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What a difference a few weeks make! Just over a week ago I was about to go to Disneyworld with my family and now we are pretty much housebound as I am sure you are also experiencing. At least, as stock photographers, we have some income still coming in and our job is to see how to improve and increase that.

As I mentioned before, I ignored my own advice to create and get coronavirus images online until I really started in earnest earlier this month. Since then I have been on a steady track to try to create something new most days. My biggest surprise has been the speed with which my image of virus prevention tips has taken off:

This was approved on 12 March on Shutterstock and since has sold 261 times for earnings of $196! The lion’s share of the earnings came from both SS and Adobe with around $90 each so far. 123RF is next with $10. Now why did this catch on, and can we learn any lessons? First, it could be anywhere (although the background is a bit US-like). The message is simple (three steps are always preferred to 2 or 4) and the message is exactly what is being proposed around the world. I wasn’t sure about the clean surfaces one, but I couldn’t think of a better way to finish it. As a result, it is selling in pretty much every country even though the language is English. I thought I would try foreign translations of the same message:

I also did French and Italian and uploaded those around the 19th March. Adobe took all the version. Shutterstock waited four days and then rejected them all as similars! For a company to adopt such stupid approaches is beyond me. However, my sales on Adobe have been very poor – just two sales for $1.37 of this Spanish one. Nothing in the other languages. I also wanted to get ahead of the closure of restaurants and bars, and so uploaded modified versions of old images I had taken (actually taken as deliberately out of focus shots) from cruises and trips to different places:

I also did versions of this in Italian, Spanish and Greek. The English version has sold 11 times, the Greek version twice and the Italian and Spanish versions once each. This time, Shutterstock accepted all versions (different reviewer I guess!) However, the sales have not been great so far.

Incidentally, I created these in Photoshop using a “ink stamp” action that made the edges of the text a bit rough and then applied a style to the text and graphics to make them look more “cloudy”. With this it was easy to create different words and quickly apply them to the underlying image. I added versions of a small Italian outdoor restaurant with no people and also some empty tables and chairs in Salamanca, Spain. Few sales of those as well!

I did take my own advice to create some images for the new change to the tax filing date in the USA. I uploaded some for May 15th and 18th, which was my guess, but I was then ready as soon as the new date of July 15th was announced. Of course, I had issues with “similars” in Shutterstock, but I got at least one of each type online with the new date. Although this was only announced mid last week, I have sold maybe $20 worth of these new images. I doubt there were very many stock images with this new date online, which gets me up in the search order before the masses start to upload.

For these, I downloaded a template for a calendar and printed out July. Stuck a red pushpin into the date and photographed with a flash gun close to the subject to get the shadow. I added the words in Photoshop. Easy little project!

So far, my virus related shots have earned $265 which is a pretty good rate per hour of effort. Of course, luck played a good part because if I hadn’t seen that empty cinema board, my earnings would not have been great, but if you don’t keep trying, you won’t hit the occasional one out of the park.

What I’m thinking about now is the impact of the current isolation. I did an editorial shot using a Playmobil dolls house that my daughter had maybe 30 years ago, but is still intact after many moves of house! I wanted to illustrate social distancing, especially with the elderly, and so came up with this:

I used two LED lights for this and used about 15 separate images with just a small change in focus to get clear focus from the front of the people to the rear one. I have Helicon Focus to do the focus stacking, but I’m sure Photoshop could have done the job as well. Perhaps even Lightroom. As the toys are trademarked, I submitted these as editorial. So far, Dreamstime has accepted them, still in review with SS and also with Adobe (illustrative editorial). So I’ve no idea how well these will sell, but it was fun to make them.

I think you could do images of elderly people looking forlornly out of a window – I’ve got an idea to use my drone to take both stills and perhaps a video of two old people (myself and my wife) looking sadly into the sky from a window. And maybe people on a deck or balcony. I think that the way we work will change drastically now – much more working from home I suspect – even when the virus is under control. So think about how to illustrate ordinary people struggling with the loneliness of working from home as well as the different technology they might use.

Also, don’t forget photos of mundane tasks at home. I had neglected to change the air filters in my heating system, so I got my flash gun in a softbox and took some images when I changed the filter:

I already have some versions of this on line from an earlier shoot, but new ones can sometimes get a boost in the rankings.

Although this is a terrible time for so many people, it is actually an opportunity for stock photographers. There are so many subjects that have never been covered before and I am sure more will come to mind as we move on through this. I’ll keep you updated with what I am working on, as always!