Premium – what to do next…

Talk about being prescient. On January 26th I wrote this:

I’m talking about the corona virus epidemic in China. First, I suspect it is a lot worse than we know, and if it spreads in another country, it will be the subject of endless discussions as well as major concerns. I’ve already ordered some 99% dust masks for potential subjects (and potential use!) and I think you could create many images and videos around that and the possible implications. Food shortages, empty shelves, panic, medical shots, travel bans etc.

If it does develop, it could be the trigger for stock market declines and recession, and, as mentioned earlier, for a need for up to date imagery on that. Sorry to be a doom merchant, but we need to think of both our health and the stock potential.

If you created some impressive (or even simple) concepts back then, you would have had major sellers in your portfolio. A couple of my colleagues did that, and are now at the top of the searches on Shutterstock and Adobe with many, many sales. Of course, as you know, I didn’t follow my own advice and focused on having a vacation (which might be the last for quite some time) and so my sales of virus related imagery are pretty low. Of course, there are many, many other things to worry about right now and I hope that you are well and are able to keep that way in the coming months.

So what to focus on now? There are so many new potential avenues to explore and as most of us are no able to get out much, there is perhaps time to focus on those new subjects. Earlier last week I was waiting in my local high street for a friend and thought I would just capture some local shots:

My thought at the time was to just upload it to allow designers to add their own message, but at home I saw the possibility for a virus message – what the main advice was to counteract the spread. I did a bit of searching, but came up with three phrases (they had to fit on the board) and created this in Photoshop. It was pretty easy – just add the letters and do a drop shadow and also a bevel to make it look a bit more realistic:

It was approved on 12 March (3 days ago) and it is starting to sell like hot cakes:

As you can see, it is number 1 in the search for Coronavirus advice. So it just goes to show that getting a good idea is the key here – you can still be noticed among the 137,000 images that have been accepted by Shutterstock with the keyword coronavirus.

I did order some small test tubes and made my own blood for a series on the lack of testing (in the US at least), but those haven’t hit the sales charts yet! One of those is used to illustrate this article on the home page.

But what to take now? I think this is going to be one of the major events of our lifetimes and will change the way we live for a long time. Unemployment, bankruptcy, maybe even riots are potentially on the cards. Most people will just not go out and so restaurants will be empty (or will close) pubs and bars will be no more, sports will be cancelled, cinemas and theaters closed, shopping will become difficult – maybe with people being allowed into the stores after lining up outside and many many people will lose their jobs because the lack of consumer spending will drive businesses into cutting costs in the only way they know how. Sorry that is pretty downbeat, and I hope I am wrong, but that is probably the new reality for a lot of us. For a long time, the focus on news stories and articles will be all about that new reality, so now is the time to get ahead of the masses with new concepts that maybe have had no reason to be uploaded before.

I’m thinking of going through my portfolio looking for shots I perhaps took for another reason – empty bars or restaurants that I could blur a bit and add a sign saying “Closed due to virus” or “Closed by order”. Perhaps look up the translation of these words into different languages and get those created. Every country will face this and they will look for images that they can use without modification, so meet that need. Empty shelves in supermarkets are already well covered, so that might not be a great subject, but take your camera out on your own trips and see what catches your eye. I went to my local supermarket yesterday and even the shelves for bananas were empty – who is stocking up on bananas for goodness sake!

I know a colleague who is getting many sales for simple isolated product shots that are in big demand – sanitizing and cleaning products for instance. So think of what you might need, or what might be difficult to find and just take an image of those against a white background. I think boredom is going to be a major issue that people will face and so images showing people bored of even watching the latest Netflix offering could be picked up. Remember that both Shutterstock and Adobe take illustrative editorial shots and so using the Netflix logo would be fine for those type of images.

Also, go back through your uploaded images and see if you can add some new keywords on at least Shutterstock and Adobe to give them a new life. If you have images of people queuing up – think about adding some new relevant keywords. Travel will be disrupted enormously and I’ve already uploaded images of airports which look empty with new coronavirus signs as I mentioned before. These are selling from time to time but not great sellers yet:

I think different signs might now be appropriate as things are closed by government order rather than caution, so think about how those could be overlaid on your images. I’m going to work on more of my images in the coming days. Again, perhaps think of uploading different languages if appropriate. I think I made a mistake with adding signs that look like they are real signs on a stand (not in this one but with one of my “hospital” shots). I think the ones that sell are the scene plus a big “coronavirus” sign superimposed on the image. I guess writers are looking for a “jump off the page” shot rather than subtlety. So bear that in mind. While we are on hospitals, also think about the impact of there not being enough beds for the seriously ill patients. That will become a big story, I’m afraid, and so something that would illustrate that concept should be considered.

One area of travel that might become much more popular is walking and hiking outdoors. Children will be home from school for a long time and will be very restive (which itself is a good subject) and driving somewhere to walk outside without getting close to other people is likely to be one escape route. Just adding a few new keywords could give you an edge on existing shots, but taking new ones if you can get the concept across would be a good idea.

In the financial world, I did think that the US government might delay the date that taxes are due. This is usually a big subject in the news – making sure you mail in your tax return by April 15th, and so I created some new ones (in photoshop) with the date of May 15 and May 18. I guessed at those dates thinking they might announce a one month delay. In their usual fashion these days, Shutterstock rejected my uploads as being similar to other images in my portfolio – they never seem to actually look at these new images to see that the date is different and that is the message! I tried resubmitting, but that was no good either.

I think stocks will continue to fall for some time (with regular bounces) and I think we are probably short of good “recession” images to illustrate that. I can’t immediately think of what that might be, but I’ll keep mulling it over!

Well that is enough doom for now – I hope you have managed to create some winning images with these (and earlier) pieces of advice. But the key hope is that you keep well!