300 HDRIs!
Well damn, that's a lot of HDRIs.
I don't know about you but I think it's high time for an update!
*cue wall of text*
Since about last May we've been rocking steadily around the $2000 mark in donations, which has been amazingly predictable, allowing me to start paying other photographers to shoot HDRIs for HDRI Haven.
Thanks to you guys, instead of saving up for months and months to travel across the world to shoot HDRIs, wasting huge sums on air fares and hotels, I can simply hire people already there to shoot for me :)
Perhaps "simply" is an understatement though, as shooting quality HDRIs is very tricky, and even by explaining some of the process one-on-one to experienced panorama photographers, I've struggled to find people with appropriate equipment and technical understanding to do a good job in every type of environment.
Struggles aside, you've probably noticed the "Author" line under the HDRI info, and that it's often not actually my name there :)
Sergej and Oliksiy, both professional Ukrainian photographers, have been shooting a TON of amazing HDRIs for me lately. Philip from the US did a bunch a few months ago, and Andreas from London is starting to do a few now as well.
The variety of HDRIs they're sending me is super great - a lot of it is from the type of places I don't have down here in South Africa, or simply wouldn't have thought to shoot.
The steady Patreon donations have been particularly useful in being able to pay these guys a predictable amount, which obviously helps them decide to keep sending me more stuff :)
The system of payment I'm using is a little complicated, considering it has to vary based on the exact amount of donations each month, while also being stable enough to be predictable for them, as well as pay more for the additional work of shooting backplates, and reward the more popular HDRIs to encourage them to shoot stuff that you actually want to use. If you're curious about how it works, just take a look at the monthly finance report spreadsheets.
There's a lot more admin involved in running HDRI Haven than I initially anticipated :)
The downside of not shooting that many HDRIs myself recently is that my savings for travel and new equipment has slowed down a lot (although as I said, it's a lot less important now that there are other photographers from around the world shooting for the site).
The next Patreon goal, "New camera gear!", seems to be impossibly far away, and I'm not even completely sure it's necessary as a "monthly income" goal. Once I have enough saved up I'll just buy the new gear, even if the goal hasn't been reached.
It's a similar issue with special trips to places like Norway for the Northern Lights, or Namibia for its amazing deserts, or Chernobyl for... well, Chernobyl. It doesn't make sense to have these trips as goals on Patreon, as they're each only a once-off cost and don't necessarily require an increase in monthly income. Although I personally save most of my earnings from HDRI Haven for travel and equipment upgrades for shooting HDRIs, the other photographers for HDRI haven don't necessarily do the same with their earnings.
What do you think about the idea of running a separate short term kickstarter-style campaign for a special once-off trip somewhere amazing? Obviously I'd use my travel savings as well, but depending on the trip it (and if it's even me who goes) it would definitely need more funding.
If you're someone who is currently supporting me on Patreon, would you lower/cancel your pledge and donate to the trip's kickstarter instead? The main thing worrying me about this idea is that it might affect the income of the other HDRI creators by lowering the Patreon donations, or that you might all just think I'm greedy by asking for donations in two places :D
Basically I've been wondering a lot lately about what the next step for HDRI Haven should be. I'm not entirely comfortable with just carrying on what we're doing now for the rest of time, I'd like to spice things up, or branch out and expand the project somehow. If you have any other big ideas, I'm all ears :)
Comments (17)
This is the sort of thing I meant
Hey Karl, thanks for your support! I'll add your idea to the trello board, maybe Sergej will be interested :) Edit: Have you got an example image of the kind of place you're thinking of?
https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+cold+war+architecture&rlz=1CDGOYI_enAU780AU780&oq=soviet+cold+war+architecture&aqs=chrome..69i57.13140j1j0&hl=en-GB&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=qXwsntWZQXUQDM:
Hi Greg, I have made a small one-off donation to you to thank you for your great work. I see your comments above regarding paying for projects. I wonder if there would be any interest in getting some HDRIs/Backplates of soviet era "modernist" architectural sites that have now been abandoned. Some of the architecture is quite stunning. If there were enough people interested I would consider supporting it (Health warning: I am not a millionaire!)
My thoughts about "How to get more users": 1. Tutorials for all big 3D tools. 2. Sound samples like backplates. 3. More unique locations. 4. Improve the creation to be able to create them faster. 5. Better, simpler integration in the big 3D Programs
do you have a one time pay-pal donate option?
Yep: https://hdrihaven.com/p/once-off-donation.php
It’s a pleasure and exciting to be your Patreon. :-) If I could make a wish: I would love more Studio HDRI. Rather boring, I know. ;-) Keep up the good work and spread your creativity!
It's a pleasure and exciting to have you as a Patron :) I definitely want to do more studio shoots, but I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find photographers willing to work with me :( I may end up just renting out a studio and figuring out all the lighting rigs myself.
I like the idea of unique places HDRIs and would be willing to add extra to support them. I'm not sure how the Kickstarter idea would work though. Would those HDRIs be exclusive to Kickstarter supporters? I suspect some who support you on Patreon wouldn't like that approach. Hopefully, it wouldn't impact your support, but I could see it being a problem. Maybe a timed exclusive would work if you choose to go the Kickstarter route. But with Kickstarter being an "all or nothing" proposition, I wonder if there's a way to put the extra support for exotic places into a Patreon tier (or tiers).
> Would those HDRIs be exclusive to Kickstarter supporters? Definitely not - the point would be to fund HDRIs for everyone, without any kind of exclusivity. Some kind of special early access and behind-the-scenes stuff might work as reward tiers.
HDRI Haven does not need a next step. Allow it to reach an equilibrium and hum along. To make more money, diversify. Find something other than HDRI maps to publish - that well is only so deep; the cow can only produce so much milk. Buy some chickens and sell eggs.
That's certainly an option too, and definitely the easiest one to achieve. My main concern against it is that we already have 300 HDRIs, that's a ton, most people have likely only ever used a handful of them. At this point, it might be better to focus on quality over quantity, perhaps even reducing the number of HDRIs published each month in favour of putting more effort (and money) into shooting fewer, *better* HDRIs. How you define "better" is not straight forward of course, nor is it necessarily just a matter of throwing money at the problem. There is already texturehaven.com running as well, which could perhaps use some more attention, and I'm working on plans for a modelhaven type project as well, though it's growing into a bit of a monster and I'm worried about its feasibility long-term.
Whether I'd contribute additional funds for travel expenses would really depend on the location and types of shots planned. For example, I'd love some ocean shots (at a variety of times/weather conditions) without any signs of human habitation: no houses on the beach, no boats or piers or other clutter in the water. So a trip to somewhere with a lot of unspoiled beaches would obviously get my support ahead of a trip to get some iconic landmarks.
I wouldn't cancel the pledge, and I would donate to the hypothetical kickstarter, if the place looks special enough. I'm a low-tier kid, though :)
I wouldn't additionally donate and don't see a problem with just going on like this and the additional money going into more travels frequently and into more photographers. That being said, I think it's hard to get more monthly funding without upping the ante. Something like more and better backplates, colour calibrated and normalised hdris (sorry if this is being done already, I didn't check) or additional categories, higher resolution, better night hdris, 3d data to better integrate objects into the backplates or something...
I would donate an additional amount for HDRIs of certain places (e.g. Norwegian nature, Iceland, Scotland, ...). I would prefer if somebody would do those HDRIs without having to fly a lot because of CO2 emissions.