Happy Halloween!

 

Proposition

There is no end to the variation in tasks and assignments as a photographer. Most of the afternoon today has been devoted to choosing and editing images for the city budget proposition for next year from the local chapter of an opposition party. Of course the little model got to be included.

Nothing new

Street photography isn’t really anything new to me, I just haven’t gone out in the streets to purposly do this before. Occasional photos of this kind have been shot whenever I have seen anything interesting while doing other kinds of shoots.

10 O’Clock Postman

 The Post(wo)man Cometh…

Exhibitions

A permanent exhibition is available at The Federation of Swedish Photographers where just a few images, 30 to be exact, from my extensive and continously growing archive can be viewed. It wasn’t an easy task choosing just 30 out of 2,000,000 without even having a theme to base the choice on.

Permanent exhibition

This year my work was supposed to have been featured in several physical exhibitions, but due to that Chinese affliction those exhibitions were cancelled. Better luck next year I guess.

Wallets & Paying Faucets

When earning all this little bits you need a wallet or two to get your earnings paid out. Many faucets and paid-to-click (PTC) have the option of withdrawing your funds to a micro wallet called FaucetPay, usually there is a smaller minimum for this than withdrawing to your regular wallet and also no transfer fee. This enables you to pool al those little payments and make a larger withdrawal later to your actual wallet.

FaucetPay https://faucetpay.io/?r=674056

There are a lot of wallets available, myself I’m using primarily StakeCube at https://stakecube.net/?team=MetalPhoto for my crypto needs.

Here are some nice paying faucets and PTC’s using FaucetPay, please feel free to join in on the fun. I have used these among others to build a starting capital and will soon get on with more lucrative crypto investments and ventures.

Faucet Crypto
https://www.faucetcrypto.com/ref/473206

DogeBitsFree
https://doge-bitsfree.net/?ref=72347

adBTC
https://r.adbtc.top/1896370

GraBTC
https://grab.tc/?ref=106865

Coinles
https://coinles.com/?r=3539

RushBitcoin
https://rushbitcoin.com/?ref=64017

Bitsfree
https://bitsfree.net/?ref=110189

BTC Faucet
https://btcfaucet.best/?r=41530

This one isn’t using FaucetPay, but it is paying and you can withdraw directly to your crypto wallet.

FreeBitco.in
https://freebitco.in/?r=7622496

Steady pace

The incline has slowed down a bit, at these levels you don’t rise to glory just as quickly as you do at the lower ranks, but it has gone forward at a steady pace. The main blog has gone from ranking as number 46 to now being ranked as number 43 at Bloggportalen. At Blogtoplist it has also climbed a bit and alternate between the number 1 and 2 position in the category Image Blogs, but in all categories combined there it is now ranked as number 27.

Still aiming for the next goal to rank in the Top 40 at the larger ranking service, Bloggportalen, while at Blogtoplist it’s now in the Top 30. A new week begins tomorrow, let’s see how far the blog can go then. Thank you all for visiting, you are all part of the success.

One of a kind

How would you like to be the owner of a real collectors item? A one of a kind 30×40 cm print, signed and with a certificate of autenthicity, never to be available as a large scale print ever again and never to be sold as a digital image either. This will be your only chance ever to obtain this unique print, I won’t even make one for myself to make sure it’s the only large print around.

Coming soon might be an online auction for a print that is not supposed to exist, a print called “Drought” with The Pink Panther. It was originally made for a gallery exhibition that due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic never was. The image itself is part of the ongoing series Childhood’s End, but the copyright owners Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) will not grant me a property release.

My intention all along have been to make Childhood’s End images available as prints, apparel and other novelty items. Images with that pink kitten we all love should have been included, but to do so I need licensing or at the very least a property release from the copyright owners. Since the beginning of November 2019 I have been trying to obtain this from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) without even getting a response. I even looked up their chief legal officer at LinkedIn and contacted her regarding this matter just to be totally ignored and blocked.

How much would it be worth to you, how much would you pay for this truly unique collectors item?

Please feel free to comment with how much you would want to pay. To be personally invited send an e-mail with the subject “Pinkie” to info@metalphoto.se and you will recieve a message when the auction is about to go live. This is the only message you will recieve from submitting your e-mail to this promotion and your address will not be sold to any third party.

Also, please feel free to share this blog post with your own networks to give as many as possible the chance to get in.

Shadow Game

Sometimes it’s best to just let the models do their own thing like my child model playing with shadows earlier this year…

Drive-by

A generational drive-by…

Starting Point

You should never invest money you can't afford to lose and many of us don't have a lot of extra funds laying around these days. This why I partly go about this crypto thing from their position and try out some free earners where they can build a base to use for investing to make more money.

One such free earner that is paying is Faucet Crypto. You don't earn much, but in little over a week I have been able to withdraw 2 bucks, just enough for a small investment in a high yield investment program (HYIP). You can speed up your earnings by referring more people to the site, you will then earn 20% in commissions on their earnings.

Faucet Crypto

At Faucet Crypto you get a faucet where you can claim free crypto every 40 minutes, paid-to-click ads to earn from and also shortlinks, those are a bit of a nuisance so myself I'm staying clear of them. The cherry on the top is that you raise experience points elevating your level and adding a bonus on every earning that grows in time.

On the subject of the investment I will get back to you when I have tried it out and further guide you in this crypto jungle.

25% off on prints

Right now and until November 1st you can get 25% off of the retail price on MetalPhoto prints at Printler using the campaign code HALLOWEEN7433, just copy and paste into the checkout page. Time to go shopping for Christmas gifts!

Shop at Printler

On the fence

All our lives have been rather limited this year due to the Chinese affliction, most of us have been sitting on the fence waiting for things to back to normal and we still do. Myself I have had to change my focus quite a bit when it comes to photography and doing a lot more nature and street photography just to mention a few more or less areas of photography for me.

What about you, how has things changed for you because of that pesky bug?

By the shore

This time of year small boats are taken ashore to rest out of the water for the winter, waiting for another summer next year.

Trash

A man picking up trash in the street to keep his neighborhood clean.

Five Moons

I like challenges when photographing, such a challenge is getting nice shots of the moon. Lately I have been viewing another kind of moons though, the kind that earns me money.

One way of obtaining free crypto such as Bitcoin and Dash is using so called “faucets” where you can claim free crypto with different intervals, some are available for claiming every 5 minutes and others once an hour. Then there are the awesome Moon faucets where you decide when to claim, just leave them open to see the amount available to claim grows and when you fell like hit that Claim button.

Moon Bitcoin Core

Moon Bitcoin Cash

Moon Dash

Moon Dogecoin

Moon Litecoin

One great thing about these are that you recieve 25-50% commission on all your referrals faucet claims, when they earn you earn. All claimed funds goes directly to your CoinPot account where you can let your funds grow and when you have sufficient funds withdraw to your crypto wallet. If you want to be able to with draw a little sooner CoinPot gives you the ability to convert between crypto currencies, then you can get them all in one slot and make just one withdrawal sooner instead of five withdrawals later.

Slugs

For her second session ever with a real camera my student went out on her own in the woods and among other shots came back with these two slugs surrounding their coming offspring. She’s doing quite well, I might even employ her as my assistant in the future.

Colors

After a couple of days with minimum work effort, needed spend some time with the missus, I’m back to pester you with loads of great images. Fall is upon us and with it some really nice colors.

Startup

 

Don’t you wish you had been part of it all when Bitcoin first launched and gotten yourself a bunch of coins when they were cheap? After all, one Bitcoin today is worth some $11,400 USD.

Well, how about getting in on a new crypto currency and build yourself a possible fortune? Even if you don’t have money laying around to invest you can actually get a piece of the pie for free. RX Coin is in startup and they are giving you a $20 signup bonus right now which you can invest for a 1% daily return for 50 days, then you can re-invest and slowly grow your account.

Here’s the real kicker, they also give you 80 RX Coins (worth some $50) and a mining tool to increase the RX amount on automatic for free. Their own crypto exchange is due to go live in December so you have plenty of time to let the miner tick away to fill up your account.

Get going with RX Coins today

Through the roof

It’s been an odd week for me with a lot of work offline and with other things online than blogging, not so much photography done either I’m afraid. Still the stats are pretty nice though, the ranking at Bloggportalen have gone from 59 to 46 and is currently balancing a little between 46 and 47. Yep, I’m in the Top 50 now, next goal is to get into the Top 40.

At Blogtoplist the blog is ranked as number 2 in the category Image Blogs for the second week running and in all categories combined it is now ranked as number 35. In this ranking list I’m already in the Top 40. Yep, I’m going through the roof.

Bloggportalen is more interesting though as more than a third of blogs in Sweden is registered here, 160,000+ compared to 34,000 at Blogtoplist. New week begins tomorrow, let’s see how far the blog can go then. Thank you all for visiting, you are all part of the success.

Why?

A lot of people around have wondered why I’ve been spending time shooting and editing street photography for stock image agencies, how can they be accepted without model releases? Well, they can be submitted as editorial photos for which releases aren’t needed. Editorial photos are used by newspapers and magazines, but my not be used for commercial purposes such as advertising. Concert shots are all submitted as editorial photos which pay between $2,000 and $5,000 USD depending on the license so this kind of photos are quite valuable.

The other day when I was doing some Bitcoin house cleaning I mentioned that the paid-to-click (PTC) programs were sent to the trash, but that is not entirely true as I have kept two of them and for very good reasons. One has a 1 satoshi minimum withdrawal which means that it’s possible to move the earnings to a wallet daily, the other one doesn’t have a minimum amount although you have to have made 100 clicks before being able withdraw which takes 4 or 5 days to achieve and in those days you’ll have approximately 25,000 satoshis earned. I can really recommend these two:

BitcoinPTC

BitcoinClix

Another faucet that is working beautifully is Moon Cash where you decide when to claim, just let it stay open in a tab to fill up and when you think it has enough value claim just to let it fill up again.

You will need two micro wallets to withdraw your earnings to:

FaucetPay

CoinPot

More opportunities are available in the left sidebar of the blog.

Faucets

In between editing loads of street photography shots to ready them for stock photo agencies I have also been hard at work (or was it hardly working) cleaning house, kind of, in the Bitcoin (BTC) section of my online existance. Especially I have been closing my accounts with most of the PTC (paid to click) sites as they are paying way to poorly for me to wanting to waste time with them. It takes an eternity to earn enough for payout, there are better ways to use my time.

It’s better then to use so called faucets where you can go and claim free Bitcoins or rather Satoshis (the equivalent to cents, pennies, centime or at least the closest BTC comes to those) with intervals, some only every two minutes and others once an hour. They pay better and you don’t have put all that effort into it, you visit them every now and then and click the button to claim another one. The amount they pay varies as well, the best one I have gave a smashing 950 Satoshis on one click just this morning, it’s the first one below.

Please feel free to sign up you too to get free Satoshis:

Bonus Bitcoin
Faucet Crypto
FreeBitco.in

I will return to the subject of Bitcoin in the future and will also in time open up a store where you can purchase prints using this currency. Of course I will also tip you about more nice ways of earning them.

Elderly

Elderly people with mobility walkers in discussion in Katrineholm, Sweden.

Benched

Two black men on park benches at the city market square in Katrineholm, Sweden.

Holy Crap

Right now all I can say is a resounding “Holy Crap!”, it has been quite an interesting week. Last week, with all Bloggportalen categories combined the main blog ranked numer 105 of 160,000+ blogs and at that point I would have been content if it had entered the Top 100 during the week that has passed. Now I sit here totally flabbergasted, it has been climbing steadily day by day and is now ranked as a whopping number 59. Just 9 positions to go and it will be in the Top 50 which places it in the front page list giving it a whole lot more visibility.

In the category Photo & Art which is the main category for the blog it entered the week as number 7 and has since then taken the position of number 4. It amuses me that the blog of Bingo Rimér, Swedens probably most well known photographer, got pushed down to number 7. Imagine, I have 8 times as many readers/visitors as that Lotto person (or whatever the hell his name is) and he is the most famous camera jockey in the country.

Bloggportalen is not the only ranking service used, another one is Blogtoplist with 34,000 registered blogs. The difference with this one is that it is reset every Sunday at midnight so everyone starts from scratch, at Bloggportalen the tracking is continously the last 7 days and it’s updated every hour upon the hour. In their category Image Blogs this blog ranks as number 2 and in all categories combined it is ranked as number 73.

Bloggportalen is more interesting though as more than a third of blogs in Sweden is registered here. New week begins tomorrow, let’s see how far the blog can go then. Thank you all for visiting, you are all part of the success.

Never work with…

Someone said once that you should never work with kids and animals when making movies, I guess the same goes for still photography. The other day when I was shooting the pooch with the Pierrot/Pajazzo doll I actually had to shoot 30 frames or so before I got one with them both in the right positions.

Studio mode

Fall has arrived and with it cold and damp weather which is not playing nice with my back. It was busted some years ago by an abusive ex who turned stalker and troll, this weather is murder on my back so I’m forced to slow down a bit this time of year and also do most of the work indoors which means it’ll be a lower pace with new pics as well. It’s time to be going into studio mode. There may still be some fresh outdoor imagery though, on days with better weather I’ll still be going out with my trusted Alpha.

One for the birds

This year I have been “forced” to extend my photography into areas that are way out of my safe zone, event photography, and among other areas I have ventured into nature photography. Birds are all around us so I have done my very best to capture them in their activities like fornicating in public on a roof top.

Lägg till bildtext

Decorations

Time to bitch a little again over the Chinese affliction. It has messed up my entire year actually with no events to shoot, not only have their been no concerts or festivals but people have actually even postponed weddings and such as well. At the local kids event I mentioned in "Faces of Halloween" they among other things built up a haunted house of sorts with loads of scary decorations and I was looking forward to seeing what new ghouls they have added since last year. Oh well, maybe next year…

Shopping

We did get out into the streets of Katrineholm, Sweden, yesterday so my student got a chance to try shooting street photography. Of course my focus was on this kind of documentary photography as well. One of the many shots I got was this elderly woman shopping at a flee market in the city square.

Strange Playfellow

Sometimes you just have to have a little fun. The little mongrel performed beautifully and did her part as well. With this model at least a release is not required.

Inconspicuous

 While waiting for another assignment today I found these inconspicuous little shrooms just around the corner of an outhouse.

Street photography

After working almost around the clock for four days now I feel it’s time to take the afternoon off and recharge the batteries a bit. Tomorrow, providing of course that the weather will allow it, I’ll be out and about with my “student”, my lovely fiancé whom is interested in learning my craft for which I love her even more, doing some street photography so she’ll get her hands a little dirty with this as well and can learn more.

Street photography isn’t really shooting streets, it’s capturing regular people in the public room doing what they’re doing there, regular people engaged in everyday activities and/or in everyday situations. This is basic documentary photography.

Defiance

A shot from the little walk the other day, a white rose defying fall. Still nature refuses to let go and sprout blossoms.

In Memoriam

I guess I’m getting old when the heroes from the teens are leaving this world. Got the news last night that the legendary guitarist Eddie van Halen had passed away at the age of 65. Today I raise my glass to the man, the myth, the legend.

Faces of Halloween

Last year I covered an event in the village where I reside, a Halloween event for kids, and it was one the most fun assignments I have done. I had hopes that it would be a repeat assignment, but due to you know what there won’t be an event this year. Here are a couple of faces from last years edition, hopefully there will be a Halloween next year so I can get some more nice shots.

Oddities

 New category, Oddities, where I post images of things that are out of place. Every now andd then items appear in places where they’re not supposed to be and as always, my camera documents anything and everything.

For months they just stood there up against the wall underneath a balcony so they were shielded from rain. Who left them there? And why?

Worthless

I weep for humanity!

After performing a totally unscientific experiment I have found that social medias and cellular phones (ie smartphones) are stupidifying people. First I made two posts on Facebook with the link for this blog, in the first post I actually asked people to help out getting the newly moved blog to get properly off the ground and give it a flying start in the rankings at Bloggportalen and in the second post I simply informed them that if everyone in my contact list visited the blog once a week it would get in to the Top 40 and stay there.

The result? Merely 5 visits in two days…

Next I made a nonsense post with the rear end of a chicken (second image) with the text “Let’s see how awake everyone is. What is this?”. In half an hour there were 7 comments with suggestions, 11 now and still counting.

The conclusion? Facebook is worthless and people actually rather make more of an effort commenting nonsense than click a simple link to help a social media friend with his/her own company to get ahead. Mind you, some of these are relatives and IRL friends. Who needs enemies with friends like these?

Outdoor sports

 On yesterdays walk to shoot some seasonal colors I passed by the local school. It may be fall, but it’s still warm enough for outdoor sports for the kids.

You’re bugging me

 Went out to capture some seasonal colors, came home with this little fellow…

Inedible

In the last week or so there have been two excursions into the woods chasing mushrooms of all kinds, I needed to fill up my archive a bit with shots of fungi, and it has generated over a thousand images that need to be sorted and edited. Yep’ I’m keeping myself rather busy.

Not all mushrooms are suitable for food though. These may be inedible, but they sure are beautiful where they stand proudly in the moss.

Anniversary

The original blog at Nouw would have celebrated it’s first anniversary yesterday had I remained there. Reality has shown me that it was a good decision to migrate the blog to it’s own domain and server giving me the possibility to implement tracking codes for services like Bloggportalen and Blogtoplist among others. In May when Nouw decided to remove the support for such widgets the blog there ranked as number 8 in the category Photo and Art, just a week after the change it wasn’t even visible in the lists.

Today, 5 days after relaunching on the metalphoto.blog domain the blog is ranked number 7 in the Photo and Art category at Bloggportalen with more than 160.000 registered blogs (number 6 at Blogtoplist with 34.000 blogs) and is about to enter into the Top 100 of all categories. It’s amazing really, in just 5 days the blog has gone further than in a full year with Nouw.

Starting now there will be a stats recap every Sunday so you can follow the progress.

Amanita

 Photography can be quite seasonal, ie what you shoot depends on the season. This time of year, the fall season it’s vey much the changing colors of the trees and bushes as well as mushrooms that come into focus.

Far from all mushrooms are edible, one genus you should stay clear of is Amanita as most of the 600 species in this genus are toxic. Some of them can be difficult to distinguish from edible ones like the Destroying Angel which look very much like the Meadow Mushroom. Others are easier to spot like the Fly Agaric which is beautiful but quite deadly.

Amanita species are responsible for approximately 95% of the fatalities resulting from mushroom poisoning.

Unsafe zone

The last half year when there have been no events I have been forced to step outside of my safe zone when it comes to photography, not only have I been shooting weddings and such, I have actually gotten me a couple of models. I now have three of those, two adult and one child model, and will most certainly look for a few more adult ones as directing and shooting models was actually fun.

For all models I of course have obtained the proper releases, for the child model from her mother since you in Sweden aren’t allowed to sign contracts before the age of 18. Although directing the wee one, she’s just 5, is no easy task sometimes I kind of like the challenge. This one can be a real handful at times.