Handshakes, Challenges, and Success As A Stock Photographer

As stock photographers, as well as artists, we must take old concepts, like the dreaded business handshake, and bring them to life in new and exciting ways.

Blend Images, A Recession, And Opportunity
The negative news in the photography world is rampant, and it would be foolish not to pay attention…and not to be concerned. But I can’t help but believe that with the tremendous demand for images there isn’t also a lot of opportunity. I will come out and say it: There is a lot of opportunity! Blend Images, of which I am a part of, has just licensed more images than ever...even in a recession year. And they weren’t doing it by discounting. As a matter of fact, one of my associates had one sale in Blend’s just introduced Rights Managed collection for over $9,000.00. Don’t forget, despite the doom and gloom there are hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on stock images.

Our Challenge As Stock Photographers
There are opportunities…but how do we take advantage of them? One way is to shoot the old tried-and-true concepts, but to shoot them in a new and different way. Let’s take the example of a handshake. Kind of makes you cringe, right? I mean if anything has been done to death, overused, and driven into the ground it is the business handshake. And yet, what better symbol is there for such important and necessary concepts as sealing the deal, agreement, success and teamwork? Handshakes are a quick read and we all get the point. Handshakes really are a necessary image in the business world. As creative photographers, as artists if you will, and certainly as stock shooters, it is our challenge to take such mundane concepts and take them to a new level.

Photos That Stand Out From The Crowd, And Success
Our continued success certainly depends on our ability to do so. I don’t really know if the crushing glut of images will spell doom for the careers of most stock shooters, but I do believe that there will always be success and good rewards for those who can create photos that stand out from the crowd. One problem, though, is getting paid adequately for creating such photos. It could be that if you create exceptional pictures and put them into micro you might have a volume of sales that justifies the blood, sweat and money that goes into such images. Of course, one danger with that is that you might have every Tom, Dick and Jane copying your better selling images.

No Guarantees, Negotiation and Possibilities
I believe it is a better strategy to put such images into Rights Managed collections. There is no guarantee that whoever is negotiating the fee for the images will do them justice, but there is at least the possibility! Too, if the demand for great images does result in higher fees then Rights Managed can easily step up to that task. Once you release an image into micro, or even RF…well, what’s done is done.

Diversification And Knowledge
That being said, I am putting images in both RM and RF. I am staying diversified in as many ways as I think prudent (micro not being one of them…yet*) in order to both minimize the impact of changes in the market, and to have the first hand information of what is selling and for how much. As they say, knowledge is power…sort of. Whether I put images into RF or RM, I want them, ideally, to be fresh, and filling a definite need in the marketplace. I am positive that if you can create exciting and compelling photography that fills the needs for business, there are ample opportunities for success and for making a very good living. Call me an optimist!

*A word about micro. I don’t mean to bash micro. I don’t begrudge the participants of micro. I just don’t believe that it is the right business model for me. Micro opened up the stock photo door to everyone and, in a sense, leveled the playing field. It has forever changed the landscape. It isn’t good, or bad, it just is. Heck, some photographers are amazingly successful with that model, and maybe someday it will be more attractive to me, but right now I believe I can earn more through the traditional outlets.

Cloud Computing: Anatomy of a Stock Photo

"Cloud Computing" is an example of a newly popularized phrase; new phrases and buzzwords can signal opportunities and generate ideas."

Popular Vernacular, Stock Photos And Cloud Computing
One of the biggest challenges for stock photographers is to come up, time after time, with good ideas. Ideas can come from anywhere, but a very good place to get them from is popular vernacular. When a new word or phrase becomes popular it means there is something important going on that is being talked about. That something needs images to describe it for advertising, for promotion, and for editorial coverage. And because it is new, there probably aren't a lot of appropriate images already in place for those purposes. So when I hear a new buzzword (or phrase) I haven't heard before, I listen to it with an ear for opportunity.  Cloud computing is one of those phrases. Sometimes these things just slip by your radar. In this case, I kept getting spam talking about cloud computing. Like advertisements I managed ignore a goodly number of the unwanted emails until, in mid delete, I had one of those aha! moments. If it is worth spamming about, maybe an image is called for!

Cloud Computing, Ones and Zeros, and A Difficult Concept
Cloud Computing refers to the use of computer programs and applications that are based on a remote server and accessed via the Internet. Cloud computing is also a difficult concept to portray in a stock photograph, and a concept with very few images existing that specifically illustrate it.  This is one of those concepts, that at least to me, the illustration for which seems almost too obvious. Data is represented by ones and zeros, so a parade of ones and zeros, composed of clouds, streaming through the sky can perfectly represent cloud computing and even more related themes. Such an image can also represent networking, communications, and information flow.

Cloudscapes and Perspective
The only catch here is that the image is a difficult one to execute, at least for me. I used Photoshop to take cloud images from various photographs and then, using the liquefy filter and the warp tool, and a lot of layers and layer masks, create a series of ones and zeros. After creating a library of "information", I selected an appropriate cloudscape and then copied and pasted in the "data".  It is important when creating the ones and zeros to give them at least a semblance of the correct perspective and fine-tuning was definitely necessary when arranging the images.  I used Transform>perspective and Transform>distort to do the perspective fine-tuning. Blending the clouds in is also somewhat of a tricky task. In some cases setting the layer mode to "lighten only" does the trick; in other cases it is more a case of painstaking work "painting" the clouds in and out with a layer mask.  The entire process took me a little over two days to do.

Rights Managed or Royalty Free

Once the image is complete then a decision has to be made on distribution. The decision needs to be made as to whether to distribute the stock photo as a Rights Managed image or a Royalty Free image.  There are a number of factors that have to be considered to make that decision. If the image is one that will be licensed frequently then RF might be the way to go. If the image is harder to find a use for, then a higher payment per use is necessary (especially for an image that takes several days to create). That would indicate a RM classification for the stock photo. Of course, these days, with the deep discounting that is going on such as Getty's Premium Access program, it is hard to argue that RM is necessarily going to fetch a higher licensing fee. One other factor that needs to be taken into account is the photographer's share of revenue. With RF images the photographer generally gets 20% of the licensing fee, and with RM images, at least in the photographer's home territory, the photographer's share is 40%, double what one gets with RF. As of yet I still have not made a final decision with this "cloud computing" image, maybe I'll flip a coin!

Leaping Dancers and Stock Photo Collaborations

Alien abduction or Spiritual Ascension?


Love, Joy...and Valentine's Day!

Dancers, Photoshop and Collaboration
Recently a friend and fellow stock photographer, Tanya Constantine, asked me if I would like to collaborate on some work together. Tanya had completed a series of photos of dancers and thought that perhaps, with my Photoshop experience, I could create some good stock images by compositing the dancers into new backgrounds. She sent me some jpegs that were indeed pretty cool photos.

Egos, Gang Shoots, And Fond Memories

I do occasionally collaborate with other photographers in various ways. I have participated in quite a few “gang” shoots with two to as many as a dozen other photographers. In a few cases, as in this suggestion by Tanya, I have used the work of other photographers in composite images. I have to admit that this sort of work is not necessarily easy for me to jump into…primarily for ego reasons. I like to be totally responsible for the images I create, from the photography to the digital work. It is always a challenge for me to put my ego aside and work with other photographers to create “joint” images. Gang shoots are easier for me because each photographer still ends up with separate credit for his or her work and there is a shared enthusiasm and energy that comes with the territory. I have some truly fond memories of shared shoots, particularly ones that I have done in places like Bangkok, Mexico, India and Argentina.

Logistics And Decisions

In cases where I am just manipulating and compositing with the photography of others, I don’t get the fun of the shared shoots, and I don’t get to claim the results as my own.  Too, with collaboration there is always the need to work out the logistics of collection and distributing the royalties, and dealing with the difficulties of making various choices (such as who will distribute the images and in what model) involving more than one person. Here, with Tanya’s beautiful images of dancers, it would be foolish for me to let those potential problems get in the way of producing some beautiful and financially rewarding work.

Raw Files, Motion Blur, And White Backgrounds

I chose a few of the dancer photos and had Tanya send me the raw files via my ftp site (when technology works don’t you just love it!).  The difficulty with these images is that the dancers were photographed in motion against a white background. Their clothing and hair had motion blur making it impossible to strip the images entirely out. The only way to succeed, at least as far as I know (important disclaimer!), is to incorporate the dancers into a background that was at least very close to white…but what the heck could such a background be? When shooting images it can be advantageous to think ahead about possible compositing options, and where possible, shoot at least some images with backgrounds that make the post shoot work much less arduous!

A Metaphor For Freedom…and Love

I started with the dancer in a red shift. She could be stripped out, except for her hair, with a simple clipping path converted to a selection. My first thought was that putting her in a sky could create a metaphor for freedom, vitality and energy. As I pondered the problems with her hair it popped into my mind that if I had her head against a cloud that had a similar white tone to the background she was photographed on, I could simply fade her hair into the cloud with a layer mask and it would work perfectly. As I looked through my cloud files I came across this image of a heart-shaped cloud and I knew I had the right combination.

A Royalty Free Image and Valentine’s Day

I used the pen tool to create a clipping path, leaving a wide swath around her hair, but a tight path around her limbs and dress. A one-pixel feather was used in converting the path to a selection. I copied and pasted her into the sky image and used “Free Transform” to position and size her. As I mentioned above, I created a layer mask and with a soft brush, and "painted" with black to fade her hair into the cloud image. This final image represents not only energy, vitality, and freedom, but also love, joy and…Valentine’s Day! This image will sell a lot, and for a lot of uses. It seems perfect as a Royalty Free image and is headed for the Blend Images RF collection.

Spirituality and Alien Abductions

In the next image, a woman dancer in a green dress, was in a pose that suggested to me that she was being lifted by some invisible force…as if, perhaps, by some “tractor beam” from a flying saucer. This stock photo could be used for concepts ranging from alien abduction and science fiction to spirituality and philosophical uses. I could even see it as an image indicating being “carried away”, something that could actually be used to advertise or promote a number of different products or services. Of course, I always reserve the right to be wrong!

Art Directors, Designers and Rights Managed Collections

I found an image I had shot of New York and used “Hue and Saturation” in an adjustment layer, to create a shaft of light for the beam. I again used the pen tool to create a clipping path around the model, but leaving a wide area around her hair. After copying and pasting the dancer into the beam area I re-adjusted the lightness of the “beam”, with that adjustment layer, until her hair almost blended into the background. Then with a layer mask and a soft brush I finished “fading” the hair into the background. This is a stock image that will probably be a lot harder for Art Directors and Designers to utilize… and has a high production value look…so I submitted it to Getty who is placing it into their “Stone” collection…a high-end Rights Managed collection.

Giving Up Ego And Reaping Rewards

By collaborating, Tanya and I have each had to give up a little bit of our investment in ego, but we will both (hopefully) reap greater rewards from the resulting stock photos than we otherwise would have. I am not really a fan of the phrase “Win-win”, but this is as good a case of that as any!

Guest Blog: A Recently Rounded Perspective on Microstock by Scott Redinger-Libolt

Photographer/art director Scott Redinger-Libolt gets a new perspective on microstock and shares it with us in this guest blog.

A recently rounded perspective on microstock
by Scott Redinger-Libolt

As many of you know, a large part of my income as a photographer is from stock. Other sources include assignment, creative consulting, editing, and retouching. I do not participate in microstock…however, I just had my first experience purchasing it for a client. I must say, I felt very guilty and wanted to share some realizations I had during the experience (hands still clutching the bloody knife).

One of my editing clients is the Green Labor Journal who is a non-profit organization. With a small team of writers and researchers, the journal provides information on a monthly basis including the complex politics of energy, green jobs, green education, union news, and affiliate articles. Their efforts are quite noble and like most righteous organizations, their funds are severely limited.

Needless to say, I bought a photograph from microstock, and it took this first hand experience to awaken me to the broad spectrum of effects caused by this one simple act. The picture was of solar panels being installed by workers on the roof of a commercial building. OK, let’s stop there for a moment. As a photographer, I know what it takes to make a connection with a solar company, secure a model release, and get access to shoot on the roof of a commercial building in this litigious and liability stricken nation. These hurdles alone make for an extremely valuable subject matter in stock due to the scarcity of coverage. This particular image, a very nice shot I might add, has further value due to the attention and growth in the “Green” and “Solar” industries…a perfect combination of supply and demand.

Like many stock photographers, I’ve been asked by most agencies to shoot green energy and had lightly started some research last year. The time and travel involved with producing this content has factored into my inadequate coverage of the subject. Having seen and bought another photographer’s end result for less than $5 has given me reason for pause. Based on the downloads of this particular image, and from what I know about average purchase price, file size, etc…I calculate that this one image will make the photographer about $600-800 in the first year. Not bad on a single image, but you can’t calculate RPI on a single image without knowing how many images were shot that day and how many of them don’t sell as well or at all…and, of course, the tapering lifespan is a factor. Given my experience in RM & RF, I believe this particular image could be making nearly double this amount per year in either of these licensing models. But I don’t want to dwell on this too much because my enlightenment was of a bigger picture …pun not intended.

When I joined Green Labor Journal as a freelance photo editor, I had also hoped that one day I would be shooting editorial pictures of the green workforce and attribute my skills to a noble cause. But as I clicked “Buy” on this microstock image and made this well-deserving client aware of this outlet for extremely cheap content, I saw my personal assignment hopes evaporate before my eyes. Oh… and all while my skills as a photo editor were being commended. By now my head is twisting in ways it had not before been twisted and…I had to write this entry for the pursuit of John’s blogging efforts in trying to make sense of it all.

Wait… there is a moral to the story. Non-profit organizations would not be able to function if it were not for inexpensive content outlets. We are seeing a resurgence in countless aspects of activism in our nation right now, and it is our duty as caring individuals to participate in noble movements. Both, government-subsidized as well as publicly funded not-for-profit organizations, have increased by drastic numbers in the last few years…and remarkably so, in the face of adverse economic situations. The budgets of these organizations have played a big part in the evolution (or de-evolution) of discounting content. I don’t feel good about microstock undermining my stock revenue as well as my assignment possibilities…however, to quote Spock, “It is illogical to dwell in circumstances beyond your control”. We can even see an opportunity here in creating mid-level priced and microstock content that specifically targets the needs of non-profit organizations who wouldn’t be buying RM or RF anyway. Bang…that was the car door slamming as I race with my camera to the closest field of genetically-altered wheat.

To inquire about Scott’s creative consulting and photography, drop him a line on his website: www.redinger-libolt.com

Cultivating Curiosity To Improve Your Photography

Curiosity about other cultures and ways of life are a strong motivating force in great travel photography. I photographed this woman of the Padaung tribe in a remote Burmese village. They were as curious about me as I was about them; they had never seen westerners before! Note the brass coils around her neck!

Curiosity Makes For Better Photography
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it can greatly enhance your photography! Curiosity is a cornerstone for becoming a “people person”, essential for successful people and lifestyle photography. Curiosity, about other cultures and lifestyles, is a primary motivating force for great travel photographers. And curiosity about the world we live in can open up this world for photographic exploration and documentation and lead to all kind of opportunities and even adventures.


People Will Open Up And Share
Most people have the same favorite thing to talk about…themselves! If you either have a natural curiosity about people, or can develop that curiosity, then you have the key to creating great rapport with people. Just ask them about their lives, what motivates them, what interests them, where there passions are. That can lead to far more rewarding and productive experiences, photographic and otherwise, for all parties concerned. If you can generate genuine curiosity and explore that with people they will open up and reveal all kinds of fascinating and useful information, access, and adventures. In one case, when I had been in India for only a couple of hours, I asked a taxi driver, a Sikh, about his religious beliefs. One thing led to another and soon I found myself photographing inside the incredible Sikh temple in Delhi.


Curiosity Leads To Great Experiences
But curiosity is important at home too. Recently I was shooting a model and began to ask her about her family. Before long she was sharing pictures of her parents and siblings, all great looking people, and offering to recruit them for another shoot. Seldom, if ever, has my curiosity led me to anything other than great experiences, and it has invariably left the subjects of my curiosity feeling flattered and better about themselves.


Curiosity Is A Powerful Tool For Stock Photographers
Curiosity is an especially powerful tool for the stock photographer. We are always in need of ideas, subjects, locations and vocations. How often have we allowed ourselves to sit next to someone on a bus or plane in silence never knowing what great information or wonderful opportunities have been missed? I once spent an entire flight sitting next to man, from New York to San Francisco. We finally started talking as we exited the aircraft. It turned out he was an author and I had just finished his book days earlier…and by not being curious…and not pursuing that curiosity, I missed a chance to delve more deeply into what I thought was a fabulous book…from its author no less! Just by being interested in other people, and expressing that interest, I have gained access to race cars, yachts, ultra-light flying, and the most amazing meal of my life. I have been invited to weddings and funerals and family celebrations. I was once invited to fly in the cockpit of a commercial airliner, and another time invited to photograph a mock operation on a cadaver…though I have to admit that I passed that opportunity up.

Curiosity Can Be Cultivated
The key to making curiosity work for you is to have your curiosity be sincere. Like many other things, if you practice you get better. I have to continually remind myself that I am not the center of the universe; that I already know all about me, and that other people are a treasure trove of interesting things, if I can just bring it out of them. Despite all my wonderful experiences from expressing my interest in the lives of others, I still have to work to get myself to express that interest. I have to cultivate both my curiosity and my willingness to pursue it. I seem to have an unreasonable expectation that I will be imposing on people, and yet I do not remember a single unpleasant event from investigating that interest. I am sure there were many dead-ends, but so what? What is far more important is what is to be gained by a simple and friendly greeting, followed by a sincere interest in another person. Cultivate your curiosity and practice sharing it. You won’t regret it.

Opening The Doors To Photography Opportunities

Is the glass half empty or half full? The photography industry is under siege, but there are opportunities out there!

One Door Closes, Another Opens
How often have we heard that when one door closes another one opens? I think that we all believe that too, to a certain extent. But when we are talking about our own livelihood it is a bit more difficult to get behind! And yet, taking that maxim to heart is an important step to a great future.  A close friend of mine, and former assistant, was, until a couple of weeks ago, the manager of business that is doing quite well. He walked in one day; the owner called him in and fired him. Surprise. You don't have a job anymore!

True Story: A Better Job and New Opportunity
I called him today to check in and see how he is doing. Great it turns out. He had just returned from a ten-day trip to Europe, paid for by an acquaintance of his who now wants him to run his North American operations.  This is a true story, and as I said, is happening to a good friend of mine. My friend ended up with a new and better job in the same industry, with more opportunity, and all within two weeks of being unexpectedly fired.  If he hadn't been let go, that opportunity would have passed him by.

Too Early Is Better Than Too Late
Now look at our own industry. Under siege by image glut, low prices, crowd sourcing and image theft.  Perhaps we can open the doors to new opportunities by letting go of our belief that the photo industry shouldn't be undergoing these changes. We can start opening doors even before the old doors slam totally shut.  The time to do that is now. Opportunities take time to find and develop. I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that I have been passed by…I’d rather be too early than too late. Also, If there is one overriding thing I have learned in my last year of working on my website and SEO (search engine optimization), it is that the opportunity I see in Internet searches takes time to develop, and a lot of it!  I can see progress, I can see that my efforts are starting to pay off, but I also see that I am probably at least another year away from the kind of Internet success that I am after.

Understand Where the New Opportunities Are
Instead of jumping on a forum and bemoaning all those photographers who are ruining the photography and stock photo industries, take that time to understand where the new opportunities are, and get working on them!  I don't know about you, but it wasn't easy for me to reach success under the old paradigm, and I don't expect it to be easy under the new one either.  I know it is going to take work, but I know there are opportunities here.

Google Searches and Print Sales
Do you know how many searches there were for "wall décor" in the last year? Google reports the number at over 21 million!  Are you getting your share of print sales? Wordtracker reports searches of "Hawaii stock photos" at 52,000 last year. Invest a little time looking at keyword searches to see where some opportunities are for you, with your areas of expertise and what you like to shoot. Then get to work on your site and make sure that people, who are looking for what you have to offer, find you!

Tracking Searches and Increasing Revenue
I use SmarterStats to track the searches that bring people to my site.  A year ago I was getting a few people a week. Now I get hundreds a day. Someone came to my sight today searching "lighthouse storm photos", and someone, hopefully the same person, went from my site to a lighthouse-in-a-storm photo that I have on the Corbis site. I won't know for three months or so whether there was a license of that lighthouse image, but the point is, that because I have made my images available for those seeking such images, I have a far greater chance of earning revenue from those photographs.

Using Creativity to Find Opportunities
Of course, the Internet is not the only source of opportunities. I have a photographer friend looking into 3D video, and another photographer friend who is using his photography knowledge to devise a turnkey system for doctors to photograph their patients. Use your creativity to find opportunities that appeal to you. My point is lets not wait for the door to slam before opening the door to those other opportunities! Opportunities are seldom easy, and seldom come to you.  Now is the time to go out and find them and to put the time and effort in to making them payoff.

A Stock Photo of Chaos, and Decisions

The result of experimenting with no goal in mind, this stock photo can represent many concepts from Chaos to communications to the Internet.

Is It A Good Stock Photo?
My last blog post was about the importance of “play” in photography. The above photograph was the result of my latest playtime. Is it a good stock Photo? Will it sell well? I don’t know. I am not even sure if I am going to submit it in its current form. I do love the sense of chaos, the sense of motion and the dynamic colors. For me it can represent many different themes from the firing neurons of a brain, to interstellar intelligence, to networking, to Internet communications (it even has a kind of net-like structure to it) and much more.

City Lights At Night And Photoshop
The image is the result of two separate “play” sessions. The first one involved shooting city lights at night, and the second session was using Photoshop to combine and enhance some of those city lights.  Now I will let the image “gestate” for a bit before deciding whether to combine it with yet another image, alter in some yet-to-be-determined fashion, or submitting it as it is…or what the heck, maybe both!

Decisions: Rights Managed or Royalty Free?
Before submitting the image I will have a decision to make. Let’s assume for a moment that I decide to send it in the way it is. So would it be better as an RM image, or as an RF image? On the RM side it doesn’t appear to be the kind of image that would sell a large number of times, nor does it seem like an image with a lot of competition. One thing that might push it in the RF direction is that it could work as a background kind of image. In my experience “background” images seem to do better as RF images.

Rights Managed, Royalty Free and Misconceptions
Another point to consider: A lot of potential licensees of stock images are under the misconception that they cannot afford Rights Managed images. Or they believe that rights managed images are necessarily cumbersome to license. Yet, I am seeing a plethora of sales under $5.00 (even had one sale last month with Getty that netted me four cents!). I spoke recently with a doctor who had licensed one of my RM images through Getty, for use in a Power Point presentation, and who told me that it was as easy to license as the photograph as it is to buy just about anything online.  Nonetheless, there are a lot of people who do limit themselves to RF and Micro imagery. If I submit the image as an RM one I do run the risk of limiting the market for it.

Similars and Sisters
The final point I have to take into consideration is whether or not I have, or plan to create, images that are similars and/or sisters. If I am going to have one or two such images I can still go with Rights Managed, but more than that will push me into the RF category. Ultimately I am prejudiced towards Rights Managed because of my long history with it.  But I do believe it would be a mistake to not continue to contribute to Royalty Free as well.Some of my Royalty Free photos make every bit as much money as my Rights Managed images.  I might add, that when one of my editors/art directors makes a case for an image to be one or the other I almost always defer to their suggestions.

A Light At the End of the Tunnel
As I write this it occurs to me that the above image is also a good representation of my own thought processes as I try to find my way in this turbulent world of stock photography. In the end, you try and make as much sense of the chaos as you can and hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and that the light isn’t the headlight of an oncoming locomotive!).