Dreamstime journey (8+ months)

Today, I received my second payment from Dreamstime. It's been a gritty and rewarding journey. Like running a marathon, perseverance and determination pays off, coupled with practice and inspiration from within and without. The support and guidance from the community has been helpful; so do the people who bought the images.

Thought I would like to recap the past 8+ months in my journey with Dreamstime as a contributor.

18 December 2014 Uploaded my 1st photo to Dreamstime - glad it got approved at my first attempt

26 January 2015 1st image sold (a long awaited moment, after more than 1 month of waiting for sales)

20 February 2015 Received approval from Dreamstime to become an exclusive photographer (after having uploaded at least 50 images)

18 March 2015 2nd image sold (after almost 1 month of waiting for the next sales)

May 2015 7 images sold in May (after another brief drought, it was good to make a few sales within a month)

June 2015 8 images sold in June (good to see steady sales)

1 July 2015 Collected first payment of USD100.35 (finally, after more than 6 months since I became a contributor)

July 2015 17 images sold in July (good to see sales picking up momentum)

August 2015 149 images sold in August! (a very pleasant surprise - my best month so far)

These include:

- 49 images sold on 9 August (wow, my 1st bonanza on a single day)

- 52 images sold on 23 August (stupendous - this surpassed my 1st bonanza on 9 August)

- 31 images sold on 24 August (another pleasant surprise)

31 August 2015 Collected second payment of USD100.33 (very welcoming, considering it was almost 2 months ago after I collected my first payment)

To date, 183 images have been sold.

One may wonder why my journey has been gritty. It's because there were times it seemed like ages while waiting to make the next sales. Along the way, there were rejected images and technical glitches, and dealing with doubts, such as wondering when I would ever receive the first payment in the early part of my journey.

And why was my journey rewarding? I would like to think that it's more than mere material rewards, as much as these are welcoming to make a living in this capitalistic socioeconomic system and fund the dreams kept alive in our souls. Anything, including photography, can be used as a platform to make the world a better place, and I would count this as part of my journey in Dreamstime.