Premium – what next?

As I explained earlier, all the news and most of the magazine/website articles for the foreseeable future will be all about the virus and its impact on life everywhere on the planet. I still see sales of travel images, but since the start of April, they have been somewhat fewer than before. Of course, you can’t really take many more travel shots, but it might be a time to go back through your portfolio and see if there are images that you could rework, or just submit for the first time. Getting things online is the first step to selling them!

So what I have learned so far about what sells in this new world. I think that buyers are looking for instantly usable shots. There was an approach in the past that the buyers were technically competent people that could add appropriate text to an image if they wanted to and so providing the blank canvas was all they needed. I think that is changing rapidly and many buyers just want to click, buy and then publish our images without any further involvement. As an example, my cinema sign with the message has earned $385 so far, the blank sign ready for any message that the buyer might want to include:

has sold just 4 times for $9 on Adobe Stock. I think this was probably one that Shutterstock rejected as a similar!

My foreign language virus images have not really gone anywhere – perhaps $10 in total, so that doesn’t seem to be an avenue worth taking. It could be different if they were uploaded with keywords in the appropriate language rather than in English, so your results in your own country may be different from my experience. My other virus shots where I added a rubber stamp warning over an image I already have, have done reasonably well so far – around $60 in sales for shots like this:

So I think the general message here is to make your images as ready for their intended use as you can. There is nothing wrong with uploading images that can be used as a background to something else, but also see if you can add appropriate text to make it instantly usable. I’m going to spend more time on that idea as the coming weeks evolve.

So what else should we be thinking of? In the USA, the big story for some time will be the direct payments of $1200 to most people in the country. This will be directly debited into the bank accounts of those that the IRS already has information on, but a large group of mainly poorer and older people who don’t need to file tax returns will have to wait for a check in the mail. So I think there will be stories about those delays, stories about people getting their money, and maybe stories about spending it. I’m thinking of doing some with cash appearing in an official looking envelope, perhaps people waiting for the payment and so on. There are probably still opportunities for the new deadline of July 15th for filing taxes, but I’m not sure if I will do more there. Sticking with the USA (which is a big market for images), there is another issue brewing. Lots of people are losing their jobs, but the US is relatively unique in providing health insurance as part of employment for most people. So lose your job and lose your health insurance. So I expect to see lots more mention of Obamacare and also medicare for all type messages. These are good for stock photographers because the buyers look for a simple message to illustrate their story. I’ve done some images with these themes, but I need to do more:

I also think that the delays in getting payments to poorer people will cause a lot of unrest in some areas of the country (and probably in other countries as well. You could do some images to illustrate stories of riots with coronavirus messages and maybe looting of food stores if people get desperate. The problem there will be that news stories will want real editorial images, so thinking of concept type images will be harder. I haven’t quite got my head around that yet. Sticking with the darker side of this whole thing, it is very likely that (in the US at least) many of the department stores that have closed now will never reopen. Many of the big name companies were already struggling because of online ordering and they had heavy debt loads, so they may not be able to survive. If you have big empty malls nearby, a few editorial images of the different stores with “closed” signs on their doors would be worth adding to your portfolio.

On a related theme, the advice (in the USA at least) is changing to suggest that people should wear masks in public. There are many pictures from Asia of mask wearing, but far fewer with a European or American feel. So take images of your partner going into a store wearing a mask, perhaps coming out with shopping etc. Editorial images will be fine for this concept. Different sorts of masks are probably a good idea as they are in short supply. I have some old dust masks from DIY projects plus a more complex rubber mask with a breathing attachment to filter fine sawdust, so you will probably see people wearing all sorts of mouth coverings. Perhaps protective glasses as well?

My guess is that we will be quarantined at home for a few months, maybe freer in the summer and possibly back under restriction as the winter approaches. So many more images of what people will do at home will be needed. People caring for each other, arguing and shouting, under stress, depressed and bored, trying new hobbies perhaps, working from home – not in a home office environment, which is well covered, but perhaps on the kitchen table while a partner is cooking a meal as many people don’t have the room for a separate office. I also think more humorous shots might do well. I altered one I already had of practicing golf in a bedroom to suggest that the player was imagining being outside as he practiced:

I don’t know if this will sell, but it wasn’t too hard to create using an image of a golf course I already had.

I think there are also opportunities to take different images of your local area (assuming you can move about). I went down into Morgantown yesterday to take some drone shots of the empty university which is normally busy with students at this time of year. Again, it is something that is rarely seen and might be needed to illustrate stories about education and upcoming graduation. I did wonder whether to make this editorial – to be honest I’m not sure what would be best:

Another area to think about is some “back to school” concept images after the virus restrictions are lifted. There are many regular back to school images, but very few, I think that have a virus concept and it could be interesting to thing of ways of showing the restrictions being lifted. As mentioned before, adding text so that it can be used straight away, would be the right approach. These sort of ideas would also apply to “at last we are free” type of concepts and storylines once the stay at home restrictions are lifted. I can imagine that many people would have a massive release of pent-up boredom although I guess there would be a big concern that the virus is only lurking and so conflicting emotions would arise.

There seems to be quite a number of conspiracy groups getting going. I made some images about a conspiracy theory in the US that there was a secret plan called Q Anon which had something to do with a deep state something or other! Images like these have started selling, although not in great numbers:

If you like creating those sort of images, there is growing interest in how the coronavirus was created to move us to a one world government and also an interesting (!) one that 5G wireless systems were implemented to reduce the effectiveness of our immune systems and hence create this virus. Needless to say I don’t think I’ll get to work anytime soon on creating those although I do have some images of mobile network masts!

Hope this has given you something to think about. I’ll update you on my activities and results shortly! Good luck and keep safe!