Digital Stock Photography Push

Hooray! We've already had one sale from the "North Carolina group stock photos"! Family Genealogy starring our one and only Jane was purchased last week. The buyer searched for the words "wall photos" and decided this one was just the one they wanted! Thank you again to my wonderful family members that tolerated the constant flash and click of my camera throughout my visit! I'm anticipating great success with the latest batch upload and am hopeful that you'll allow me to get some more fantastic shots of all of you next week when Dad and I visit?

The online digital stock photography business is a slow but steady process and so far (knocking on wood) seems to be holding it's own during our distressed economy. Though I take hundreds and hundreds of photographs on a regular basis only a small percentage of them go to commercial stock.

Hmm ... you might be wondering how I choose which ones will be submitted to my agency????

• Broad Market Value - Can this photo be used for many different concepts? A happy couple sells just about anything ... but there are also a LOT of happy couple photos already on the market... tough call. A happy couple holding money ... now that might give the photo the extra touch that a commercial buyer is looking for. A happy interracial couple holding money ... that proves promising.


• Specialty Market Value - Hmm, close-up firefighter images in the middle of a blaze are a "hot" item and the competition is minimal. Firefighters are universal and represent many broad subjects such as security, safety, insurance, danger, professions, teamwork, physical challenges, etc ... that proves golden.


• Excellent Quality - Focus, color, clarity, composition, noise, artifacts, etc. all must be top notch! All photos are reviewed at 100% magnification and any photos with flaws are ruthlessly weeded out.


• Minimal Post Editing - Will I need to spend hours cloning out logos on shirts and baseball caps, or background details that might violate copyright laws? If the photo is incredibly fantastic, it might be worth hours of editing ... otherwise it will cost me more money in post processing time than the image will probably make.

Once I've edited, uploaded and key worded selected photos the rest will be up to the agency editors. They may or may not accept the photo based on certain criteria. The whole process can take weeks just to get the photos online. Once they are online, I keep my fingers crossed and hope that the photos stimulate interest in prospective buyers. It's also very important that I've key worded the images correctly. If a buyer can't find it in a search ... they can't buy it.

It takes many sales to make a photo profitable. The more popular a photograph becomes (the more sales), the more money it generates as it "levels up". For example, my number one seller (posted below) is of a group of firefighters in front of a roaring blaze (119 sales to date) and it's currently a "level 5". When it was a "level 1" it would only cost 3 credits to purchase an Extra large Royalty Free license, now it costs 13 credits for the same sale. And it keeps on selling ... If I can get my portfollio filled with "level 5" images like this one, Steve and I can retire (almost)! Wahoo!


© Photographer: Crystalcraig
Agency: Dreamstime.com

What's the "Push" all about??? Well ... my portfolio is currently at 253 photos and I'm hoping to double that by September 1st. That's 161 days and counting! Wish me luck and say cheese please. Thanks!