Stock Photo opportunities – February 6

First, my apologies for a lack of posts recently! I hope you were able to get some images online for the first part of the CoronaVirus epidemic. I did a few shots – not too many as I was away on a photo shoot/conference/vacation which slowed me down. Friends of mine have also come up with some interesting takes on illustrating the impact of this. As always, you need to be thinking about the sort of articles and discussions you can illustrate. I’ve done a couple on the potential expansion of the infection to western countries with the photo that is used as the featured image for this post – the concept was of a senior man looking worried as he greets a visitor at the front door. I’ve also been through some of my older shots and added a virus message. Not sure how well those will sell, but they were easy to do:

I think this story has a long way to run this year, so putting your mind around the different concepts would be time well spent.

I was happily surprised to see four video sales (at $13.50 each) on Shutterstock and this $100 net sale on Alamy yesterday because of restrictions that came into effect in the US about the sale of certain flavored nicotine dispensers:

It is probably too late to get on board with Juul, but the vaping issues will continue. I know many of you are not US based, but the bans on certain types of vaping systems, but not on the refillable ones that Vape shops sell is bound to keep coming up during the year. I saw that a brand that was becoming popular with young people is something called Puff Bar. This is disposable and one device lasts all day. For some reason, flavored smokes are permitted in this. There are no Shutterstock images of the Puff Bar so if you are able to buy one of these, it could be worth photographing in different ways (such as the concept above) and getting them online as editorial. It is likely that Adobe will take these sort of shots as well.

What often drives demand for images are financial activities such as IPOs. The Food Delivery Apps (again these are probably USA focused) such as Olo, Postmates and DoorDash are all considering some sort of IPO this year and are fighting for market share. So concept images around the growth of on-demand food delivery companies and Apps are worth considering. Even if they don’t operate in your country, you can probably download the App (maybe need a VPN?) and get it installed on your phone and take images of the different icons – both individually and as a group of competing companies perhaps. There always seems to be a demand for smartphone images with the App icons on. Because these are editorial, you don’t need to hide the identity of the phone either which makes it easier. Maybe a steaming plate of food in the background to make the concept complete! Airbnb is also planning to go public this year. There might be lots of images of Airbnb, but probably fewer with this financial twist. Finally, in this space, Reynolds Food (they make aluminum (or aluminium) foil and Hefty trash bags) are planning a big valuation as well. If you have these products, then simple shots of them on a table or against white would be easy to do.

I’ve had reasonable success ($170 or so) from the rise of vegetarian meat products – in the US this is mainly Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods but also smaller brands such as Lightlife.

I think this will become a bigger story this year. These industrially created products are not necessarily healthy, but they have a much lower carbon footprint than real meat and so the global warming link to the use of these plant based products will be a bigger story than it has been. In addition, the major meat producers are working on their own versions as well and will make a big case for not calling these products “meat”. So lots of articles about how good or bad these things are and whether they are better for the environment etc. can be expected. Perhaps you have local market leaders that will be worth photographing? I never got round to creating videos of these, but the two images I included above are my best sellers so I guess buyers like the package plus the contents in the image!

Hope these ideas will keep you going in the cold winter months!