Well went through a descent dry spell for stock photo sales. The last photo I sold in 2009 was a couple of days after thanksgiving 11/29, the first sell i had in 2010 was just 2 days ago 1/19 that made me a little nervous but since then I have sold two more images. Its just a reitteration that i need to increase the size and quality of my stock photo offerings.

Speaking of quality, I am thinking of trimming my non-selling photos on istockphoto

On line since June 06 and only 1 sell

On line since June 05 and only 1 sell

On line since June 06 with 2 sells

On line since June 06 with 1 sell

On line since Feb 06 with 2 sells

I’ll keep these images on the less productive stock agencies, but istock and if I ever get accepted shutterstock (I know this requires me to actualy submit photos for acceptance) I have this feeling that I should only keep my best images on those 2 sites. I dont know if I have a concrete reason as to why but my gut just tells me that is what I should do.

I submitted images from the previous post, to my stock photo agencies. These obviously are not my best work and i have heard that you should only submit your best. I also heard that you should not submit several images of the same subject, I submited 12 images of drill / screw / hammer / nail set.

I submitted the images out of angst of getting something submitted and getting back in the habit of doing that. But I think in doing so I may of hurt myself by submitting too many photos of the same subject and submitting images that aren’t my best work. So we shall see what the verdict is from the agencies soon enough but I speculate that my acceptance % just went down.

I was using one of my hours to shoot some stock photos of some simple construction photos. A drill screwing in a screw, a hammer driving in a nail, and honestly they weren’t living up to my expectations.

Now granted I was trying out some new modifiers, a boom for a light stand, so I was able to put an Alien Bee AB800 in a soft box directly overhead. I was also using my slightly modified 22″ Beauty Dish. After using a couple of different props and a few different angles, I switched off the over heard AB in an attempt to get something that jumped at me and said pow.

So now I was shooting with just the Beauty Dish at the same height as the subject. And I still wasn’t overly satisfied with it, that is until I moved 180 degrees onto the dark side of the moon, and then my images started Popping.

I really liked what I was seeing on the back of my LCD the images, too me, had life and made me smile, I had Changed a simple thing as a toy hammer hitting a roofing nail into a photograph. But is it right for stock images?

I think it was Nicolsey that said you should look at photos used for advertising products and strive for your images to look like that in order to get good selling images for microstock. So does commercial advertising photography make good stock photos? Do I have too much fine art in my stock images?

This is a left brain approach to coming up with ideas for a photo shoot. I find it kind of fitting for figuring out business use images. You have to look at things in a very analytical objective process type of way, put on that big blue corporate t-shirt you got from the team building exercise, step into your virtual cubicle and think, think, think.

The first step is to conjure up of a couple of different kinds of companies, types that you believe will be receiving government funding important in the coming year. Picking 4 quickly gives me financial, automotive, health care, and a consumer electronics company .

Next is to come up with a situations where a selected company type would have a need for stock photographs. Lets look at a financial company (lets go with a bank) they are going to need some stock photos for a company brochure to give to individuals who want to open a personal account (Checking, Savings, Credit Card) with them, a business account brochure, quarterly/yearly report to give to external investors and a separate one of internal employees.

So now we have a bank who need to create a new bright, fresh, and enticing brochure for personal accounts. They need photographs that will help them show the diversity of services they offer and to explain why the customer should choose their bank. Start by listing some of the typical services a bank would offer. It is here at this lower level that the shot list really starts to present itself. With each bullet item below giving us the primary subject matter a related photos.

• Checking
  • Filling out the information on a check.
  • Beauty shots of a checkbook
  • Balancing the ledger/budget with a checkbook
  • Individual offering payment for goods with a check
• Savings
  • Coin being inserted into slot of ceramic piggy bank.
  • Paper monies sticking out of piggy bank slot.
  • Classic metal safe with spin dial and lever lock.
  • Paper monies sticking out from safe.
• Online Banking / Bill paying
• Credit / Debit Cards
• Retirement accounts
• Home Loans
• Car Loans

And some ideas of why a customer would use a specific bank

• helpful and friendly employees
• Feeling your money is safe
• Have the features you need (ATM/Drive Thru)

I think you get this idea for laying out a specific photo for each category, if you average out the 4 photos from the 10 categories we end up with 40 photos. Doing 40 photos for 4 different situations of our bank company gives us 160 photos. If we do that for each of our 4 imaginary companies we end up 640 photos. The 4 images for each topic is pretty skimpy for specific photos of a target subject mind you but that makes it an achievable goal.

After writing down all our specific photos (you have been copying this down haven’t you? You know on that big corporate dry erase board.) we can break them out into locations, styles, and what is needed.

• Inside
  • studio
    • model
    • no-model
  • location / built set
• Outside

After we get these grouped together we will have our planned shoots the Who, What, Where, only thing missing is the WHEN which should be right after you fill out that TPS report coversheet.