Last week’s article on ways that stock photographers are missing out on sales mentioned “Imagery that is not relevant” among the top 5 reasons for low sales results. What imagery is that? And the moment of truth…Is your photography relevant?
Frequently, we publish 10×10 portfolios of photographers who know how to shoot relevant images and have a clear and well defined style of shooting. Surely those photographers that still haven’t reached those shooting levels must be analyzing what differentiates their not relevant photography to those 10×10´s in order to improve their photography, right? Wrong!
Editing today is sometimes frustrating when the “point & shoot” without the backing of relevancy is repeated time after time. If there is no idea, no intention and no reason for clients to use your images, shooting is playing lottery: you’ll shoot a lot and fortune may smile once in a while. If there is an idea, an intention and a reason for clients to use your images, shooting is making an investment: you’ll shoot a lot and will earn more interest the more images you have in the bank.
Admittedly, many shooters today are not trying to run a business, but even if just shooting images in your free time and placing them with a stock agency one would expect some regular sales… otherwise, why shoot images anyway? However, if you regularly shoot images with little relevancy like these below, it is clear that your photography has room for improvement.
Here are some solutions though, because relevancy doesn’t have to be the lost grail!
5 Steps to Relevancy
- Think about what your images can illustrate.
- Consider whether you have seen better images of the same or similar situations.
- Try to analyze what your images are missing compared with other, better ones, of the same subject.
- Find one that you like and that is clearly better than anything you have done and decide if your photography is weakened by use of the wrong lens, poor lighting of the zone you are photographing, lack of a clear point of interest, a bad camera angle in relation to the subject or bad cropping. Now try to take your next shot “marinating in your mind” the image you like.
- Try not to be a combination of Ansel Adams, Henry Cartier Bresson and Richard Avedon together in one image. Instead, focus on analyzing and practicing one distinctive style.
The lack of a purposely practiced shooting style directly impacts the quality of the images that I see daily. I know that in the end, it triggers certain shooters to take their photos on these non-exclusive pilgrimages, from RM to RF and LBRF and then finally ending at microstock, because at 14 cents, almost everything can be sold, eventually.
Now, leaving aside the question of relevancy, image editors sometimes find another problem. Indecisive individuals with good photographic practices that use their imagination, have good technique, know what can interest clients and resolve well many photographic themes, but, ooh la la, at the last moment the photographer’s dilemma appears: which one of the 20 shots below is the good one? Maybe my agency can resolve the dilemma for me, the photographer might think.
And there is a reason for that though, because for some portals with a few more millions of images than age fotostock (and less sophisticated searching software), the good trick is to send 5 or 6 equals because among so many millions with basically the same keywords (Italy, Venetia, dusk, blue, etc., etc.) how else will the images be seen if no miracle occurs and the photographer isn’t one sending images every week? Quantity of equals is the key.
However, at age fotostock, 20 equal images will be returned with a note saying: “edit your work tightly…” Therefore, it becomes just another way of delaying your images appearance on the web… which is another way of losing income. Because the faster the images go live on the web, the more sale possibilities you have.
