P#4 Q4: What One Thing Can You Do To Improve Your Chances At Selling Stock Photos?

Researching your subjects helps in selling stock photos

Scott Stulberg: That goes back to what I was talking about. You would want to be going to these agencies' websites, typing in the keywords, and seeing what is out there and what looks good and what fires your rockets.

I bring up the pregnant girl and the baby because last Thursday I was going to shoot a pregnant girl on the beach with her baby. I went online to several different stock agencies, and I typed in 'pregnant woman, beach, baby, sunset' -- different things. I wanted to get some new ideas.

I saw things -- "Wow, I like that -- oh, I brought some headphones. They can both be leaning on each other with headphones." I thought, "Oh, this is cool," and I thought, "Wow" as I looked at different images.

I saw them next to each other and thought, "I could have mommy standing up with her tummy out, and then I have the baby standing on a chair with her tummy sticking out like, 'I'm going to be pregnant too one day, mommy." Looking at the images helped me come up with these ideas.

I thought, "That could lead to other things." On the shoot, I put mommy on a sofa, and then I took a little stuffed animal and put it on the little girl. They dressed the same and she was pretending to be pregnant like mommy.

A lot of times, you can't come up with these ideas on your own. Looking at these agencies' websites and seeing these images will give you ideas like, "Whoa, that's a great idea. I'm going to try something similar or change it to be even better."

I tell all my students that the number one thing you want to do is look for ideas and then write out a stock shot list for the day or for the shoot. You have to have a list.

There are all kinds of things that we're just looking at once a day, headphones leaning back, running with mom with breeze -- you have all your different ideas that you want to try and capture for that particular shoot.

Make a shot list and print it out. I make a contact sheet in Photoshop of all of these images that I see on the Web sites that I want to use to spur ideas.

I drag them into a folder and I make a contact sheet in Photoshop. I can go to the shoot with images, show the model, and they can see, "I want to get something kind of like this, but let's do it a little differently."

Then they have an idea. Then they can have a notion of what I'm going for.

You have to do your homework before you do a shoot. A lot of people go out with a camera and they think they're going to find something at the shoot waiting for them and it's going to be the shot of the century.

Setting up your shoot, thinking about your shots beforehand is the best tip. Just preconceive the shot and go out and do it. That's how you make money in stock.

To summarize

Research your subject before you start taking and selling stock photos. See what the agencies are buying, and use those images as a jumping off point for your own shoots and photos. Figure out how to improve on the images you see on the stock agency's websites, use your imagination, and make sure your subjects understand what your aim is in a photo shoot.