Yes, you are confused! The more you read the normal forum posts, the more it all becomes muddled. If I had a dollar for each time someone said that an image didn’t have a release and so it must be rights managed, or that all RF images are for commercial use I would be a wealthy man… Lets start with licensing. Royalty Free (RF) and Rights Managed (RM) are simply different licensing approaches. RF is a one-time license payment that...
With three awards under my belt, I must be an expert at Image Brief submissions! I thought it might be interesting to talk about how I approach a brief – there was one today that asked for: Signs of a middle-aged person/a couple with plans to go out for a day/eve. Tickets to an event on a table next to car keys or other symbols of leaving home; the supporting text will depict hesitation about going out due to a...
Although I see quite a lot of dissatisfaction about Image Brief on various forums, I still enjoy looking at the briefs (of which there seem to be a lot these days) and thinking about which images might fit the requirement. Many briefs seem to expire without any award, and some take a long time before anything happens. I was surprised to see an email yesterday with details of a new sale – an image that I must have submitted months...
Reading the Washington Post this morning, I came across this half page advert in the business section: Looks familiar, I thought…. It is the headshot (the back of my head after a particularly good haircut) that I sold on Image Brief a few month back for $1050! Splunk obviously wanted a professional looking head and it makes you wonder if they knew I used to be in the technology industry? The company paid $1500 for the non-exclusive rights – now...
I took some images of a new golf course in Kauai around sunset and liked the calm and serene feeling of the “18th hole”, and so submitted about four different shots of the green and a sand bunker. I noticed that one of them: sold reasonably well on Shutterstock and the image in the thumbnail immediately reminded me of a heart shape in front of the flag – it starts off well at the top, but loses it! As a...
I always find it interesting to see what sells – especially on the more expensive sites like Alamy. I check that site from time to time to see if I have any sales. Most times, no, but today I saw that I had a $245 sale (of which I get 50%) for an RF images of this: Well, that is a “sort of interesting” shot… I remember taking it on a hike in the Smoky Mountains, and I thought at...
As I’ve probably mentioned before, my main camera kit is a Canon 5D Mk3, with the 24-105mm F4, 16-35mm F4 and 70-200mm F4 lenses. I also normally carry a 1.4x converter and 50mm F1.4 lens as well. All in all, quite a load on my back, but I like the flexibility that I can get with the lenses and the high quality of the results, even at higher ISOs and if I need to crop. The trip to Equatorial Guinea...
I’ve written about food photography before – recommending the series of books that Taylor Mathis has produced, but here is a free, very comprehensive guide from the Serious Eats website. Full of detail and examples of the techniques they are recommending, you can find it here.
OK – this is really about my sort of stock photography, which focuses more on travel, outdoors and some still life studio shots rather than people, but hope you find it useful. Counting down from number 10: 10: Spend time on keywording Too often we enjoy the photography but not the mundane keywording. Don’t over-stuff keywords, keep to the facts of who, where, what type of questions but outlining some conceptual words is OK if that is what the image...
We often get worried abut the $0.33 sales on Shutterstock, but the “on demand”, enhanced license and now the “Single and other downloads” can make a tremendous difference to the month’s income. I noticed today that my total had shot up, and found a single download for $126.77. This image – a stitched panorama of the landscape in north wales – was the one chosen. Its great to see these higher value downloads!
