Premium – May 2021

I was looking back at some of the ideas I promoted earlier this year to see how they had performed. The new tax date in the US (which I wrote about the day after the announcement) was an easy one to create and has made me $80 so far with hopefully more to come via Getty/iStock.

Not a phenomenal sum, but perhaps that is how stock photography is these days – easy to produce ideas that get picked up and earn some money until the next one comes along? It was a similar story with my “pretend” check for the Biden stimulus plan passed earlier this year:

That idea earned at least $174 although it actually generated much more as checks I produced last year also continued to sell this year. Of course, you needed access to US currency to create this sort of image, but even images of pulling a check from an envelope over a keyboard sold reasonably well. I start with this because I think it is important to continue to try to get images online that will illustrate continuing stories and make those as generic as possible so that they are not just a one story only sale.

I did miss one biggish story though – the IPO of Coinbase. I knew about it of course, and with all the press coverage of the magical rise of cybercurrency coins, it was bound to get a lot of coverage and a simple image would have sold very well. But, of course, I missed that one – sorry!

What to do now? Well, you don’t have to agree with this view, but I think a big upcoming story is going to be one of crashes… The world of cyber coins (and the stock market, and the housing market and the new NFT sales (basically a signed JPEG that sells for thousands or even millions of dollars)) seems to me to be a tremendous bubble. The Doge coin, that was created as a joke back in 2013 or so, is now “worth” more than the Ford Motor Company. Does that sound real or is it something that the last person holding these coins will be the one that suddenly sees a million dollars vanish overnight? So this is my main set of concepts that I am thinking about. This post will be a bit short on examples, because I am typing at a standing desk and I still find it tricky to bend down and create some of the shots I am going to talk about. I’m going to create a series of images to try to illustrate the bursting of these bubbles in generic ways that can continue to be used as journalists write about the fallout. The student that had bought a Lamborghini with Dogecoins and is now homeless – that sort of thing!

So these are my ideas. First try to illustrate the bubble part, I’ve already tried some variations:

But I think simpler examples would be better. Just the symbol on a photo of a real balloon would be better and you could then put symbols of the other coins on there as well to get more variations. Then having balloons flying close to the sun (an Icarus reference), or balloons being popped (trying to capture the moment of popping would be intriguing!).

Then I want to focus on my physical coins and try to show how they are worthless. Sweeping them up with a brush, putting them into the trash, dropping them into the toilet bowl (or at least sitting in the bottom of the bowl to avoid cracking it) – anything to show that they are now pretty much worthless trash. As I say, I might be totally wrong about the loss of value but even a major correction would make these images useful. Trying to get similar shots for the stock market might be trickier as there aren’t really physical illustrations of that, but that is my intent. I think some just showing the coins as loose change might be an idea as well.

My housing eviction shots continue to sell (which is bad news for those facing eviction I know). $458 last year and $126 this year so far.

I think I will do more of these with less focus on the mask in the next weeks.

On the virus front, I think the big story is going to be the unwillingness of people to have the vaccine and so instead of herd immunity, we just get 50% coverage and the virus continues to mutate among the non-vaccinated population. There are efforts to get it into more arms and my own state is offering $100 to younger people to get the vaccination. I do have one of those, but at the time, I thought people would pay to get the vaccine – I plan to redescribe those and rekeyword to change it to a payment to persuade people to get the vaccine.

Incidentally, my investment of $30 or so in these vials and needles has resulted in sales of about $250 so far. So a good RoI!

Thinking of older subjects, there is a big trial in West Virginia against drug distribution companies who flooded parts of this state with opioids – the equivalent of 90 tablets for every single inhabitant in some counties in West Virginia each year. The case says that they should have known that this was not correct. So I am reworking a few of my opioid shots to try to illustrate that. That might not be feasible for all of you, but no-one knows what a tablet should look like, so perhaps there are opportunities.

The Apple AirTag is just becoming available (I have one on order) and I saw an article where they could be used by a stalker to follow your every movements if you hid one in someone’s car or bag. That was an intriguing thought and I think the use of these tags will be a big subject in the future. So I will photograph mine (when it comes) in all sort of correct (and incorrect) uses!

I think that is all my back can stand for now! But I will be back with examples of what I have managed to create. Now is your chance to get images online before I do!