Attitude is Everything! Too many stock photos? Be inspired! I make a conscious decision to be inspired by my fears rather than to drown in depression. I made this image for Blend Images.
Many Ways To Become Depressed
There are so many ways to become depressed in this business!
If I start perusing other photographer’s work I can quickly become despondent
over the vast numbers of really creative work. Or I can become near suicidal
over the even vaster numbers of crappy photos that threaten to, or actually do,
bury my own images in a sea of mediocrity (and yes, some of my images are
crappy too…I admit it.)
5-Cent Sales And Big Cancelations
Sales reports can be a great source of depression as well.
On my last sales report I had a 5-cent royalty for an RM image. I also had a
$1,500.00 canceled sale…and that sure doesn’t help my frame of mind! A few days ago I spotted one of my
still images in an ad on television. It is a little hard to spot because it is
one of many images used and goes by in the flash of an eye…but
nonetheless…there it is on television. It is an RF image which means it is
kind of hard to track down how much I got paid for the image…but the largest
sale for it in the last several months is $14.00. Swell.
Waiting For Images
Waiting for images to go up is another great way to ruin an
otherwise good day. Images occasionally get lost, often take forever to get online, and get
rejected for ridiculous reasons.
My favorite “lost” image story happened with Getty. I submitted an image,
forgot about it, and it popped up one day in my collection…three years after I
submitted it! It sells pretty well…and is a tad depressing thinking about all
the sales I missed out on during those three years! I have been watching Corbis lately and while I may be
exaggerating, it feels as if I haven’t had a new image go up there in
months! Though I did see a Corbis
image of mine used in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that might net me
anywhere from $1,000.00 to $5.00…who knows (do I seem a tad bitter today?).
The Importance Of Attitude
My point here is on the importance of attitude. If I let all
that stuff get me down then my productivity will surely follow in a downwards arc. Instead of
being depressed at the vast number of awesome images out there I need to be
inspired to create even better ones of my own. Rather than being depressed by the endless waves of
mediocre, or worse, images that threaten to drown out my own sales, I need to
have the resolve to create images that are so on-target, relevant and visually
interesting that they rise above the vast morass.
I'LL Show Them!
The emotional shock of a low sales report is energy I can
use to motivate myself to create new work. “I’ll show them” is a lot more productive
than “Why bother?” Any of us who have participated in stock photography for
any great length of time know that there are up months and down months…and that
the up months have gotten progressively more challenging to achieve. But those
up months are still available provided we have the motivation not just to
create new images, but also to do so in a very thoughtful way. We can no longer
afford to just create images, now we have to pay attention to what the market
needs and wants and where the buyers are going.
One of the few things we can have control over is our own
attitude. By making a conscious decision to have a good attitude we can turn
negatives into powerful positive forces.
Despite the constant barrage of arrows and darts that seem to
continually find me, I am still making a good living at stock photography, and
when I don’t allow myself to succumb to negative emotions I realize I still am
having a great time creating fun images and enjoying the community of my fellow
stock shooters.
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