Premium – Ideas for July 2021

I’ve been thinking about what makes a stock image that takes off, especially one that illustrates a story or article. Of course, the subject needs to be in the news, but more than that, it needs to be the subject of more opinion oriented articles. If something is in the news because it is newsworthy in real time – some violence, that collapse of the building in Florida – the website will almost always use some real-life imagery from the scene. If it is a bit more abstract – the need for a booster vaccine shot for instance – then they will often use a more generic stock image to illustrate the article. A close-up of a vaccine bottle and needle, for instance. The Juul vaping series that has been pretty successful for me has been a case in point – that keeps coming up in the news for one reason or another and as it doesn’t lend itself to some life action images, they often look for just something that shows the name and illustrates the theme. Now, was I lucky in picking some Juul vaping units to photograph? Not really – I had seen early articles about how it was becoming the vaping system of choice for the young, and also the start of articles about the company marketing itself as “cool” and “exciting” which persuaded me that it was the one to buy and photograph.

It is not always easy to spot those trends, and sometimes they don’t occur constantly. It feels a bit like a dry spell at the moment, but there are a few trends starting that would be worth investing some time into.

The first is the transition to what I might call “unreal” foods. Of course they are real foods, but they are not what they appear to be. I already have a few Impossible Foods burger images that sell quite well:

Altogether these have earned about $160 and then a further $240 for Beyond Burgers:

And, of course, I got to both set the cost against tax and eat the produce!

The one that I am intrigued with at the moment is a company called NotMilk which makes a milk substitute made from pea protein. Although this is a Chile based company, it is becoming a trend leader in the US and so I have searched out a carton and am planning a series of shots from simple pictures of the box to pouring it on a breakfast cereal (healthy looking of course). I have it in the fridge, but not photographed just yet.

There may be a similar product in your own market (this one is found in WholeFoods in the USA, and I always think a few shots are always worthwhile, especially if you can then use the product.

The other big thing that people will seek to use, is the endless topic of vaccines. In the USA there is the start of a discussion of booster shots, which is a perfect example of an article that just needs a generic image. I saw an article yesterday with a macro shot of the bottle (no label) and a needle inserted as if they were drawing out the vaccine and it had a great light blue coloration through the liquid. I plan to take some of that type of shot and also have my company names – eg Pfizer – out of focus in the background for some shots. So I can capture the commercial and editorial shots at the same time for a use about the company making the vaccine.

Vaccination passports or certificates for travel will be a constant theme as well this year. Europe appears to be consolidating on one App to show this – the US has many trying to be “the one” and also has no central records of anyone’s vaccine status, so there is a significant issue in getting a factual certificate of vaccination status. I have a few images with a made up certificate, but I will be on the lookout for other ideas to better show this. If you are in Europe, I suggest you get the App and take images of that, maybe superimposed against an airport background or railway station perhaps.

Then we have the whole issue of returning to work. That is harder to illustrate and I’m not really sure what would be a good image here. However, one I have plans to create is a series about the advantages of a 4 day week. This was tried recently (in Iceland I think) and showed that productivity was just as good (if not better) and people were happier as well. So I think there will be discussions about the advantages of moving to that in developed countries, especially as automation continues. I’m thinking of using my little model people bought some time ago for some bitcoin images:

But for a four day week, I could have them standing on different days of a calendar perhaps. Just one idea!

I’ve also been out and about more (to Tennessee) and take every opportunity to take some more cellphone towers. Easy to take, and they do seem to sell reasonably frequently. It was too windy on this occasion for the drone so I used a telephoto zoom from the ground, instead:

Having the cloud behind could mean it could be used for cloud computing articles as well, I guess! On my walk around Nashville, I also took some “brand” images that could sell when the company is in the news:

Whenever you get a chance, you should add this sort of thing to your portfolio. It only takes a few minutes to take, and not much longer to process and upload, so why not? I also tend to get up early to capture the city without people – this one of Nashville, which was only uploaded a day or two ago, has already sold:

Nothing special – just an opportunity on a sunny morning to capture some landmarks of the city I was visiting. I also lined up with paddleboards and got a nice colorful shot against a lake with plenty of copy space. I might also add a sun flare to this at some point to make it easier to add text in the right hand side:

While on future topics, I read an article about companies increasingly putting “carbon” labels on their products – ie how much carbon dioxide was released in making the product. I haven’t seen that yet, but with the increasing focus on climate change, I think this is something that will definitely catch on and I can see people starting to think more about their impact on the planet. It doesn’t need many to start to do this before we see more and more articles about our carbon footprint and, of course, they need images to illustrate that. I guess you could do some “carbon footprint” literal images perhaps!

I hope this helps. I’m getting more into the swing of taking stock images again and so ideas will start to flow!