A Stock Photo Strategy For Photographers

A Stock Photo Strategy

A former photo assistant and friend of mine, now on her own, just asked me to help her devise a strategy for her to incorporate stock photography in to her new and growing business. I know she is quite adept at the technical end of photography, has good ideas, thinks conceptually, and knows how to use Photoshop.

My advice to her is to shoot for her book (in the world of professional photography your “book” is your portfolio). When I first started out around thirty years ago my mentor at that time told me “always keep shooting for your book”. That advice is as sound today as it was then. You can push your own work further than you can when you are constrained by the limits of an assignment (OK, that may not be true on some rare assignments…but for the most part it is true). You can shoot the kind of work you want to get, the kind of work that speaks to your passion. The work you shoot for your self can be a much more accurate expression of who you are as an artist, and where you want to go.

As I said, my advice to her is to shoot for her book, and make each shot a masterpiece for stock as well. Particularly when shooting for RM nothing is out of bounds. I remember long ago shooting an image for my own book, back when I actually did assignment work. I photographed a man with a shaved head, turned him blue and had flames coming from his head. I sat on that image for quite some time before sending it to a stock agency. “Who the heck could use that for what?” was my reasoning. But eventually I did send the image to Getty, who promptly rejected it. So I sent it, dubiously, to an agency then known as The Stock Market (later bought by Corbis). They ran the image as the cover of their primary catalog. The first sale that image made was for $17,000.00, and it has sold many times since then. That was a lesson for me, and can be one for you too. Shoot for your book, and make the image available as stock, whether through an agency or through your own site. I can think of no down side to making great images available for stock.

When you are shooting for yourself you are quite likely to come up with a much stronger image than when you start trying to create something that will sell. If you succeed in making a truly arresting photograph, then the creativity of the art directors, art buyers, or editors that see the image will allow them to find ways to use that photo in the service of their client’s products and services. You will get more exposure and possibly a nice chunk of change too.

Opportunities Are All Around Us

Hey, that's me they are operating on!

Just over a year ago I had emergency surgery in which a couple of feet of my small intestines were removed. Ouch! Six months later I had an “incisional” hernia when the incision site from the first operation gave way. The repair involved inserting a plastic mesh underneath my abdominal muscles. In a true case of “If you don’t ask for it you won’t get it” I got permission from both my surgeon and from the hospital
to have my friend and fellow stock photographer, Shalom Ormsby, photograph and video tape the operation. The stock photos and clips are available through Getty Images.

This morning Shalom dropped by and handed me my share of the first royalties we have received from this material. This little event demonstrates several points that I think are important. Firstly, it behooves us all to have strategic alliances with others in this industry, whether it is other shooters, stock agencies, modeling agencies…the more strategic alliances the better. Secondly, it takes a lot of time for the wheels of stock to turn. It is not at all uncommon in my experience to wait six months to a year before your efforts begin to pay off (keep in mind the vast majority of my experience is with Rights Managed stock, and I have zero experience with Micro Stock). And thirdly, the opportunities to create income generating assets (stock photos) are all around us, all of the time, if we just pay attention.

So go buddy-up to another stock shooter, have an operation, and be patient!

On Demand Printing: Selling Mugs, T-Shirts and Mouse Pads!

For most of my career I was so focused on advertising, corporate and editorial markets that it never occurred to me that there was money to be made in what is called the paper products industry. Paper products include greeting cards, calendars, coffee mugs, puzzles and so forth; when your photo is part of the product.

It wasn’t until I established a line of greeting cards that I realized that this whole vast other category existed. Shortly after getting the John Lund’s Animal Antics® line of cards established we began to license the images for coffee mugs, jigsaw puzzles, figurines, checks, even Christmas ornaments! The problem with this market his how incredibly difficult it is to penetrate. But that has changed now. For little or no money you can open a storefront with CafePress or one its numerous competitors. I mention CafePress specifically because that is where I have started my little enterprise, but there are numerous online businesses now that offer on demand imprinting of a huge variety of merchandise.

It takes a little work. You have to choose which of your images to feature, size them, go through the process of uploading them and so forth. The hard part is driving traffic to your store. But again, that is simply a matter of SEO and elbow grease. All of us who are passionate about our photography have first hand experience that there are people out there who are willing, eager even, to purchase our work. Think of search engine optimization as helping them find what they want.

Of course, it helps to have the kind of images that people want to buy as refrigerator magnets, mouse pads, and aprons. It is also important to make sure your images are available for such licensing. My funny animal and pet pictures are for the most part not handled by stock agencies such as Getty and Corbis. Many of the images are licensed through Kimball Stock whom I chose for their niche of animal pictures and also because they license for non-exclusive use. That way I can still offer these images on the products and merchandise that I want to.

Well, I guess I will wrap this up because I have a lot more uploading to do for CafePress!

Focus On Yourself

Focus on…yourself

On various forums you can read some pretty vitriolic commentary on the state of stock, on the opportunities or evils of Micro Stock (depending on which side your on), and on the diabolical nature of the big agencies like Getty or Corbis. I personally don’t view any of the developments in stock photography as evil or diabolical. Without question, for me, it was an easier business ten years ago, and yet I am making more money now than I was then. The business is also far more interesting, now, too. Back then I didn’t really know much…and now I know far less.

One thing I think I do know; it is more important to focus you your self, on your own business and your own life, than it is to focus on what once was and what Joe Micro Stock, Jane RF, or Dick Traditional Big Stock Producer are doing now. It is important to educate yourself. But rather then worry about whether someone else is destroying the market or stealing your opportunities, stay positive and start putting the building blocks in place to insure your own success both in business and in your life.

For me that is an ongoing process of fine tuning my shooting to insure more productivity for less money, carefully adjusting my image production to more accurately reflect my own talents, and developing my web site to get more prospects to view my work. Part of this process is keeping my ear to the ground (hmmm..Stock idea!), and learning as much as I can about the industry, about the Internet and SEO, and about what kind of life I want to live.

The last part, about what kind of life I want to live, is maybe the most important of all. It is important for you not to get so caught up in business that you lose sight of the life that your business is there to support. In the last few years I have moved to a more rural environment, incorporated more travel into my work, and continued to chip away at the various stress factors in my life. I am constantly re-evaluating how I can use my business to make my life better and more enjoyable. One big change that has occurred, and intentionally so, is by reaching out and having more friends. I use my stock business to widen my circle of friends and to further open the world to me.

I believe that is also one of the big draws to Micro stock; that it brings photographers into a community. I don’t shoot for Micro, but I know that I have had just such an experience with Blend Images. The photographers and staff of Blend feel like a family to me. That is pretty cool!

So yes, pay attention to what is developing in the industry, but don’t waste your energy on what you see as the negatives. Focus instead on the positives, on how your own special talents and preferences can work for you, and how you can make your business work for your life.

Committment To Your Photo Shoots (And Photos!)

Commitment

Word on the street is that the “low hanging fruit” in the world of stock photography is gone, harvested by Micro stock and the glut in RF images. I don’t know if it is totally gone, but I certainly agree that the bar is being constantly raised. For those of us serious about making a living at stock photography, now is the time to bring a new commitment into our shoots. For me, that means being more disciplined, more organized and more prepared.

In the past I would throw together a shoot and not worry too much about getting the most out of it. I pretty much knew that whatever I shot was going to earn me money. My dilemma now is how to have increased efficiency without bringing in a dark cloud of concern, how to make each production dollar and minute be more productive without taking the fun out of my stock career. Keeping the shoots fun is very important to me. I didn’t get in to this business to have it become work! For me, success in stock photography is more than just money, it is also an interesting and fun lifestyle.

I pulled together a shoot last Saturday that is typical of my new way of working. I managed to still keep it fun while having it also be one of my most productive stock photography shoots to date. What I did differently: Checked my shot list with an agency art director (Blend Images); Rehearsed and set-up each lighting scenario ahead of time; Added a video component to the shoot; And hired an extra assistant with the understanding he would also do some modeling.

To keep it fun I kept the shoot to only five hours in length and allotted extra time for each set up. I also had a separate photographer there to shoot the video; all I had to do was add a couple of suggestions (I also provided the camera, lights, studio and models). Another very important ingredient to insure that I am having fun is to be working on shots that I am genuinely excited about. I am not concerned about squeezing every last drop out of a shoot, rather I want to have a well thought out production that gives me the resources to do the best possible job of creating images that are interesting to me, relevant to the marketplace, and as low-stress as possible.

I base my shoots around one or two central ideas; then fill the shot list out from there. The central image for me, with this shoot, was based on Social Networking or what is now called Social Media. The shot is comprised of endless hands reaching out to each other. In some cases the hands will be clasped in a handshake, in other cases the hands will be about to touch. The need for images illustrating Social Media is huge and growing. I wanted to create an image that could be used to illustrate and advertise themes based around the social networking groups such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the like.

I ended up putting more prep time than usual into the shoot. I also hired more crew. The shoot ended up costing a bit more, but I was committed to the shoot and to the final images. In the long run, especially in these new more competitive times, the commitment to spending a little more money and a little more time (in this case pre-shoot set up) to get the best possible outcome will prove to be a very “economical” strategy…and a fun strategy as well!

A stockphoto Idea Generation Exercise

A week or so ago I wrote an article on coming up with ideas for stock, How to Generate Effective Ideas for Stock Photos
, something I think about a lot. I am always feeling like I have used up all my good ideas when suddenly I come up with a new one, or several new ones. Then I have a brief period where I am confident that I will always be able to come up with more ideas…followed again by more doubt. With all the amazing images out there how can there be any ideas left to do? Well, maybe there aren’t any really new ideas, but somehow there are always ideas that are new to me and will be fresh with my execution of them, something I know in my heart even when I am feeling my most doubtful.

In that article I mentioned a couple of exercises for coming up with ideas, and I had a new “idea exercise” occur to me this morning. Yesterday I was feeling stressed by the economy and by the fact I hadn’t made an image in a while (making images is like therapy for me…or maybe more like an addiction!). I was at my computer using Bridge to browse through my archive of uncompleted images. One image caught me eye: A business man with a stressed out expression as he sat at his cluttered cubicle. I had created the image with the intention of putting a dog cone, the kind that is used to prevent dogs from chewing on themselves, around his neck. I had never finished it because I had never gotten around to finding one of those cones. But I was feeling really in-tune with his expression. Was there something else I could use besides a dog cone (I don’t know the technical term for that apparatus). I look around my studio a bit. I found a blue funnel for pouring liquids into a container. That would do! I quickly shot it with available light and used Photoshop to turn it grey and strip it into the shot. It took about an hour of touch-up work, adding shadows and so forth, but the image was done. And my stress was greatly relieved!

That experience came into my head this morning and I have used it to come up with an exercise for stock ideas. The exercise is as follows: Grab a pen and paper. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and get in touch with how you are feeling. For example, this morning I am up early and everyone else in the house is asleep. I awoke this morning from an unpleasant dream. The cumulative result is that I am feeling a little lonely.

The next step in the exercise is to run through some mental pictures of what that feeling looks like until a image comes up that feels like it might work for stock. For me, I fairly quickly pictured an aerial view looking down on a man standing alone on an empty street.
Now quickly write down that visual. Now go back to your “mental movie”. When you come up with another intriguing visual, write that one down too. If you don’t write your ideas down they will disappear as quickly as they came!

After coming up with one or more visuals you can choose to play with it a little to see if any of them really do work as an image ideas for you. For me, the man standing alone in the street morphed into a person standing on a street corner at an intersection; a solitary person with a decision to make. I no longer have time to be lonely this morning because I am excited about creating this image. I already have thought of a location and am busy working out the details. This image might convey loneliness, the way forward, decisions, or even possibilities. It is a great stock idea because with the addition of a headline the image can convey many different concepts.

No matter what you are feeling, there are millions of others feeling the same way. If you can capture that feeling in an image you will have a successful stock photo, and hopefully, a feeling of accomplishment and success!

An Interesting Life

A more interesting life leads to better photography

It occurred to me today, as I ran across this stock photo (while adding meta data), that one thing you can do to increase your success as a stock photographer is to lead a more interesting life! How do you lead a more interesting life and make it apply to your photography? Well, I would say the answer to that is DO SOMETHING! Do anything. Action always takes you somewhere…and even if you later find out it took you in a direction that wasn’t quite the one you wanted, that in itself could help point you in the direction that you do want to go in. I would contend that going in the wrong direction, and finding out what the right direction, is, beats the heck out of doing nothing and getting nowhere.

The stock image that I just uploaded to my site is of a man falling through the sky. If I hadn’t decided to go to Bonaire I wouldn’t have shot that background image through the window of the aircraft. If I hadn’t gone to Buenos Aires I might never have rented a gymnasium, hired a gymnast, and created a shot of him dismounting from the parallel bars wearing a suit (and then been able to Photshop the composite together)! The more interesting my life has become the more interesting both my photography and my archives of interesting raw materials have become.

Making your life more interesting is an investment…and as far as investments go it is hard to imagine either a safer investment or one that has a better return. Like anything else, to get the most return you will have to have some follow-through. For example, a few years back I decided to do a stock photo shoot in Buenos Aires with two of my good friends. We decide to shoot in Buenos Aires because we wanted to, because we wanted to have an adventure, because we wanted our lives to become more interesting. It wasn’t cheap. Actually, at the time, it was the most money by far of any photo shoot I had ever done. And the pay-off has been huge!

That first time of undertaking a produced stock shoot outside the borders of my own country opened up a whole new world for me. I have now done “produced” stock shoots (as opposed to just grabbing whatever shots opportunistically came up) in Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Thailand and India. My life is more interesting, I am making money off of all of those shoots, and I have a wealth of raw materials for my compositing that I otherwise never would have had. I have friends I can turn to in each of those locations. In Argentina I even feel like I have a whole second family!

Not only can leading a more interesting life lead to better photography, stock photography can lead to a more interesting life! Under the guise of shooting stock I travel, I rent animals such as lions, tigers, elephants, monkeys, I meet a ton of new people (models, assistants, producers, photographers and everyday people we end up interacting with), and I am forced out of my shell and my daily humdrum existence. Even this blog is a result of my stock photography career! I wake up every morning and am thankful for my life as a stock shooter!