Monday Recap: Business Meeting Shoot

It was a productive weekend of shooting, highlighted by Saturday's Business People stock shoot. Smiling business people are a bit of a cliche' in the stock photography business, but that's because they tend to sell fairly well.

For the shoot I arranged for six models to stage a mock "business meeting" in the studio. I brought in a conference table, chairs, flip-chart, and various other office-type items. The goal was to create a real looking office environment while being able to easily adjust the lighting.



I first shot the meeting against a white seamless paper backdrop. I then re-positioned it on to the other side of the studio against the painted walls. The versatility of my small studio space really pays off.

I ended the day with nearly 300 images to be culled through for candidates to add to my stock portfolio.

As always, this type of photography is a team effort and I could not do it without the help of so many. Thanks to Michelle, Alicia, Julie, Ron, Glen and Dale for modeling and to Harley and Diane for assisting.

Surprise - It's My Daughter!

I had a nice surprise over the weekend. A family who attends our church called to say that they saw a photo of Elisabeth in a magazine they subscribe to. They figured that I knew about it, but I didn't. Since my images are sold through iStockphoto.com I don't have direct contact with the buyers. I don't get to know what the final use will be. When I see an image in use it is either because the designer contacted me or I come across it "in the wild".

Of the thousands of images I have sold on the site, the number that I have seen in use is less than 1/10 of 1%.

iStockphoto Portfolio Image #1,000

I reached a small milestone on Saturday, I had my 1,000th image accepted into my portfolio on the popular stock photography website istockphoto.com.

What makes this a bit of an achievement (at least for me) is that before an image is added to a photographer's portfolio it has to be personally inspected by one of the company's 40 inspectors to ensure that the image meets the site's stringent requirements. I have heard from many a frustrated photographer over the past year who was having difficulty getting their images accepted. After a bit of a learning curve, I believe that I have hit on a good recipe for editing my photos in an acceptable manner for the site. I am now averaging over an 80% approval ratio all-time (and over 90% in recent months).

Image #1,000 is a studio shot of a cup filled with coffee beans. It is part of a small set I shot last week (click here to see the set). My next goal is to increase the portfolio size to 2,000 by March 31st of next year. You can view my iStock portfolio by clicking here.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens - 1/125 second, f/8, ISO 100

20 Pumpkins on iStockphoto

Yesterday afternoon this photograph of a load of pumpkins was my 5,000th image download to sell on iStockphoto.com. My portfolio on the popular microstock photography website has grown to over 850 images today from a mere 77 in March and my sales have shown a comparable increase. I am pleased to say that my October revenue will be over triple the amount I earned in June.

My goal for the future is to continue to grow my iStock portfolio by a minimum of 10 percent each month. In doing so, I anticipate my sales to grow at an equal or higher percentage. I am finding that my approval percentage (each image submitted to iStockphoto has to be personally inspected and approved) is getting better the more I upload to the site. I now have fine tuned my recipe for post-processing images and I average over a 90% approval percentage on my photos (up from around 50% early on).

As I said in an earlier post, I look forward to continuing to add images to my portfolio and monitor the growth. Is this a sustainable business long-term? We'll continue to wait and see.

Canon 30D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/125 second, f/7.1, ISO 100

Am I Killing the Photography Industry?

Are photographers such as myself killing the photography industry?

I follow numerous photography industry related blogs with my RSS reader. It seems that at least once a week I read an article about how "part-time", "hobbyist" and "micro-stock" photographers are killing the photography industry. One particular quote I read recently on the Black Star Rising blog gives an example of what I am talking about:

"Feel free, by all means, to make beautiful nature images, photograph protests in your home town, or do a nice portrait of a family friend. However, if you have any respect for other creatives -- and to tangentially ensure their longevity -- your action of taking $50 for an assignment that should have been $500, or giving away photographs for access to the limited locations that are credential positions, is detrimental to your fellow creatives, and those whose work you admire." (full text)

Though I do plenty of work for pay, my main source of income is in the real estate industry. Since I don't make my full-time living as a photographer, should I not be charging at all? If I shoot a wedding for $500, am I damaging the business of the photographer who's packages start at $3,000?

Another point that many "real" professional photographers make on a regular basis is that microstock websites such as iStockphoto.com are killing the industry. Their point is that selling images for as little as a dollar apiece via these websites is hurting the industry by devaluing photography in general. I strongly disagree with this view. I believe that the microstock sites have opened up professional photography to a whole segment of the population that previously either didn't use photos in their designs or who illegally stole images from the internet. These designers can't afford to spend $100 on up per image, but will readily pay a few dollars for a photo.

I believe we are witnessing a transformation in the photography industry brought on by technological advances in camera equipment and internet delivery. We can either embrace this change, or sit back and watch it pass on by.

What do you think? Are part-time and hobbyist photographers hurting the industry? Or, is this a natural metamorphosis brought on by the advances in technology and communication?

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/60 second, f/9, ISO 100

My 2,500th iStock Download

Earlier this week I surpassed 2,500 downloads on iStockphoto.com. While not anywhere near the 500,000+ downloads of iStock Rock Star Lise Gagne, it still is a fairly significant milestone. I am now considered a SILVER level contributor and my royalty commissions are increased to 30%. I find it very fitting that download #2,500 was today's featured image, a picture of a "SOLD" sign.

As I said in an earlier post on the subject, it will be interesting to see how my sales grow in the future. You can view my iStock portfolio HERE.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/60 second, f/10, ISO 100

iStock in Use

As a follow-up to last friday's post (read it here) about iStockphoto.com, here is an example of one of my photos in use. When images are sold on iStock, the contributing photographer does not receive any information on the buyer. The only way to know how an image is used is to come across it in the wild.

I received an email last month from an iStock user who recognized my photograph of a gas nozzle when he viewed the news on the Canadian website CBC.ca. He was kind enough to email me and I went to the site and made this screen capture.

Of the over 2,000 photos I have sold so far, this in only the second time I have heard of one in use. If you're selling images on microstock, have you ever seen yours in use?

Selling Photos on iStockphoto.com

If there is one thing the Internet is full of, it is opinions...and in the photography corner of the 'net there are very strong views both for and against websites specializing in microstock photography. While some photographers view these sites as fantastic ways to monetize their photography, others see them as extremely detrimental to the business of photography.

What makes these sites controversial is they literally pay their contributing photographers pennies for each download. On iStockphoto.com, the largest microstock site with nearly 2,000,000 files available, downloads sell for as little as $1 each with the contributor receiving as little as 20% of this income.

Why would a photographer want to sell their photos for such a low amount? The simple answer is Volume. While a local client might pay a photographer $200 once for an image, a good photo on iStockphoto might sell several hundred times generating much more income over the long run.

With this in mind, I recently decided to concentrate more of my photographic time on shooting for iStockphoto to see what I could earn. Over the past three months I have increased my iStockphoto portfolio from under 100 images to nearly 400. The resulting increase in sales has been dramatic. My June earnings of nearly $500 are over a tenfold increase compared to what I earned in March and July is showing even more growth. While I surely could not support my family on $500 a month, what if I were to increase this amount by another factor of ten? $5,000 a month is a viable salary and iStockphoto is full of stories of photographers earning a living shooting for them.

Todays image is a mosaic of my best selling shots. What strikes me is the diversity in the images. The open bible photo is my top selling image with nearly 200 downloads, yet the mountain road capture has earned more revenue due to its larger average download size.

I look forward to continuing to add images to my portfolio and monitor the growth. Is this a sustainable business long-term? We'll have to wait and see.

If you are interested in more information on iStockphoto, feel free to email me at rich@leggnet.com. I can even send you one of the business cards iSt0ck gave me for being an exclusive photographer which will entitle you to three free download credits.

Links

My iStockphoto Portfolio
iStockphoto Registration