At least that’s how I look at it! I have reached 2500 downloads at last and am now officially a part of the next contributor level… Silver! Slight raise in my profit percentage, raise in my upload limits to 90 uploads a week… and just the satisfaction of knowing I made it to the next level! Hopefully I can continue to get good photos up there and reach that next level - and make a lot more money in the process! This “promotion” also gives me the opportunity to apply for sales at Getty Images. Images there are sold a lot more strictly and also are much more expensive. Wish me luck!!

I have been very, very anxiously watching my iStock downloads, more than usual that is. This is because I am about to reach the next contributor level… Silver! It’s a few little things mostly, a different icon, a slightly higher percentage of profit per image for me, higher upload limits on new images, and the ability to apply to be a contributor for iStock’s partner - Getty Images. I’m sure most people are familiar with them… they are after all one of the largest image sales companies out there. Anyways, wish me luck And as always, you can view my portfolio here.

My friend Rachel has a makeup company called Mixology Makeup - which is all natural mineral makeup. I’ve helped her in the past with a couple photos and her business card, and originally we were going to do a website as well. Well, she used etsy temporarily and has had such success that we scraped that idea, and instead I just turned the site design into a blog (with Krissy’s help of course!). You can view it here: www.mixologymakeup.com/blog. Her splash page is going to just have button links to the different areas you can visit… Store, Gallery, Blog, and Contact her. Let me know what you think!

It’s official… Today was her first day of kindergarten!! My “baby” isn’t a baby at all any more, now a full fledged school going child. It’s exciting, but sort of sad at the same time. Childhood just seems to fly by, and as we adults know, when you start school life becomes a whole different set of priorities, challenges, excitements, etc. I am happy to enter into this next phase with her… I know she is excited to learn more and she definitely loves making friends and having things to keep her creative and busy all day! Check out the blog at www.madindrew.com to see more pictures and read all about her first day!!

Here are some images I took last year featuring a model, Jessica, that I met through Model Mayhem. I will be uploading more from our shoot, but here is the first round that got approved! The location and wardrobe were her choice…

I have taken a ton of photos of Dallas, Dusty’s new dog… She is a huge English Mastiff and gorgeous, very well tempered and has been a wonderful dog all around… So of course I had to put some on iStock, and what do you know, I have had a TON approved!! So, here they are!

I just finished reading the book “The Other Boleyn Girl”, which Heather had suggested a while ago I read. I have already seen the movie, which I loved, so I thought it would be cool to read the book and see the differences.

When it comes down to it… they are both based on the same idea of the story, but the book goes into a lot more detail and spans a much longer period of time. This makes them actually quite different stories. Independent of each other, I think they were both very well done. It was a very good and very intriguing story about Mary Boleyn and her part in her sister’s rise to be queen. If you like the movie, I would certainly suggest reading the book. However, if you have already read the book… you may be disappointed by the movie, as much of the story has been changed around for better cinema and time I would assume.

All in all, again, I loved them both. I’ve also discovered that I love the stories of this time period, and having seen the movie first gave me more of a mental picture at what these places and costumes would have looked like. I plan to read more of Phillipa Gregory’s novels, as I am interested now in the other stories of the era and what became of the other queens, seeing the demise of King Henry’s court and everything during this first story.

From last month’s update, I have had 59 new images approved and added to my portfolio, I have had 65 more downloads, I have had 27 new ratings/reviews of images, all 5 stars. Not quite as much of an improvement as I had hoped, I didn’t beat last month and even with adding so many more images lately my sales haven’t gone up too much… But I’ll keep trying! If anyone is a willing stock model please let me know!!

And of course, since I am a complete dork… a comparison since I started keeping better track. I will post this each month with the update as well.