Kirsty Pargeter

Kirsty Pargeter is our Photographer of the Week. Living in Yorkshire, England, Kirsty started life as a professional designer before moving into photography just 2 years ago and discovering Fotolia in January 2006. Come on in and read all about Kirsty, one of Fotolia's top selling stock photography stars!

Summary about myself

I live in Yorkshire, England with my partner and my 2 West Highland Terrier dogs.

I originally trained as a Graphic Designer and went to college to study Graphic design and Illustration. I worked in a printing company for 8 years as a graphic designer but eventually got bored of designing just letterheads and business cards so decided to have a career change. I started work at the University of Bradford in the Engineering department as an admissions officer. This interested me because it involved working with mature overseas students and to start with I did enjoy the job as it was very varied, but after 5 years I eventually got bored with all the administrative work.

My Photography and Illustration

In October 2004 my partner bought me a Sony Coolpix Cybershot digital camera for my birthday so, as a hobby I began to dabble in photography. In the same month I discovered the stock sites on the website and decided to upload my photographs, not really expecting anyone to download my images! I was pleasantly surprised that people actually liked my images enough to pay for them – and so the stock site addiction began for me!

I purchased Adobe Illustrator in 2005 and taught myself how to use it over a period of months and realised how much I enjoyed Illustration, so this also became my hobby and addiction!

At this time, I was working full time through the day and at night time and weekends I was doing my photography and illustration (yes, that’s right, I didn’t have a life!) In the end I began to resent my daytime job as all I wanted to do was design and take photos. So in July 2005 I decided to be brave and I handed in my notice at work to concentrate on my design and photography full time! Since then I haven’t looked back and I really wish I had done it sooner!

I now own a Nikon 8800 digital camera but nowadays I tend to concentrate more on my illustration work and 3D images as these seem to be the most popular images in my galleries!

Me and Fotolia

I first came to notice Fotolia in January 2006 and really liked the layout and design of the website so thought I would upload my images to see how they sold. I am so glad I did because I am getting regular sales and plus Fotolia is the only stock website that pays in Sterling – all my other sites pay in dollars! I have recently achieved gold ranking which I am really pleased about as I still can’t believe that people like my images enough to pay to download them!

I am really impressed with how the Fotolia website works and think that is a very professional site which will continue to be a great success.

My favourite illustration on Fotolia

I don’t know why I like this so much but I was really pleased how this image came out.

I was looking to produce something different from the plain people silhouettes and this is what I finished up with.

My favourite photo on Fotolia

I had to pick one of my water photos as I took about 400 pictures to get about 5 decent photos! You have to be a very patient person to do water photography, so it is surprising that I manage to do it as I am not the most patient of people! This one is my favourite water photo simply because I like angle of the photo and the way the water drops seem frozen in motion.

Summary

I really can’t believe how much my life has changed in the last 2 years. If it wasn’t for the internet and stock websites then I would still be stuck in my boring day job being totally stressed out working for someone else.

Because of the internet and the stock websites I am now able to work from home doing freelance design work and selling my images on stock websites – I am certainly a much happier and less stressed person than I was previously! So thank you Fotolia for improving my quality of life and may you continue to be successful!

Fotolia would like to thank Kirsty for her great stock images and the contribution she has made to the community, website - and to sales! We are sure you'll continue to be a top selling stock photography star with us Kirsty. Thank you for joining us!

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