The rubik cube is an iconic piece of design that instantly conjurs up associations that for the stock photographer can translate into a whole host of great keywords; think problem solving, challenge, difficulty, success, skill, etc! It has great potential for creating images that will readily illustrate these concepts for potential image buyers. However, it [...]
March 26, 2010
The answer to this question is neither simple nor straightforward, but it is an important one for any stock photographer to ponder. The first thing to realise is it that a great photo doesn’t necessarily make a great stock photo. For a photo to have potential as a stock image it needs to have the [...]
February 6, 2010
This post has been inspired by some discussion on the Alamy forums and follows on from my previous analysis of the 2009 performance of my portfolios at Alamy and Agefotostock. As Alamy is a non-exclusive agency it is common for contributors to seek out additional outlets for their images and Agefotostock is one of the [...]
January 10, 2010
While plenty of microstock photography blogs publish earnings reports there is less publicly available information on returns and trends from photographers relating to images with traditional agencies. I don’t intend to start publishing regular earnings updates because I’m too lazy that is between me, the Missus and the tax man. However, looking over some reports [...]
December 23, 2009
Alamy, in common with many other traditional stock photography agencies, have a minimum file size requirement for submissions. In Alamy’s case this is a 48mb uncompressed file size at 8 bit but it is often 50mb at other agencies. As Alamy is non-exclusive you may sometimes be submitting the same images elsewhere so it makes [...]
October 22, 2009
Sometimes it can be a struggle to come up with new ideas and concepts to shoot for stock photography. Yes, that’s me scratching my head trying to come up with my next (who am I kidding?) big idea. Doing a bit of self portrait modelling for yourself can be uncomfortably introspective sometimes. I don’t see [...]
April 12, 2010