giphotostock

You need to change what and how you shoot. Choose the market that you'd want to supply to. Yes, there are different markets (ie buyers) for photography. Study that market, what images are in demand (ie being used)? Shoot that. Pre-visualize and produce images. "Shoot what you see" is arguably the least profitable approach, even travel is likely to do better. If you keep "plugging away", that'll only lead to more fiscal disappointment in the future. If you doing it for the pleasure, that's a different ball game and my advise needn't apply. GI

If you are serious, approach it like you would approach any new business opportunity. identify the market that you want to supply to. Study that market: how large is the market, what kinds of images it needs, demand/supply balance? Identify agencies/distributors that supply into that market (particularly important if you specialize in anything other than "shoot what you see/find") Shoot for that market/agency. GI

Great shots of agricultural machinery doing what they supposed to be doing (with specific description). Do more of that, go wider to show expanse, from above if you can, show more of the field. Great blue skies, but in bad weather as well. Great shots of tractor fire and firefighters' response team. Do farmer inspecting crops (and whatever else farmers do in the field), with an identified machinery in the background. Do modern technology (ie smart phone) use by the farmers. You should know better than a lay person (GPS, weather, etc apps?) Do traditional, time-tested techniques used by the farmers. You should know better than a lay person. Show tools (lathe, chainsaw, anything else) BEING USED. Shoot a complete work cycle through all the seasons. Maybe even the same field from the same vantage point to show the progression. That'll make a nice sequence that lay people won't have the patience/access to do. What do you do with harvested crops? Shoot that. Blue background in W5DMTD (and similar) is dated, shoot on white/light. Good luck. GI

Do you subscribe to farming specialty magazines? Do you get farming-related junk mail? Flip through the pages and shoot that. Are are you bombarded with promotional materials by equipment manufacturers and maintenance service providers? Shoot that. GI

Add bugs, pests and diseases. Add shots of whole plants, not just flowers. GI

Finding a niche may not be that difficult. One approach is to look at images that are being used (newsstand, billboards, ads, industry publications, conferences, Fortune 500 websites, etc etc) and make a list of images where your reaction is "I cannot shoot THAT". That's what every other generalist is going to think as well. However, somebody shot those images, right? Analyze the list and see if some patterns or groups of similar images emerge. You probably are going to get several niches in that list. Now comes the difficult part. You'd have to turn around "I cannot shoot THAT" into "what can I do to shoot THAT". Most people are not going to do this and remain generalists and continue shooting what they've been shooting. Another approach is to self-reflect and think about what special knowledge, access, passion, etc you already have, and see if there is market for images in that area. GI

I niche is a well-defined photography area. Well-defined like in "I shoot XXX images for YYY market". One sentence. Here are some attributes of a niche: - market that pays well (ie demand); - you have to be able to name the clients; - limited supply; - not easy to break in, not available to a passer-by with a camera, requiring some combination of: special access to people and/or locations, special knowledge (depth), special technique and equipment (ex microscopy), understanding the workings of the chosen market; Do your market research, choose a niche and go deep, not wide. Just an opinion. GI

From Wim's first link: "You firstly need to fully understand your niche and subject matter" (emphasis is mine). The opposite of "everything sells" mantra. YMMV. GI Another quote: "Your work has got to be commercially viable in order to get paid. If the work you love producing isn’t, then you have two options. One is to change what you do to get paid and the other is to stick with it, but find another way to make money on the side to help fund it. "

If I were you, before spending a lot of time on scanning, I'd verify that your assumption holds. Do publishers indeed use images like yours? And if they do, how often they get used? Who supplies them and how large is the supply relative to the demand? A bit of market research can go a long way. If the answer is "not worth it", it can save you a lot of time and frustration. GI

No, on a per-sale basis Alamy is not quite microstock. However, the industry is dominated by the big one that rhymes with Jetty, which had essentially become microstock. I quite often get sales for which my share is <$0.10 (big Jetty via an aggregator). I believe I recently got several for which my share was $0.01. Talk about depressing sales. On the PIPY basis the big Jetty still beats Alamy heads down. So is the leading microstock subscription site. Interesting times we live in. GI

Shoot IN Warsaw, not shots OF Warsaw. Something like that.

1. business 2. concepts 3. real-looking people doing real-looking things (model released) .. 10. travel 11. what you see is what you shoot

Not a secret. Specialize. Shoot for the market. Research. An example given 10-15 years ago on the old AlamyPro forum by Geoff Kidd (if I remember correctly): "If you are shooting in a garden, do not shoot flowers, shoot garden pests." Something like that. GI

I feel sympathy for everybody, exclusive and non-exclusive.. Unfortunately, it does not matter to this contributor. 50% or 40% of a very small (and declining in time) amount does not make much difference. Last image shot specifically for Alamy was in 2010-2011.. Last outtake available for upload to Alamy was in 2014... There are much greener pastures out there... GI

Had been using Manfrotto 410 for 10+ years in the studio, still works well. GI