography equipment, clothes for warm climate and if I decide to go cold climate, I will just dress all my heavy winter clothes on me.

This backpack is high, so I can place clothes under my lenses or Mavic drone, plus it will make it softer for them if I hit my pack for some reason somewhere on something.

Tomorrow I will go shooting my friend Emilia outdoors and get to test it in a field.

I kinda think it might be a problem at some point somewhere that to get my camera out, I need to open the hole pack wide open and place it backside towards ground and that might me a problem in dirty grounds or busy public places, where thieves see all your expensive equipment.

I will tell you guys in the future how it feels, operates, carries my staff and how those tripod straps work. When I get to fly with it, I will tell you hopefully with pictures how it handles under the seat or if there is any problems with it.

Stay tuned!

I got accepted in Shutterstock and my first sale in Adobe stock

Nine out of ten of my pictures that was sent to get approved just got me in to Shutterstock. That means that now I have two microstock sites to contribute at!

I'm still waiting answer from Stocksy, that is more like premium stock site and only accepts 500 photographers a year to get in, so keeping my thumbs up.

Couple days ago I woke up in the morning to see email of my first sale, whohoo, 0.25€ so not anything spectacular by itself but it's a start for something greater I hope. I only need 400 sales a month to get 100€ :D  

Well girl can dream. I will keep updating what will happen in the future and tell you more about that suspect when I get more experience and maybe succes.

Stay tuned!

Trying to make some cash with stock photography business

GETTING INTO STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY

I have been reading a lot around corners of internet about stock photography. I always have been interested about it but it always seemed that you only get pennies for all of your hard work.
After reading a lot about that topic I made my decision to try and get in that business.
After all now my beautiful masterpieces are just "rotting" in my hard drives and being in social media feeds somewhere, in stocks I can earn even a dime time to time from those pictures.

Lofoten, Norway from air.

I been uploading some of my photos to Adobes/Fotolias stock for a start in this industry, because it is so easy to do so when you have an account in Adobe and almost anyone doing photography do, I think. In Adobe stock you can upload directly from lightroom and it is so effortless and then their algorithms even picks up up to 25 keywords from scanning your picture and it is amazingly accurate most of the time!

They have been accepting almost all of my submitted photos and some are in review mode still. It usually seems to take about two days to get approval or rejections. Rejections for me usually has been from intellectual property as some small logos in cityscapes and stuff needs to be removed in photoshop.

STOCKSY MIGHT BE WHAT IS MISSING IN STOCK MARKET

My second stock site to try is Stocky which is kinda new in business and different from those other microstock sites. They started 2013 I think but the founder is from Istock, which is huge on stock photography field.
Stocksy pays better to photographers and only takes 500 new photographers in a year and last two years they didn't take any, so now is my change to try get in! You need to submit 25 to 100 photos to get accepted in. I posted 27 and what I read it takes one to two months get conclusion.

If you get in Stocksy, they want exclusivity to your photos that gets approved for them, so that means if I get accepted in I will post my best photos to them first and photos that they will reject, will go to other microstock sites.

Stocksy wants quality over quantity and pays real money instead of cents.
It's kinda like premium stock site as my opinion.

DON'T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

Third stock site I just like ten minutes ago posted my 10 pictures to get in is one of the most famous one, Shutterstock. For them you post 10 quality images from different topics or what ever you want and if they accept them, you're in, but if they reject you, then you can try again after 30 days.

I'm pretty sure to get in and when I do, I can start contribute more images and hopefully make some euros from them.
Shutterstock they have this these tiers, so after making specific amount of money from your stock photos you get to second tier and make more money on every tier.

This is from their webpage:

Your Lifetime Earnings as a Contributor*	Monthly Subscriber Image**	On Demand Image** (Sml/Med)	On Demand Image** (Any Size)	Custom Image / Enhanced License Image**
$0 - $500	$0.25	$0.81	$1.88	20% (up to $80)
$500 - $3,000	$0.33	$1.07	$2.48	25% (up to $100)
$3,000 - $10,000	$0.36	$1.17	$2.70	28% (up to $112)
$10,000+	$0.38	$1.24	$2.85	30% (up to $120)
*As your lifetime earnings increase, the amount you earn per download increases, too. This might seem little confusing at beginning but it all makes sense when you dig in to it. If you read this and have some thoughts or experience from stock photography, please feel free to leave a comment for your experience or opinion of the matter! Like somebody wrote somewhere "It takes a hole different mindset to take a photo and think that I will sell this for 1$ 100 times than I will sell this photo 100$ 1 time" I will get back about this topic when I will get some more experience from it and maybe even make my first sale at some point.

I will revive my blog!

Hello to everyone who might be reading this.
Today I made a decision to start writing by blog again after all these years and now on I will do it in English!

I will platter stuff about photography, life, travels and everything, hopefully interesting subjects!
Mostly this (probably) will be blog about photography and traveling.


Anyhow, I will write about later my new bokashi compost thingie that probably will change the way how we handle compost by fermentation process, more about that later with some photos!
Stay tuned!