Focus on Photography: EyeEm

EyeEm is a photo storage and sharing site as well as a micro stock photo outlet.

A couple of months ago, I became interested in editing, sorting, and perhaps marketing my photographs. As I was doing research, I came upon EyeEm. I started uploading some of my photos.

Southern California beach 2015

After a while, I read something disturbing—that some pictures might be chosen for the collection, to be marketed by Getty Images (seemed like a good thing), but that I would lose the rights to my images, and to ANY taken in the same batch (! seemed like a very bad thing). I could sell prints, like at an art fair, but could no longer market them to stock and micro-stock.

As I began to receive emails that some of my photographs had been chosen for the Collection/Getty Images, I felt both pleased (validated?) and conflicted that I would no longer have rights and control of my pictures.

Fall Color Blue Ridge Parkway 2015

Fortunately, not too long after I started placing my pictures on EyeEm, the policy changed. Now the message about the collection says this:

EyeEm Market allows you to offer photos from your profile for sale. Photos you upload to EyeEm attract a lot of interest from global brands, agencies, magazines and other creative industries. 

And this:
Market lets you earn money for doing what you already do best: taking real, authentic photography. Photos are made available through licensing. This means: buyers can use your photos and you keep the copyright and ownership of what you decide to sell. You’re always in control.

So:

My kiddo in the Texas Snow

So, woo-hoo! It's been really nice to go through my photos and reminisce. I have had many "likes" and quite a few "follows", and maybe I will get some sales. Who knows.

Thanksgiving, Food and the Garden

I have made the traditional cranberry relish..cranberry sauce...I never know exactly what to call it...with fresh cranberries, orange, orange zest, clove and a wee bit of cinnamon...and the house smells great. Just like the holidays have arrived! Which I suppose they have. How did that happen already?

I have also pre-cooked and mixed up the squash casserole with fresh yellow squash and fresh oregano from my garden. We are still enjoying going out to the garden for fresh herbs and some vegetables. Earlier this week we had roasted red peppers on homemade pizzas from the bell peppers that are now starting to turn red...and we have lots of them in various shades of green to red, still on the plants. We have several jalapenos ready to pick, lots of very green tomatoes that survived the cold nights a while back, and we picked two small eggplants several days ago. Wow! Eggplant and jalapenos in late November. My okra is huge, and still has blooms and little baby okra, but the growth of the okra has slowed down a lot in the cool weather, and it takes a long time (especially considering the usual growth rate of okra) for them to get big enough to pick. Even my basil is still surviving, which makes me very happy. I think that is what I miss the most through the winter and early spring...not being able to go outside and get fresh basil in just the amount I need.

Another dish I am making for Thanksgiving tomorrow is buttermilk pie. I have been a big fan and critic of buttermilk pie since we stopped at a small home cooking type restaurant in East Texas after berry and peach picking one summer about 6 years ago. Since then I have sampled and critiqued (right texture? creamy enough? too much nutmeg? no nutmeg? too dry?) many slices of pie from restaurants and cafes all over. But, I have never made a buttermilk pie myself. I know, it's funny, because I bake a lot...maybe I was a little intimidated. (Would I not live up to my own standards?) The recipe I am using we looked up on the internet a few years ago, is titled the "Best Ever" buttermilk pie. I recall that it was part of an article about buttermilk pie, and how a southern girl had to convince her friends where she was then living that the idea of buttermilk pie was not weird or gross but was in fact VERY good. Sounds great; however, this buttermilk pie recipe has no nutmeg...not the slight perfect amount, not any. So, of course I will be adapting that recipe and adding a hint of nutmeg with fresh whole nutmeg and the essential nutmeg grinder that my son Damon gave me.