The book Digital Stock Photography – How to Shoot and Sell is an excellent addition to a Stock Photographer’s library. I went to my local library and found that it wasn’t carried in the libraries collection, so I did an Inter-library loan (ILL) and within a couple of weeks, the book was sent to me from a library in Colorado.

The book is a comprehensive introduction to the world of Digital Stock Photography.

Contents:
1. The Business of Digital Stock
2. How to Shoot for Stock – Style and Concept
3. Equipment for Capturing and Scanning Images
4. Shooting What’s Needed
5. Twenty-five Stock Assignments you can Shoot
6. Preparing the Shoot
7. Editing and Post Production in the Digital Work Flow
8. Running a Stock Photography Business
9. Marketing your Stock
10. Finding a Stock Agency or Portal
11. Negotiating Prices
12. Copyright – What Do We Own
13. Model Releases and Business Forms
14. Appendix 1: Bibliography
15. Appendix 2: Organizations
16. Appendix 3: Workshops
17. Appendix 4: Promotions/Source Books
18. Appendix 5: Manufactures

The chapter on Style and Concept provided good thought provoking shoot concepts. How do you capture togetherness as a family in an image. How do you shoot stress? How do you shoot teamwork?

There was also a good section on shooting symbols and what things mean (i.e. the topic of cooperation could be represented by images of teams, a barn raising, shaking hands, etc.)

My favorite portion of the book was the 25 Stock Assignments I can shoot. Each assignment contains the category, purpose, and subject of the image. It contains variation and how to frame the shots, what models are needed, props, ethnicities, and location. Each shot includes what things to avoid and several general notes about each shoot.

As I looked through the assignments, there are good assignments that if shot completely would result in a solid selection of stock images that can make some money. Some of the general subjects include Elderly with technology, Families, and Health Care. All of these are great topics for stock downloads.

In the preparing the shoot section it talks about arranging for models, asking permission from businesses to shoot at a location, offering incentives to get permission for the shoot, creating a storyboard, working with a Production Coordinator, building a prop closet so you have the props you need for multiple shoots, even sending a thank you note to the models after the shoot.

The section on Releases and forms contains sample Model releases, Property Releases, Stock Picture Delivery Memo, Stock Shoot Estimate Worksheet, Stock Photography invoice, and a Stock Photo Request Form.

All in all this is a great book and highly recommended for those looking to get into the business of Stock Photography.

I found that Geology.com was using my Hunter’s Panel – Indian Petroglyph Stock Photography Image on their page talking about Petroglyph Photos

Indian Petroglyph Stock Image

This image was used on a page showing various samples of indian petroglyphs from around the world. My Hunters Panel image is about 3/4 of the way down the page…closer to the bottom.

The Hunter’s Panel petroglyph is located in Nine Mile Canyon about 2.5 hours outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Nine mile canyon literally has thousands of indian petroglyphs that were created by the Freemont indians. The Hunter’s Panel is a famous Petroglyph towards the end of the canyon. It is an amazing visit to drive the canyon. If you look on the canyon walls, there are literally thousands of petroglyphs that depict life for the freemont indians. Someone has taken the time to mark on the road many places where there are petroglyphs located on the canyon walls. The best way to enjoy this canyon would be to take several days in the spring or fall and walk the length of the canyon with your camera, gps, and notebook enjoying the indian art and reliving the history represented on the canyon walls.

Feel free to visit http://www.istockphoto.com/legacyimagesphotography to see my other stock images available.

My Salt Lake City Skyline at Night stock photography image was used by US News and World Reports in their article on America’s Best Places to Work.  Specifically, the Salt Lake City Skyline Stock image is available to be seen here: http://www.usnews.com/money/careers/slideshows/americas-best-places-to-find-a-job/7

Check them out and let me know what you think.

I like the first one the best. The others are a little abstract, but they will work for the creative minds looking for something a little different.

Interestingly, the first image that was downloaded from my micro stock portfolio at http://www.istockphoto.com/legacyimagesphotography was the second image.

Greg Witt, the author phoned me and let me know that Falcon Guide had made an error and mistakenly attributed the photo to him.  He apologized and let me know that he has requested that they address the attribution mistake in the next printing of the book.  He gave me a copy of the book as a gift.  The book is great and I am happy to be on the back cover.

It is published in a book called: Amenorrhea: Why Your Period Stops.  It is from the Library of Sexual Health.

When I found my name in the photo credits, I had to figure out what image they used.  I don’t have any images in my stock portfolio that I envisioned would be appropriate for a book about why your period stops.

I called the publisher and explained who I was and what I was trying to do.  They said that they would have someone pull the book and send me a photo copy of the page that had my picture in it.  After a couple of days with no email, I decided on a different method.  I checked my local bookstores and was told that I could special order the title.  Not wanting to add this particular title to my collection, I tried my local library with no results.

I looked for the author (Tamra B. Orr) online to see if she had a website that featured her books.  She is a well published author – without a homepage.  Another strike.

Finally, I searched and found a library in CA that had the book on the shelf.  I called the library and asked for a favor.  The library pulled the book from the shelf and described the image to me.  It is in the chapter on “Taking Care of Yourself”.  Now I can see a connection of why my yoga image would show up in a book on Amenorrhea.

Mystery solved, and I am proud to be published in a book on Sexual Health <grin>.

It would seem so simple to shoot a skyline image, but I have found that it is not as simple as it looks.  It takes time, planning, research, and the weather has to cooperate as well.

Phoenix, Arizona Skyline Stock Image

Say for example, the skyline stock image that I took of Phoenix, Arizona.  I don’t know if you have been to Phoenix, but it is FLAT.  There is a small hill (I think the local’s call it a mountain) off in the NW of the city, but other than that, the tallest thing around are the freeway overpasses.  So getting a good skyline image is not easy to do.  I drove around for a couple of hours looking for the perfect location.  I shot a couple from around the airport overlooking the downtown that didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted. The light was wrong. I was shooting in the magic light hours, but I was shooting northwest, not exactly towards the sun, but enough where it was ruining my shot.

So I got in my car and drove around again. The light was fading fast. If you have ever been in a situation where you are racing the sun go down, you will relate to how fast the sun actually sets.

I finally found a place that I could shoot and came up with this image.  It took a lot of photoshop to take out the powerlines that were running through the image.  But I think it is a good representation of what Phoenix looks like.  You have the palm trees in the foreground, the skyscrapers in the background and lots of clear, blue sky.

Salt Lake City, Utah Skyline Stock Image

I also have some shots that I took of downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, with the magnificent skyline framed by the Wasatch mountains in the background.

I have shots in the middle of the calm in the middle of the storm, some fabulous night images, and summer shots of downtown Salt Lake City, Utah with no snow in the mountains.

Looking west to east in Salt Lake City, Utah is a beautiful view. The mountains are impressive. The downtown area is consolidated to a fairly small area. The problem is where to shoot.  I have driven around Salt Lake City (similar to the time I drove around Phoenix) looking for the perfect place to shoot.

Salt Lake City Skyline at Night Stock Image

I want to capture a good representation of the downtown skyscrapers and the world famous Salt Lake Temple from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the Wasatch mountains framed in the background. There are a couple of good places right off the freeway, but it is not easy to stop in the emergency lane to frame the shot. I also like to stay for awhile and capture the light as it fades to dusk, so a shot will take me 2-3 hours of shooting, plus the time it takes to find the location to shoot.

Salt Lake City is one of my favorite cities in the United States. The city planners have done a great job and it is a fabulous place to visit! And – it is a fabulous place to shoot!

Raleigh, North Carolina City Skyline Stock Image

When I was in Raleigh, North Carolina, I had some time between meetings that I decided to find a place to shoot a skyline shot.  I had two time slots, one in the middle of the day, one in the late afternoon during the golden light of the day.  I decided to shoot both shots to give designers the ability to choose between mid-day blue sky lighting versus the late afternoon more warm lighting reflecting off of the skyscrapers.  Both of the Raleigh, North Carolina City Skyline stock images are available in my iStockphoto portfolio, although the mid-day blue sky image is selling better than the late afternoon image.

Raleigh, North Carolina City Skyline Stock Image

Downtown Salt Lake City, Utah Skyline Stock Image

Another downtown skyline image of Boise, Idaho. This image took forever to photoshop! There were so many telephone lines in the foreground of the picture. It took hours to get them all out…

Downtown Boise, Idaho Skyline Stock Image

iStockphoto.com has a section of their offerings called the Dollar Bin. It is a selection of images that are moving a little slow for whatever reason and they want to give customers the chance to view and purchase those images for a good price. There are images in the dollar bin that have sold hundreds of times and it is a good place to get more exposure to your work.

I currently have several images in the iStockphoto.com Dollar Bin, that are some of the first images that I uploaded and haven’t been my best sellers.

I know – not my best work, but I am getting better.

Lake Reflection in the Uintas - About 10 miles from the Trailhead

As an aspiring stock photographer, I am always looking for what to shoot that will sell well. What can I shoot that will make me the most money?

However, there is a huge difference between what I like to shoot and what sells well.

I love nature. I love the quiet solitude that exists in the mountains as you endure the chill in the air and the mosquitoes buzzing around your face. I love to have my fishing hook in the water while I sit and talk with my son about basketball, school, girls, and life in general. I love the stillness in the middle of the night and love to bury myself in my sleeping bag and have the frost on the top of my tent because it dropped below freezing outside. I like it because everything tastes better in the Mountains. Even Top Ramen tastes good when you are above 10,000 feet.

However, anyone can take a hike or drive to a lake and shoot a landscape shot that is beautiful. Even those long hikes out in the middle of nowhere to a lake that only a handful of people in the world have ever seen are only appreciated by a relatively small number of people. Even if you capture that amazing, once in a lifetime sunset where the sun is reflecting on a crystal clear lake don’t generally sell well in the market today. The market isn’t generally looking for sunsets. The market isn’t looking for images of flowers. The market isn’t looking for pictures of your pet dog or cat.

Instead, the market is looking for stock images that will reflect the image that they their companies are trying to portray. They want strength. They want stability. They want creativity. They want inspiration. They want power. They want professional.  They want growth.  They want diversity. They want to portray good health. They want to portray active lifestyles. They want to portray “green” and environmentally conscious behavior. Those are examples of what the market is looking for.

You should consider how companies are going to use the stock image.  They are going to put it on their website.  They are going to incorporate it into their advertising materials.  They are going to include it in their annual report. My Uintas Lake Reflection image is never going to make it into IBM’s Annual Report to their shareholders because there is no obvious connection to their annual results and the amazing scenery that I saw at 12,000 feet.

So how do I find out what is selling?  I look at the various stock photography websites.  Most of them have a link to their most popular files.

iStockphoto.com has a link to their Most popular stock images.  On this page you can view all their content including photographs, illustrations, flash, video, and audio files. You can sort it by what is most popular over the last 3 months, the last month, or the last week.  It is very interesting to see what sells the best on iStock.

Bigstockphoto has a similar popular stock images page.  You can also search the most popular files by category which is a nice feature if you specialize in a certain genre of photography.

It is also easy to identify some trends that will be coming up.  For example, most advertising for Christmas is completed and ready for the press sometime in the September/October timeframe.  So if you are going to take Christmas pictures, you need to have them completed and uploaded to your portfolio when the creative work is being done in the July/August timeframe.  Those December Christmas images that you shoot won’t get looked at until the next year, because the creative departments are already planning for their spring break sales events.  Similar lead times exist for other holidays as well.

Similar trends exist in other industries.  Have you ever gone to the Mall in February and they are displaying all of their swimsuits in all the stores?  February is the last month that I am thinking about buying swimsuits for me or my family, but if you wait until summer, that is when all the fall clothes are available.  Go figure…

These tools are just helpful to see what types of images are selling and are the most popular.  I do not advocate copying the style or ideas of other photographers, instead, evaluating other successful photographers content can help prime the pump and get the creative juices flowing on what you might shoot that will result in you making more money with stock photography.

Chime in and provide your input!

They have created a tool called ProStockMaster that automates the microstock submission process to the following micro stock and photo websites:

• Shutterstock
• iStockphoto
• Dreamstime
• 123RF
• Bigstockphoto
• Canstockphoto
• Fotila
• Luckyoliver
• Myspace
• Alamy

They recommend getting accounts with multiple vendors rather than going exclusive with just one to maximize your revenues as a stock photographer.

ProStockMaster manages the required metadata (title, description, keywords, etc.), and even provides suggestions to help with the keyword brainstorm process.

After completing the metadata for each image, you have the option to batch upload or to manually upload the images to the stock photography websites listed above.  After the upload process completes, ProStockMaster shows an upload statistics window with a short summary of the uploads to each stock photography website.  They track where each image was uploaded and the current status of each image on that site.  Typically you will have to finalize a submission by selecting image categories and adding appropriate model releases.  They are working on automating that process further for each supported stock agency.

This seems like a useful tool that can automate and streamline the stock photography submission process if you have accounts at multiple stock websites.

They have a free version of the software for you to try before you buy.  If you want to purchase the tool, the Pro version costs $89.99 with a $39.99 annual License Renewal.  They also have a Basic Version for $29.99 with no annual license renewal fee.

Anyone have any experience with this tool that they would be willing to share?