The economy is fraying at the edges having been battered by multiple storms and the outllook still looks gloomy. So what are the prospects for the jobbing photographer and stock image producer? With austerity, recession and credit crunches on every page it is easy to feel pretty gloomy about business prospects at the moment. However [...]
September 22, 2011
Annual events and festivals are always worth shooting as there is obviously a recurring demand, especially for fresh contemporary images. Often it pays to stage events well in advance of their reality in order to get fresh material into the market at the right time. Shooting the reality shouldn’t be ignored either though of course, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
December 17, 2009
Clustershot is a new site that may interest a lot of photographers. It isn’t a stock photography agency but offers instead the potential to be used as an independent stock photo licensing solution for photographers. Clustershot are not actively working in an agency role but simply providing the technology to facilitate sales. So throwing your [...]
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 [...]
October 12, 2009
If there is one thing that is tempting about exclusivity it is the simplicity it would introduce into my workflow if I only had one outlet for my images to consider. While I don’t personally think being exclusive to one agency is the right thing for me I can see it does work for some [...]
September 10, 2009
I took this fairly mundane looking photo as an illustration of how stock images can end up being used. This is the side of the local hardware store, exhibiting some fairly bland stock photos. They’re so bland I doubt they even register with most passers by but you know what? Bland they may be, but [...]
July 2, 2009
Lone car in empty car parkOriginally uploaded by alexhd57 It’s certainly not the most efficient way of shooting images for stock but I do enjoy a photo walkabout and you’ve got to keep it fun! With a few planned(ish) shots in mind I can feel reasonably productive whatever happens, and with luck I’ll stumble across [...]
December 5, 2011