The Key Ingredient For Success

 

Motivation is the key force in success whether it is in stock photography or any other endeavor!

 

Building A Stock Photography Career

In many ways building a stock photography career can be very simple. Create photos…get them online. What could be simpler than that? Of course, as they say, the devil is in the details. As in what images to shoot, how many to shoot, where best to get them distributed, how to keep production costs under control, how much pre, and post, production is appropriate. Hmmm, the list tends to on and on.

The Most Important Ingredient For Success: Motivation

As a matter of fact, the list, if you really want to excel in stock photography, gets quite daunting and even complex. To really rise to the top tier of stock shooters requires, at least in my opinion, undertaking a lot of tasks that one really doesn’t want to do. At least there are a lot of tasks that I have to do that I don’t want to!

Which brings me to that most important ingredient for stock photography success; If I had to list one ingredient that is most vital to success as a stock photographer it would be motivation.

Are You Willing To Do Whatever It Takes?

The question is: Are you willing to do whatever it takes to succeed? If the answer is yes, then you can succeed. If you aren’t the greatest photographer you can learn and get better. If you don’t know what to shoot the agencies will tell you, or you can learn to discern what the trends are and the needs are.  If you work flow is inefficient all it takes is time, dedication and the Internet to find a better way.

Dealing With Obstacles
Motivation enables you to deal with the obstacles to making a stock photography career viable. Patience and perseverance are examples of qualities necessary for success and requiring motivation to maintain. It took me ten years before I was earning enough money from stock to let go of my assignment work.  Are you willing to spend ten years working at something to reach a high level of success? Are you willing to take a hard look at what is holding you back…and then put the work in to eliminate those obstacles?

I Am Motivated; I will Find A Way

This is an ongoing exercise as well. Right now I am reviewing all of my contracts with my various second-shooters. They need updating. It isn’t something I want to do, but I know that if I don’t take care of it now I will pay for it later. I have now spent four years furiously working on building web traffic, something I really don’t want to be doing, but that I feel will ultimately be of significant importance. Too, while I am at an age where the temptation is to say that I have earned a rest, maybe even semi-retirement, I am setting new higher goals of production. In this case there is not just the struggle to produce more, but to do it in a way that doesn’t make it feel like a burden. But hey, I am motivated! I will find a way.