Premium – September uploads

The concepts I am working on seem to shift depending on my enthusiasm for stock imagery. I’m sure many of you are feeling the pressure of thinking of new subjects that we believe will capture the image buyers needs – it is certainly a pressure to keep coming up with something intriguing and new! We have just had Labor Day in the USA, which is the final holiday of the summer, and so I did get out to our local lake to see if I could get some editorial shots that might sell going into the autumn. I was lucky to get a combination of Labor day, US election and coronavirus themes all in one series of shots so I quickly came back and uploaded them. The series could be called Social Distancing in the USA!

I’m still focused on the main themes of the election, the virus and its impact on everyday life, and then the longer term impacts of the virus. I’m starting to get some good sales on my general election themed ones. This one sold for $12 this morning on Shutterstock:

All told, my election shots have earned $330 this year with quite a range of popular shots. I often find that the simple shots are the best, such as this type of thing:

Those have sold for about $25 so far – not great, but they should be steady earners going forward. I find that these sort of images sell better than ones I do with a face visible. Perhaps the designers looking to illustrate an article just like the non-personalized image as it can support many types of article.

I think there is still plenty of time to get into this US election fever, especially trying to illustrate issues such as voter fraud, mail-in voting, violence around voting, mistrust of the results and so on. I haven’t got my mind round all the possibilities but I’m sure there will be no clear result on the election day, false declarations of a winner will occur, lawsuits will follow, violence will follow that and maybe the army will be brought in. I think it is going to be a tough few months and many, many articles will be written about it. So think about how to illustrate these different themes in a way that someone will pick your image or video.

The eviction saga continues in the USA as well and I’m getting traction on my eviction images. Again, these are easy to do and you don’t need to be in the USA to create them. There is another ban on evictions, but not on the addition of late fees and other penalties to rent, and so all that will happen is that the renters will just owe much more money that they won’t be able to pay back. So this one will run and run.

My eviction series have earned around $90 so far with this design being the most popular, earning about $60 or so in various versions. Again, plenty of time to create your own versions and ideas.

The other set of themes I’m working on are financial related. There is always an opportunity for stock market crash images (although there is a lot of competition) so I’m focusing on smaller segments. The issue of paying for retirement is a constant one, and so I have been creating some different ideas about the storms ahead for that:

No sales yet, but they are new. A theme that could apply to all countries is the pressure on government budgets as a result of borrowing and how that puts the currency under pressure. I decided to do some images of a coin being crushed in an old rusty vise (or vice in the UK):

I did some US coins, but also a UK pound coin. I did these with my macro lens and multiple focus stacks that were combined in Helicon Focus to give the depth of field I needed. An opportunity for your own currency perhaps! I did some with bank notes as well, but I’m less happy with those.

Going forward, I wanted to do some more images for Brexit and the impact of a deal (or no deal), and I think you could also start thinking of vaccination shots (literally). The rollout of those injections will be a big issue in many countries and so if you could get your hands on some needles and those little vials, you could make some good images. I am going for a flu jab soon and I did wonder if the nurse would mind me taking some photos. You never know unless you ask! I think a lot of people will refuse the shots (in the USA at least) and so images illustrating that would be good. Simple shots are best, as usual, and this very simple photo has earned over $240 or so:

Finally, a reminder to look for everyday activities. I took some shots of roofers replacing the shingles on neighboring roofs and they have earned $50 this year. Very easy to take so a very high return on effort so far. And there is no reason why they won’t continue to sell.

I uploaded some as editorial and others as commercial depending on whether the contractors face was visible, so I tried to capture both markets.

Good luck with your own ideas!