In Dec 2005, I stumbled upon a micropayment site called IstockPhoto which sells stock photos and illustrations. I was actually trying to find ways to earn some money with my designing passion. So, the site is great as it allows aspiring photographers/illustrators to submit their work. At first, I tried to dabbled in photography, was happy camera-triggering away, hoping to get myself approved as Istockphoto. I managed to be approved after submitting several photos. I had my first photo up for sell and a lot of my other photos was rejected because I only used point and shoot camera and couldn’t compete with other professional photographers. Frustrated, I thought I give Illustration a try. That time, I only have basics in illustrator tool specifically Macromedia Freehand. So I doodled my first illustration on a newspaper and traced them using Adobe Illustrators. After several submissions to Istockphoto and many hours of beizer curves later, I got accepted as illustrator.

Now, almost a year, I am a proud exclusive photographer/illustrator on Istockphoto with more 2000 downloads. Not bad for a person who has no professional training in graphics. So I am planning to expand my portfolios and hopefully become a Diamond-member.

For aspiring photographers/illustrator/videographer, what are you waiting for. You can start making money without spending a DIME!. So click on the icon below to start your own istockphoto success story.