Take Photos That Sell

If you want to make money with stock photography you'll have to follow some basic guidelines, no matter if you shoot for a micro stock site or a traditional stock photography agency.

Shoot photos that sell

That's by far the most important point. Would you pay for an image of your neighbors mother-in-law? Or of his dog? Of course not! No one would, perhaps not even your neighbor himself.

Likewise professional photo buyers don't care for that kind of images. What they ...






... are looking for are photos that illustrate concepts, like career, relationship or retirement. Business related photos generally sell very well. Photos of handshakes sell well because shaking hands is a universal, widely understood idea that can be used to illustrate negotiations, contracts, treaties and even things like breaking-up or divorce.

Travel photography can sell well if it can be used to illustrate concepts. For example, a photo of the Houses of Parliament in London can be used to illustrate democracy or governmental topics.

Avoid legal pitfalls

Most stock photography agencies have strict rules regarding images of people (if the people in the photo are recognizable), property (if the image of the property can lead to its owner, e.g. a license plate on a car), and trademarked logos or items anywhere in the image. If in doubt, don't submit such images.

If you want to sell images with recognizable people in them, all agencies will require you to provide a so called "model release". A model release is a document with which the photographed person permits you to sell the image without need of compensation. Obtaining a signed model release from ordinary people is next to impossible, so you might be better off to either weed those images out or hire professional models.

Keywording is the key to success, literally

No matter how good your photos are, they won't sell if no one can find them. All stock sites let you tag or keyword your images. A good approach to keywording is to answer six simple questions for each image: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

For example, let's suppose you have a bunch of nice healthcare related images, shot in a hospital. Answering "Who?" you might find "doctor", "nurse", or "patient". Answer "What" to come up with "lancet" or "stethoscope". Answering "Where" yields "hospital", "waiting room" or "theatre", while "When" gives "morning", "afternoon" or any other time of day or year. Ask yourself "Why" to evoke concepts like "sickness", "comfort" or "patience". Finally "How" can refer to the photographic technique involved: It could be "black and white" or "monochrome", it might be "blurred" et cetera.

Keep the noise down

Always keep in mind that the end user of your image may want to print it out eventually. The larger the print size the more noticeable noise will be. Noise is induced by your digital camera's sensor and is something digital photographers have to live with, much like traditional photographers had to live with film grain. Generally speaking the smaller (area wise) the sensor size and the higher the ISO sensitivity the higher the noise will be.

For further info about stock photography, please see my previous post your-digital-camera-is-money-maker, as well as the products below.

P.S. Due to technical 'hitch' my photography store is down at the moment. Will try to sort as soon as possible.




Photo Stock Notes

Photo Stock Notes Photo Stock Notes delivers eight pages each month, packed with information of top priority for the freelance stock photographer, condensed to its essentials. The eight tightly written pages of Photo Stock Notes bring you vital facts, trends, reports, latest strategies, that you can use immediately, in your taking, making, and selling of photographs and in the operation of your stock photography business. Because you have little time for lenghty articles, the reports in Photo Stock Notes are brief, pithy, and give the essence of each issue or subject. Whether you are just starting out or starting over, Photo Stock Notes will be a monthly refresher for you.Renew your current Photo Stock Notes subscription and your existing subscription will be extended by the number of issues you purchase. Order a gift subscription and we'll send a free gift card with your personal message to accompany your Photo Stock Notes gift subscription. You can also select the date to have us send your electronic gift card. You can also order other Photography magazines for yourself, or your business. We've got excellent prices for reception rooms and waiting rooms, professional offices like dentists, doctor offices, health clubs, gyms, beauty and hair salons. Get one bill and make just one payment for all your magazine subscriptions. We will send you a renewal reminder when your subscription is about to run out. Take advantage of our cheap Photo Stock Notes magazine subscription prices today and and have your Photo Stock Notes magazine delivered for a whole year.

Great Portraits in the Great Outdoors

If you have ever photographed your weekend outing, family reunion, or your son's baseball game, you know that outdoor photography can present very special challenges. Along my journey as a photographer I’ve learned some outdoor portrait photography techniques that may benefit those who choose to follow.

If you have ever photographed your weekend outing, family reunion, or a special vacation getaway with your friends or family, you know that outdoor photography can present some very special challenges. This is true even for the most seasoned photographer. Direct sunlight can be harsh. Unwanted objects can interfere with your composition. Proper color rendering can be problematic. And many times, good old Mother Nature is just not feeling cooperative.

Perhaps, there’s not much that can be done about Mother Nature, but with some practice and patience you can overcome many of the other challenges you face as an outdoor portrait photographer. Along my journey as a photographer I’ve learned some outdoor techniques that may benefit those who choose to follow:

1. Keep it simple.

The subtle pattern and color of an adobe wall, the simple repeating pattern and muted tones of planks on a fishing pier, or the uniform color of a patch of blue bonnets, snapdragons, or yellow primrose can serve as wonderful backdrops for your outdoor portraits.

When you are composing your portrait, you want your subject to be the focal point that all eyes are drawn to. Busy patterns, large areas of excessively vibrant colors (especially a mixture of different colors), or over imposing forms in your foreground or background that are not treated properly, can really distract from her if you are not careful.

2. Control the depth of field (the range of distances from your camera that are in focus).

The edge of a forest, or mountains in the distance may render beautifully as a backdrop for your subject with proper control over the depth of field. If you have an SLR camera, you can adjust your depth of field to bring the background more or less out of focus relative to your subject.

This serves as eye control for the observer of your portrait. The eye is naturally drawn to what is brightest and most sharply focused. If your subject is sharply focused relative to the background, she will be accentuated as the focal point of your portrait.

Controlling the depth of field is accomplished by adjusting your aperture setting (the size of your lens opening, expressed in f-stops). The smaller the f-stop the larger the opening of your lens, and the smaller the depth of field will be. For instance, when you see a photograph in a nature magazine of a beautiful butterfly in a patch of flowers, and the butterfly is in razor sharp focus but the flowers are gently blurred; this was accomplished by the photographer using a narrow depth of field (small f-stop setting). For bright light situations this may be difficult to achieve.

For any given intensity of light, as you open up the aperture (lower the f-stop) you must increase the shutter speed (thereby decreasing exposure time) to avoid over exposure. Increasing the shutter speed generally reduces resolution in the image. Experiment to find the combination of aperture setting and shutter speed that gives the result you desire.

3. Be mindful of distracting objects behind your subject.

What is plainly a bush, a mailbox, or a birdhouse to your eye, can appear like an extra appendage growing out of the top of your subject’s head in your two dimensional portrait. You may get some interesting effects this way, but generally they will not make a good impression on your subject. Take the time to find an interesting angle that eliminates distracting objects from the background.

4. Control the light.

“Down light” (e.g. harsh midday light) is generally undesirable. Due to the shadow patterns it creates, it can bring out the worst in your subject … can anyone say, “Raccoon eyes”?

“Lateral light” (e.g. early morning and late afternoon light) is much more desirable. Lateral light can be controlled and directed to create beautiful shadow patterns across the face of your subject. There is a saying with many photographers who shoot outdoors, “the first tree in the forest is best” for a background. The reason is, the canopy of the first tree controls the harsh down light, but being on the edge of the forest, you still have lateral light to work with. The same idea holds true for porches or the edge of any other type of overhang. Professional photographers sometimes use shade cloth and reflectors to block down light while directing available lateral light to enhance their subject and achieve their desired effect.

5. Correct the color.

Before the digital age, corrective filters or special films were mostly used for color correction in outdoor portraits. With digital cameras, the color can be corrected using your white balance setting (expressed as color temperature in degrees Kelvin). Most digital cameras today do a pretty good job of automatically adjusting the white balance for outdoor exposures. If you would like to experiment with your manual white balance setting use the table below as a guide. For a more detailed understanding of the meaning of color temperature correction, see the article at: http://www.sizes.com/units/color_temperature.htm

Temperature Typical Sources
1000K....... Candles; oil lamps
2400K....... Early morning sunrise
3200K....... Tungsten light bulbs
4000K....... Fluorescent
5200K....... Typical daylight; electronic flash
6000K....... Cloudy Day
7000K....... Shade


Keeping your composition simple, controlling the depth of field, and eliminating objects that may distract from your subject, all help to accentuate your subject as the focal point of your portrait.

Controlling the available natural light and correcting the white balance of your photographs can reveal and enhance the true beauty of your subject. Beyond this, make it your aim each day to unleash your creativity that you may see the world around you in fresh and unique ways. Never be content with seeing the ordinary as ordinary. Just stop and think for a moment, everything there is, is ordinary to someone.

Art is created by those with the ability to see beyond the ordinary, to interpret their world in an exceptional way, and to reflect their interpretation for others to see. So, experiment and don’t be afraid to try something new. The world is abundant in forms, textures, colors, and patterns of light ... all the handy-work of God. Grand landscapes and magnificent manmade structures are not required for great photos in the great outdoors. May Mother Nature always cooperate with you. Good day and happy clicking!

"Finally... Learn How To Work That Darn Digital Camera Like A Pro"

Your Digital Camera Is A Money Maker!

Can you imagine anyone paying you good money for your photos? No?

You know, I had all those photos from a recent trip to Rome, Italy, laying around and I thought it should be possible to make a few bucks off of them. First, I couldn't think of a way to market or sell those images but then I discovered micro stock sites.

Micro stock sites are great: You register (it's free) and then upload a few sample images. After your samples passed an initial review you start uploading and making money.

Let's look how this works in detail:

Stock photography

What is stock photography?

Imagine someone is creating a website about healthcare. To beef it up they want a few images of doctors, nurses, operating theaters and the like. Rather than hiring a photographer (sending him on "assignment" as it's called in the business) which can be very expensive the designer decides to use stock photos, i.e. images that are readily available.

Usually stock images are much cheaper than "bespoke" photos. So our designer would visit one of the established stock image sites and browse around a little until she finds some nice healthcare related imagery. After paying up (usually at the tone of $100 per image or higher depending on the use) she downloads the photos, puts them on the website and calls it a day.

Micro stock sites vs. traditional agencies

With a traditional agency our designer likely spent between $500 and $1,000 for half a dozen images of doctors, nurses and stuff like this. That's small change if you are a Fortune 500 company, but what if you are on a budget or doing website design for a friend or a non-profit organization?

Enter micro stock agencies. Micro stock sites have stirred up the traditional market for stock photography over the last three years. What's the idea here? Rather than charging $100 or more for a photo, on many of those sites you can get high quality images for less than $10, sometimes as low as $1!

With a payout of perhaps 25 to 50 cents per image this is not very attractive for professional photographers but an amateur can make decent money this way and should at least be able to finance her hobby. And remember, this is the Internet we are talking about: Make it up on volume. 25 cents per image downloaded may not sound like much but if you have several hundred or even a thousand decent and usable images, all of them submitted to the big micro stock sites even a paltry 25 cents per download can add up nicely.

What you need

Most micro stock agencies have the same requirements: You'll need at least a four Megapixel camera (more is better, although you'll be fine with between six and eight Megapixels), your images should be free of noise, properly keyworded and should picture sought after subjects. For example, good selling images are business or healthcare related or illustrate a concept or an emotion such as love, relationships, carreer and the like.

Here is a few micro stock agencies that you can try out:

Fotolia - Fotolia is a rising star in the field of stock photography. They usually pay more then 50% of the commission to the photographer, and allow you to set your own price. They are one of the fastest to approve photographs. Another nice thing is the way you can get your money. They will allow you to make a paypal cash-out once you've hit the 2 dollar mark.

Bigstockphoto - Yet another great site to sell images at. They pay 50c or 1$ per image downloaded. and they allow to get paid after only 30$ has accumulated. They will approve photos in about three days. They allow FTP upload.

Shutter Stock - Shutterstock is the leading micro stock agency today. Shutterstock’s business model allows a customer to make a subscription and during the subscription period the customer can buy and download 25 pictures a day. This model encourages downloads, and indeed you will get allot of downloads. The photographers earn 25c per image sell, and additional 5c if the customer also requested to burn the image on a CD. There are also broader uses licenses that the client can buy for additional payment. The site is very friendly. It has an FTP upload option and pictures are approved within a day or two.

Dreams Time - A very popular site with the clients, and will get you great sells. The basic price per image is 1$ (or 2$ for full resolution) out of which the photographer gets 50%. The site is very friendly. It has an FTP upload option and pictures are usually approved within a three days. Defiantly an option if you want to sell your images.

Pixmac - Yet another great site to sell images at. They give you 50% commission for non-exclusive rights and 60% commission for exclusive rights.Earning money has never been easier!

CanStockPhoto -They pay 50% for guest/member download and 0.25 USD for subscription download. They are a great agency, with a little cluttered design.

Feature Pics - A very nice agency - they let you set a price for your stock photos or set the percentage that you want to earn.

Photostockplus - Photostockplus gives a great variety of products you can sell. They will not only sell your photos, but put them on mugs, shirts and more. photostockplus also provides great resources for event photographers.

123rf.com - 123rf is a relatively new agency which is doing well. They are still small, so if you are good standing out is easy. They pay 50% of each sale to the photographer - nice. another nice feature is email notification once your images has been approved or rejected.

Crestock Stock - At Crestock Stock Photos you can earn up to 30% commission on every image or photo you sell. With hundreds of thousands of unique visitors a month, you're guaranteed incredible exposure for your portfolio. Their fast upload system ensures you won't spend ages just to get your photos and images online.

Stockphotomedia - When an image or photo is downloaded, the individual or entity doing so, the User, pays for the image/photo the Photographer has uploaded and the Photographer’s account, the Account Holder, is automatically credited with 35% for small images, 45% for medium images, 55% for large images And 50% for Illustrations of the revenue generated for every photograph and image downloaded. When the balance on an account exceeds 60 EUR or every 3 months, the Account Holder is entitled to submit a request for payment. We use paypal or Moneybookers.

Shutterpoint - ShutterPoint offers THE highest payout rate on the internet: 85% for Full Royalty-Free License, 70% for Standard Royalty-Free License. Payouts are delivered by check, through PayPal, or MoneyBookers whenever your earnings exceed your minimum payment amount. Minimum payment options start at $50. You also get your own image store-front to showcase and sell your photo albums to the world and your own pro-style sub domain (http://USERNAME.shutterpoint.com).

Fotomind - Fotomind is ideal for Stock Photographers and people looking to sell quality stock photos. Good revenue - 0.3$ per credit (that means 0.9$ per image in most cases). Get up to 27$ per image. Upload pictures via FTP or HTTP. Automatic handling of image metadata. Various payment methods (check, paypal, etc). Payouts are sent every month, minimum payout is 100$. Photo review time: up to 72 hours. Earn more money by referring people to FotoMind.com. Fast and Friendly photographer support.


I wish you the best of success!

Krister