Is Stock Photography Dead?

 

Is stock photography dead, or is the sky really the limit?

 

My Top 100 Selling Stock Photos

Over the last year my top 100 selling stock photos (out of 8,000+ images) averaged $1,169.00 each.  Based on that statistic alone I would have to say that stock photography is still alive and well. True, it isn’t like the old days when the competition was thin and the return per image was off the charts, but nonetheless, I believe that it is evident that making a good living at stock photography is still an option.  It is also worth noting that I know a number of stock shooters who are both better photographers and more productive than I am.

Increased Productivity And A Wider Audience

While it is true that my stock income has dropped over the last five years, I am now optimistic that my income will actually start climbing again.  I base that on my own increased productivity of late, and also in the increasing exposure of my imagery to a larger audience, something I have Blend Images to thank for.  Blend is doing a great job expanding their potential client base by getting their images in front of not just a vast number of traditional art buyers, but also getting them in front of microstock audiences at traditional RF price points.  Certainly the success of the “Vetta” collection and the  “Agency Collection” at iStockphoto.com have proven that the microstock audience is willing to pony up for higher priced stock photos.

Now Is The Time To Create Imagery

If you are invested in stock photography, now is the time to be creating images. When the world’s economy eventually pulls out of the doldrums then all those images will serve you well.  Too, because of the long-term nature of the business, it is important to be constantly building your library of images, and in my opinion, to be building traffic to your web site for additional sales and exposure.

Quality, Quantity and Success

In the insanely competitive world of stock photography success is a blend (no pun intended) of quality and quantity and can only be the result of dedication, passion, and a long-term commitment (if nothing else, I’ve got that long-term part down).  With the ever increasing use of photography and better distribution it just may be that the sky is the limit!

Clients, Cancellation Fees And Success

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 The clients you want are part of the team, make sure you have the time and resources you need, and are willing to pay you what the job is worth.

 

Today I received an email from a friend and fellow photographer relaying the following story:

I drove all the way to SF to set up for a simple portrait in SF.
At the last minute the client called to say they found someone cheaper.  I was pissed. I called, tried to work it out with them. Was willing to come down by the small $50.00 difference. They said no.

So I sent them an invoice right away for a cancellation fee of the full amount.. They just called and gave me their credit card. Of course, they will never work with me in the future, but they were never going to anyway.

So I get the same amount I was going to get for shooting the shot, now I can go home early.

My friend was fortunate that he asked for a cancellation fee and got it. The story reminds me though of some things I learned in my twenty-five years of shooting assignments. You don’t want to waste your valuable time on second-rate clients. You are far better off turning down jobs from clients that aren’t willing to pay you an appropriate amount, and provide you with the resources (time and expenses) necessary to do a quality job. You are better off spending that time finding great clients. Great clients understand the value of your time…all of your time, don’t have a problem putting down a deposit, keep you informed, and pay you on time. Great clients are part of the team...not part of the problem.

A poor client will drag you down, label you as someone who can be hired cheaply, and then spread the word.  Remember, you will be known by the clients you keep. Want to succeed? Hold out for great clients and then work your ass off for them. 

Five Rules For Success In Stock Photography

You can't be effective at any endeavor whether it is stock photography or stock market investing if you don't have a clear view of the reality of the world.

1. Get your head out of the clouds and understand what images the market needs.

2. Forget waiting for inspiration and get to work making inspiring images.

3. Quit looking at what others are doing and create the images that only you can create.

4. Remember that quality trumps quantity, but quantity is necessary.

5. Prepare for the long term by setting realistic goals and creating images that fulfill you creatively

The Power of The Unexpected

 

There is power in the unexpected and a continuing need for images depicting creativity, ideas and thinking outside the box.

 

The Power of The Unexpected

There is power in the unexpected. Showing the unexpected, the unimagined and even the bizarre has the power to capture a viewer’s attention, which is, after all, the function of a stock photo. Harness that power in your stock photography.

Shattered Expectations

In this photo of a hammer, unexpectedly shattering against a light bulb, there are a wide variety of concepts that are being illustrated from creativity and inspiration to the impact of the unexpected. In a world drowning in images there is advantage to standing out from the crowd by creating visuals that can easily illustrate ideas and that have the advantage of not being seen before.

Creativity, Ideas And Inspiration

The light bulb obviously represents such concepts as ideas, creativity and inspiration. Having the hammer, an iconic symbol for strength and power, shatter against the light bulb makes a strong illustration of the power and influence of creativity and ideas…and does so in what I would argue is a creative image. This photo is further an illustration of the power of the unexpected and possibilities. It is an argument for opening your mind, thinking outside the box, and allowing for serendipity.

Rights Managed vs. Royalty Free

I don’t see this as a image that will sell a gazillion times, rather as one that will definitely have multiple sales, but sales totaling in the tens rather than the hundreds. As such I think it would be better served as an RM image, and I will suggest that to my editor at BlendImages (thought I will leave the final decision up to him).  BTW, these days one of the hardest aspects to stock photography is deciding whether an image should be RF or RM. Anyone who still thinks RM images will earn more money is probably in denial, and yet there is still a place for Rights Managed imagery. I do my best to make intelligent decisions but there just isn’t a foolproof set of criteria for such choices. Oh well.

Why I Hate Instagram

This cyber warfare photo became possible when I happened across an army tank and grabbed a shot of it with my iPhone.


New Freedom With Photography

When I say I hate Instagram I am using the word "Instagram" as the category of pictures shot with a mobile phone. Now I didn’t always have such a dislike of mobile phone camera photos. I first took notice of such images when a friend of mine, Nevada Wier, showed me the images she was shooting with her iPhone. Damn they looked good! We were on a trip to India and here she was getting awesome looking images with her phone. I had visions of finally being able to discard my DSLR bodies and lenses and all that other camera gear and enjoying a new freedom with my photography.

An Excursion Into iPhone Photography

Unfortunately my brief (so far) excursion into iPhone photography hasn’t quite gone as planned. First, I find it very difficult to shoot great pictures with my phone. I have a hard time holding it steady, a hard time not getting my fingers in the pictures, and a hard time triggering the shutter at the moment I want. Too, I have a hard time finding the beauty in my phone pictures when viewing them on my desktop display (as opposed to my camera screen). Did I mention it is a pain in the butt to learn new things too? Looking on the good side, I sure have a lot of pictures of my cat now!

A Different Reality

Further, grab shots are not what I do. I shoot carefully composited concept images. Sure, the idea of never missing a shot appeals to me, as well as the idea of supplementing my stock library with those spur-of-the-minute opportunities. Yet I find the reality a bit different. I don’t seem to be finding those significantly good spontaneous opportunities and instead I feel constant pressure to produce, and constant disappointment in my own failure to come up with the awesome phone-camera shots that so many of my peers achieve.

Opportunities And “Breaks”

Yes I do continually look for opportunities with my iPhone in hand. Which means that now I never get a break from work! I spend so much time thinking about and “doing” stock photography that I am in constant danger of burn out.  Not having my equipment with me gives me a kind of break from that self-imposed pressure.  Or rather it did, because now I have my "equipment" with me all the time! To be fair I do get some interesting and useful images. In the “cyber warfare” image at the top of this post, the war tank was shot with my iPhone when I unexpectedly saw it on a trip to the dump. Without my iPhone handy I would never have created that stock image.

A Good Attitude And A Great Tool

Okay, yes, the camera phones are a great tool and, I guess, are already contributing to my career. The trick for me, as with most endeavors, is having a good attitude and the self-discipline to keep my approach a healthy one, one that contributes to my way of working rather than distracts from it. For some photographers mobile phone cameras can open up a whole new set of opportunities (check out David Sanger's Instagram work), for me it is one more love/hate relationship to be managed. And, I guess I don’t really hate Instagram after all:).

It’s all About Production (Sort of)

The most successful stock photographers all have one thing in common, they consistently produce images. Some produce copious quantities while others produce higher production value photos...but they all consistently produce day in and day out.


Successful Stock Photographers And Production

Every successful stock photographer I know has one thing in common. They consistently produce. That may just be the key to everything. Production. The more imagery you produce the more your chances of success. The more great images you produce the greater your chance of success!

Which Image Will Be The Best Seller

It is a weird thing in stock photography, that you never know exactly which image is going to be the best seller from a given shoot. I always think I know which one it will be but more than half of the time I end up being wrong. One change I have made over the years is to create more photos from each shoot. More images from a given shoot increase my chances of having one or more images that qualify as “best sellers”.

Images That Are Needed And Wanted

For some stock shooters “production” means hundreds of images a month, while others, including me, think twenty images a month is a lot. I bet there are even successful stock shooters who shoot fewer photos than that!  In any case, in order to make production a worthwhile undertaking the results of that production have to be images that are needed and wanted in the market place.

A Mix Of Imagery

Whether you are shooting microstock or one of a kind Rights Managed imagery, to make your production effective you have to study the market and make images that fill a need appropriate for the time and effort that go into them. If not, your business will slowly starve to death. My own approach is to create a mix of easy-to-produce RF oriented images and higher-value Rights Managed images with distribution aimed at getting those images in front of the maximum number of viewers. But whether the photos are easy to produce or require days for a single image, I only create images that I believe fill a clear need and will sell. I am not just using a shotgun approach!

Setting Goals And Upping Production

One thing that has really helped me to up my production of stock photos is by setting goals. When I set the goal of creating an average of four images a week I was doubtful that I could achieve it, yet six months after setting that goal I find I am actually exceeding that number…though not by muchJ. When I study the photographers who I know are doing well in stock it seems to me that success lays in the simple formula of creating a lot of well-targeted imagery with appropriate production values. I also get the impression these successful stock shooters are careful in spending their money on shoots but are willing to invest enough to insure an appropriate production quality for the market they are shooting for.

Create Images!

Success is a process of understanding the market, understanding distribution, and understanding one’s own strengths and weaknesses…then setting goals and getting to work. Just as I have seen that the most successful photographers are the ones who truly “produce”, I have seen a ton of photographers who forever linger on the outskirts of success by virtue of their procrastination whether it is from an endless “need to prepare”, build a “body of work” or focus on the obstacles rather than the prize.  To succeed toss those excuses aside and create images!

Lord Ganesha And The Long Tail

Having extensive captioning and text along with my Ganesha imagery allows for greater web traffic via long-tailed key words (yeah, I know, I've used this picture on my blog before).

Ganesha’s Birthday

By 9:00 this evening over 2,000 Internet searches had ended at my site.  The top searched for word was “Ganesha” with 63 searches, followed by “Ganesh symbol” with 17, “wrecking ball” with 14 and “ganesha symbolism” with 10.  Ganesha is often the key word that brings most people to my site, but to have 63 was unusual, and to have the second and fourth most searched for terms to be also “Ganesha” related was quite unusual. I did a quick search on Google for “Ganesha” and quickly learned that today was considered Ganesha’s birthday!

Long Tailed Key Words

I then went back and started checking to see what other Ganesh-related key words were bringing in traffic. Below is the list of Ganesha related key words that I found in the first 500 search terms.   I didn’t bother going through all 2,000+ key words, but it appears that about ten percent of my day’s traffic was due to the key word Ganesha and it’s long-tailed variations (long tail key words being key word phrases containing two or more words)!

Long Tailed Key Words And Web Site Traffic

What we see from this list is a classic example of long-tailed key words and how they can build traffic. If I had a photo of Ganesha on my site with the minimal caption typical of what most photographers have I would only have had a fraction of today’s “Ganesha” traffic.  If you want more traffic to your site, include more caption material that the search engines can use to guide those looking for such images in your direction.

The Difficulty of Long Tailed Key Words

Another interesting aspect for long tailed key words is how hard it is, at least for me, to figure out what those key words will be. I find it a lot simpler to just try and write something interesting about the image. That isn’t all that easy either. To write coherent, interesting and relevant text takes time and effort…and a lot of it!

Long Tail Key Words, Targeted Traffic And The Long Term

Long tail keywords not only help bring in more traffic, but more targeted traffic as well, and if your selling something, whether it is prints, stock photo licenses, or imprinted coffee cups, targeted traffic can mean increased revenue. The conundrum, at least for me, is that the time and effort required to bring in that traffic, to write the captions, upload the images, work for the links is time that I can’t put into making images.  I am sacrificing making images in the belief that the long-term reward will make it all worthwhile. I’ll probably know in about five years…geez, I sure hope I’ll know!

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