Ideas just keep coming….
I uploaded this image yesterday as an Easter background – cute? But where did the idea come from? As usual, just browsing through my sales as I do each morning using Microstockr Pro. I came across
Category: “How-to” articles
Junk Shops – a source of Microstock ideas
I’m always looking for something different to photograph (and keeping my eyes open to what is being used on web sites) and I’ve seen a few images with older typewriters on them – gives a more interesting angle to writing, journalism or blogging than yet another laptop photo. So I go to antique stores (which are really junk shops here in the USA) and see what is around. My most recent purchase was an electric typewriter in pretty good condition:...
Getting inspiration for new stock shoots
For travel photographers, the winter can be a downer – cold, wet, snowy weather (depending on where you are of course) and little enthusiasm to brave the cold! Now is the perfect time to improve your portfolio and your skills with some studio shots. But what to take? I find ideas from just generally browsing news and opinion stories, such as ones about people not saving enough for retirement. It was illustrated by a savings jar with a few loose...
Which agencies do I currently submit to?
It’s no secret that I’m now a very keen user of Stock Submitter to upload and submit my images and videos to the various stock agencies. But which sites do I currently support via that program? I thought a brief post on that might be useful! My referral links (if available) are in the links provided – hope you don’t mind using them! All images: Shutterstock Adobe Stock/Fotolia Dreamstime 123RF BigstockPhoto DepositPhotos CanStockPhoto Pond5 ColourBox iStock Alamy StoryBlocks CreativeMarket Zoonar...
How to maximize your earnings from your photos
We all spend a lot of money on our hobby, so how can you maximize the amount of money you earn from licensing your images via stock agencies? Well, the obvious immediate answer is to take great commercial images that are better than all the ones already out there, but, to be honest, that is easier said than done. There is another way though – maximize your income by making your photos available to as many potential buyers as possible....
My current workflow
It is a long time since I wrote about my workflow and it has probably evolved over time, so an update might be welcome for some newer readers. Here is the essence: I always take my images in Raw format and import into Lightroom. Because I keyword all the images I think are worthwhile, having a structure on my hard-drive with topics or particular shoots isn’t necessary and so I use a simple Year and then Month structure: I have...
How to create images for things in the news
It is always a good idea for stock contributors to be ahead of the game when it comes to illustrating subjects that are going to get a lot of coverage in the news and on blogs and sites. Of course some of those are obvious now in retrospect – buying some fake bitcoins to illustrate the seemingly endless rise in their price would have given you lots of opportunities for sales: Since I first bought these “gold” coins back in...
Dreamstime has a blog competition – you can help me!
Dreamstime has announced a competition for “best blog” post on their site and so I have had a go at my first blog on the Dreamstime site. **Update** – it doesn’t appear to be visible on the site yet. Perhaps in moderation? *** I decided to write about a tricky subject – how to come up with ideas (and images) to illustrate things in the news. If you have an account at Dreamstime, would you mind having a look at...
Don’t assume you know everything!
What a strange title! But I realized over the past few days that what I have been doing with editorial shots was not only a lot of hard work – it was unnecessary as well! For the past year, I have been uploading editorial shots to the stock agencies using the guidance in this Shutterstock blog article, Creating the Perfect Editorial Caption. Basically, a perfect caption is like this: It has the date, location, then a description, then the location...
How to make the best of a day in a new city
As I think I mentioned, I went on a cruise in September around the Baltic Sea. 11 cities in 15 days! Apart from a cruise being a really relaxing way to spend your time, how does it match against a travel stock photographer’s needs? How do I approach a day in a new city? I thought I would illustrate this with one day’s shoot in Copenhagen – I just finished keywording and uploading this particular set yesterday. As I had...
