Life Update

So we're still in Bangkok. On Tuesday, Courtney's newly Apostilled Criminal Record Background will arrive in Korea. Hopefully it'll be given to immigration the next day. We then have up to 10 days to wait for our visa number to be processed. Unfortunately for us, Christmas and New Years might slow down the processing time a little. In anticipation of this, we've booked ourselves in to extend our Thai visas by taking a jaunt across the Cambodian border on the 28th. That'll give us an extra 15 days. During which we'll get our visa number, wander down to the Korean embassy, get our E-2 visa and blow this joint!
Before that, we're expecting some visitors. A few friends from Korea will be joining us in the land of smiles, so that's something to look forward too.
As for our current day to day activities, they're pretty mundane. We've gotten friendly with a couple of the staff at the place we always have breakfast. It's kind of shocking that we've been here long enough to be able to order 'the usual' (muesli and yoghurt, toast butter jam, omlette and rice, two coffees). We usually enter the digital world at least once a day. Mainly to check up on the status of documents and job offers. We read, go for walks and take naps. Recently we've tried to play cards, but neither of us can fully remember the rules to any games suitable for two people. Us trying to play poker was hilarious. We usually end up playing Snap.
Currently, I'm looking into submitting my growing collection of photos into a stock photography agency. It's not as straight forward as I originally thought. First, you need to decide which agency you'd like to apply to. There are three big agencies: Getty, Corbis and Alamy. They deal with a whole range of images. Then there are a whole plethora of smaller, more specialised agencies each covering certain topic areas. The big agencies have the advantage of being big: more reach to get my images 'out there'. They also have the disadvantage of being big: more images to compete against. The smaller agencies have the advantage of recognising specialized imagery (they see a picture and see an IRC super zero maxi, others see a boat). However they might lack the reach of the bigger agencies. It's a full on business agreement I'd be signing up to. Most agencies want you to stay with them for at least 3 years. Some want an exclusive relationship, others don't mind. The advice that I'm getting doesn't seem too clear. One photographer submitted similar images to both a specialist agency and to Alamy. He made a lot more from Alamy apparently. Another photographer advised me to go with a specialist agency as they're more likely to see value in, and accept more, images from me. So there's something for me to ponder on. At the moment I'm leaning towards Alamy, as they're non-exclusive, so I could submit to another, non-exclusive, specialist agency.
Just gotta get accepted!