What other sites are you selling on.

[Guest]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi just to ask you what other sites are some off you selling your photos on. Fotolia, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, 500px ect.

I have sold 2 images so far this year for $133.00. @ we are into month 10. 

So i was wondering what other stock sites to try? Any suggestions. Thanks

 

...fundamentally you need to be shooting material which is wanted by clients...

 

Fairly obvious, isn't it? That should be a sticky here.

 

GI

 

 

Why doesn't somebody start a thread called 'What do clients want?'

 

 

 

Because nobody really knows. That's why Alamy doesn't edit its collection.

 

Jill

 

 

With all due respect Jill, that is simply not the case. Sure there will always be the 'left field' shot used but it's quite clear enough so that many agencies spend a good deal of money on finding out what clients are after. My point in the thread was if you go and actually look at what clients are using, you can make pretty educated guesses on the areas they want and the amount of imagery they want in those areas.

 

I mentioned swans, sure clients will use some images of swans but I can assure you that woman, business, family will be massively more productive keywords to have than ...bird, swan.

 

Alamy themselves do mention areas they want more work. What they don't do is put resources into that, in a meaningful way, unlike the larger commercial agencies. 

 

 

There are some requests (I'm not talking about Alamy) that are so specialised, specific, or need to convey a particular emotion, that nobody can second-guess them.  I know because they are posted on to me.  A typical example will be a fiction book jacket for a novel where the buyer needs something that relates to a central theme of the story and conveys a particular emotion (most emotions don't have convenient names).  Art directors too are often looking for equally hard-to-find and unpredictable imagery.  One of the reasons for commissioning is that nobody in the stock world was able to predict that need.  This is also the kind of imagery which earns the highest fees.

 

However, the great bulk of stock sales are boringly predictable, and priced accordingly.

 

 

Creative directors and art directors at the commercials IME don't tend to want custom stock, they are equally well aware that too specific a brief leads nowhere in stock.

 

It's general briefs about the role of women in imagery (see Getty's new LeanIn collection) and how they are depicted...not shoot x picture with an x woman doing x. Briefs about the various generational tags that are used in marketing (Generation X etc). Good ADs and more so, good CDs are the conduit between clients or resellers and the photographer.....a long way from 'we want more pictures of tourists in Rome'.

[Robert Brook]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why doesn't somebody start a thread called 'What do clients want?'

 

 

 

Because nobody really knows. That's why Alamy doesn't edit its collection.

 

Jill

 

 

With all due respect Jill, that is simply not the case. Sure there will always be the 'left field' shot used but it's quite clear enough so that many agencies spend a good deal of money on finding out what clients are after. My point in the thread was if you go and actually look at what clients are using, you can make pretty educated guesses on the areas they want and the amount of imagery they want in those areas.

 

I mentioned swans, sure clients will use some images of swans but I can assure you that woman, business, family will be massively more productive keywords to have than ...bird, swan.

 

Alamy themselves do mention areas they want more work. What they don't do is put resources into that, in a meaningful way, unlike the larger commercial agencies. 

 

 

There are some requests (I'm not talking about Alamy) that are so specialised, specific, or need to convey a particular emotion, that nobody can second-guess them.  I know because they are posted on to me.  A typical example will be a fiction book jacket for a novel where the buyer needs something that relates to a central theme of the story and conveys a particular emotion (most emotions don't have convenient names).  Art directors too are often looking for equally hard-to-find and unpredictable imagery.  One of the reasons for commissioning is that nobody in the stock world was able to predict that need.  This is also the kind of imagery which earns the highest fees.

 

However, the great bulk of stock sales are boringly predictable, and priced accordingly.

 

 

Creative directors and art directors at the commercials IME don't tend to want custom stock, they are equally well aware that too specific a brief leads nowhere in stock.

 

It's general briefs about the role of women in imagery (see Getty's new LeanIn collection) and how they are depicted...not shoot x picture with an x woman doing x. Briefs about the various generational tags that are used in marketing (Generation X etc). Good ADs and more so, good CDs are the conduit between clients or resellers and the photographer.....a long way from 'we want more pictures of tourists in Rome'.

 

 

By 'predictable' I mean that a lot of stock photography is systemised.  I was recently studying some creative research on 'townsizing' (urbanites downsizing, moving to smaller towns - not Bootle or Brownsville obviously).  A lot of backlit shots (currently standard ad lighting), small groups looking happy, beards, no suits (or at least no ties), bikes, fixing bikes, good food, general sense of wellbeing and a lot of hanging or sitting around. No sign of dope or Che Guevara but we can see where it's heading.  As a demographic profile this is currently cutting edge, but already leaning towards stock cliche.  As you travel towards micros everything gets a lot more obvious.

 

My knowledge of what ADs get up to in the day is somewhat limited but my highest fees are for images that only sold once or twice.  I'm pretty average I would guess.