http://www.globaleyeimages.com/Blog.asp?Show=Photographers Recent News Updates for freelance photographers. Global Eye is the brand new no-commissions stock photography library that lets independent stock photographers sell their photos without giving up control. en-us Copyright 1999-2012 Global Eye Images. All Rights Reserved. 20 http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=957 Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:11:45 GMT Google's been at it again, announcing some major changes last month that are going to impact anyone doing business online for a long time to come. They're calling it Search plus Your World and it give searchers the option to combine their traditional search results with results from various social media connections. The catch is, the so-called social results will be shown first, so if you're not connecting with your buyers, there's a real chance they aren't going find you, no matter how well your website is ranking! Anyway, the link below goes to a short report  on the new features and offers a short Action-Plan for any photographers wanting to get a head start on this. It is new and a lot of people won't even be able to test it yet, but it's definitely coming and now is the time to get started on it! http://ozimages.s3.amazonaws.com/GooglePlus.zipWhile you're here ... please give this post a Plus 1 and consider adding our GlobalEye page to your Google Circles!  http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=894 Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:42:48 GMT The doors are open on the first ever photography giveaway event, this weekend only. We invited a number of photography-related businesses to take part and put up one or more free gifts for photographers, to show case their products and services. It's kind of like an online-photography-expo, and looks like being an annual event from now on.www.PhotographyGiveaway.comPlease check it out, register and grab anything of interest. You'll have a couple of weeks to download your gifts but you do need to register this weekend! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=878 Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:53:27 GMT If you're posting your images to various social media site, here's a survey that you might find useful. It checked 38 of the main social media / photo sharing websites and how they handled uploaded images.In particular, they were checking whether your embedded copyright information would remain intact. In 16 cases, it was stripped from the file so if someone downloaded you image they'd have no idea who the image belonged to. The message is simple. If you're submitting 'commercial' images to these sites for any reason, and you're at all worried about your copyright, make sure you put a physical watermark on the image. http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/socialmedia/Some of htese social media platforms be useful tools to get some additional exposure for your work and direct visitor traffic to your main web presence, just do your research fiirst. http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=854 Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:48:31 GMT We've just published a simple plugin for anyone with their own WordPress Blog. It displays random photography quotes (over 200) under each of your blog posts auttomatically, for a bit of additional interest for your readers.This is a free download for anyone interested ... please grab your copy below and tell your photographer friends or colleagues about it. You'll find full instructions on that page for installing and customizing the plugin. Download Photography Quotes PluginOne way you can customise it is to add your own favourite quotes ... but if you can also share them here, we can add them in with a future update. Use the comment form below to let us know your favourite photography/photographer quotes! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=840 Tue, 4 Oct 2011 18:36:43 GMT If you talk to a lot of photographers about where to sell photography the standard suggestion is probably going to be that you sign on with one of the Microstock libraries. However, if you're serious about selling photographs online, you'll usually find the best returns are made when you stop following the crowd and think outside the box. The demand for stock photography has increased dramatically in over the last 20 years, starting with the advent of desktop publishing and more recently with internet publishing. These days virtually every business on the planet is both a publisher and a potential photo-buyer. Not surprisingly a host of budget-priced stock libraries, the Microstocks, have sprung up to cater to those markets with vast images collections at heavily discounted prices. Publishers can buy images of every imaginable subject for a couple of dollars, or less, with many Microstock photographers happily accepting as little as 25-50 cents per sale. With the advances in digital photography, virtually any photographer with the basic skills and consumer equipment is able to supply images to these Microstocks. And for better or worse, there's no shortage of photographers prepared to deal on those terms. In fact, for a long time there were a lot of photographers swearing there was big money to be made giving their images away for less than a dollar, but these days they've gone very quiet. I'm hopeful we might have come the full circle now. I'm hoping the competition has reached a level that makes it tough for the average photographer to generate consistent returns with Microstock and those with real talent might start looking for other options when deciding where to sell photography. Now I'm sure there are some photographers still doing quite well with Microstock, but you can be sure they're going to be very talented photographers with massive image collections, who are constantly creating new and unique material. They'll be putting real time and effort into researching new markets, and they're probably investing seriously in shooting new material. The days of any photographer just submitting thousands of average images to a stock photo library and making big money are long gone and the super low Microstock payouts mean it's only going to be harder there. Another big problem that's emerged in recent years with the Microstock libraries is, as soon as a savvy photographer does come up with a stock photo concept or idea that actually sells well, it's almost guaranteed to be copied by hundreds of other less creative photographers. The libraries facilitate this, publishing live lists of photos that are being downloaded the most, so the lazy photographer can just throw together a quick copy, upload it and cash in on the other photographer's creativity. The library won't care ... it's just more marketable content for them, but the photographer who did all the work has to be left wondering why they bothered! So even if you do the hard-yards and find some untapped market, then put in the time and effort to produce high quality, original commercial content, chances are you won't have the niche to yourself for long. If it works, it will be copied. Guaranteed! So the question has to be asked: if you have to put that kind of time and effort and money into creating new stock images, does it really make sense to give them away for a few dollars each? Wouldn't it make more sense to sell stock photos where you face less competition and you actually get paid a fair and reasonable price, every single time someone uses your image? A lot of photographers are starting to think so, and more and more, when people ask where to sell photography online, the answer is 'find a rights managed library'. With rights managed you license the image for a specific use for a specific period of time. The photo buyers only pay for the rights they need, so it's a better deal for them. And you're getting a real paymentso it's a better deal for you as well.  Instead of making 50 cents or less for someone using your image, you might make $100-$200 or more. Sometimes a lot more! Since you control the usage terms as well as the sales, you can offer the photo buyers a history of the image, and offer those who need it, first rights, exclusive use, and all the other assurances the high-end users insist on for the best paying jobs. So if you're serious about selling photographs online, you really need to decide what sort of photography business you want... One where you compete with millions of other photographers to mass produce images for a market that expects to buy your photos for a few bucks each? Or one that caters to a less crowded market that actually values your skills and creativity, and is prepared to pay well for quality images that really speak to their audience? Either way, you have to do the work if you plan on selling photographs online. The business has changed and the stock photo sales are going to go to the savvy photographers who research their markets and create high quality original material. So in the end, isn't it just a question of choosing what you want to get paid for all that work? http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=808 Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:46:33 GMT Travel photography is probably one of the most misunderstood fields of commercial photography. For most photographers, the only requirement for shooting travel images is for them to be somewhere new, but the reality is quite different. The good news is, this mass misconception means there's great opportunity for the photographers who do get it right. Travel photography is as commercial as it gets. Travel photography buyers desire images that actively sell the destination or the experience. They need the kind of photography that engage the reader and leave them needing to do it all themselves. Usually, that means using images of people enjoying the destination or experience. The difficulty they are facing is most photographers are only going to be shooting holiday snaps, rather than commercial travel images. Most photographers think about travel photography simply as images taken on their own travels, and little thought is given to the end use. They shoot whatever they see, as they see it, and focus on the physical features alone. As a result they're simply documenting their travels, making an individual record, with very little thought of sharing and selling the experience itself. Don't misunderstand me here: the physical record type shots can and do sell: the iconic landmarks, the famous vistas, the local wildlife, the buildings, bridges and skylines. There's a definite demand for each one of them, but when you start researching the market you will soon see that these only make up a small part of the images used. The great majority of images used in travel guides and brochures fall into the travel-lifestyle category: travellers experiencing the destination. This supply-and-demand problem is compounded by the undeniable fact that everybody shoots the iconic shots, and they have been shooting them since cameras were invented. It is also fair to say that most travel photography publishers are also going to have their own in-house collection of the iconic shots they use most frequently. So if that is all you shoot, you are going to face massive competition for a tiny piece of the potential sales. So when you start shooting travel stock images that focus on the visitor-experience, you are targeting a gap in the market with much lower competition and noticeably higher demand. If you can then create the types of images that engage the viewer and fire their imagination... making them want to experience it for themselves then you're shooting commercial travel photography. The added bonus of concentrating on the visitor experience is that as soon as people are included, photo-buyers are going to want current images ... ie images showing contemporary hairstyles & fashions. So these are the shots that are always in demand and can't always be found in the in-house collection. The destination could be a 2000 year old landmark that's been photographed a million times, but the people viewing it will need to be contemporary, so there will always be a genuine demand for fresh new images of the feature. Most of this is straightforward common-sense, once you take a Client-centric approach and plan & shoot for your end-user instead of yourself. Research your destinations, identify the landmarks and icons, but take a little more time to completely understand the total experience of the destination and make it your goal to capture & convety that . The good news is, most photographers won't do any of this, so any time you do it, you'll be stepping out from the crowd. And when you create the kind of travel images that the audience wants to immerse themsevles in to experience it all for themselves, you will be shooting the sort of travel images that sells themselves. http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=806 Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:25:51 GMT Selling photographs online has become big business in recent years: digital SLRs keep getting cheaper and the images they produce keep getting better. It seems everyone on the planet must own a camera by now. Given the recurring financial crises of the last few years, it's no surprise that more and more camera owners are looking to sell photography online for some extra money. For professional photographers trying to make a living selling photography online all this extra competition from the hobbyists has made life pretty tough. Hundreds of websites have sprung up offering photographers the ability to give their work away for nothing more than small change and the thrill of making a sale. The market has been flooded with cheap images and many photo buyers have come to view stock photography as just another commodity to be sourced at the lowest possible price. It isn't all bad news though. In a lot of ways we've now come the full circle, and an increasing number of photo buyers are showing a renewed interest in features other than price alone. For the savvy photographer, this offers a means to stand out from the crowd and define a niche of their own. Specialised Content: There is such a thing as too much choice, and specialist photo buyers have had enough of the massive stock libraries with millions of images. Many of the photo buyers we speak to are always looking for new collections that focus on their interests, and will happily search 4-5 specialist libraries rather than one mega collection. Most stock photography articles will tell you to start by applying to the 4-5 biggest stock libraries for the maximum exposure but that's only half the story. Those sites might get the most exposure, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a share of it. Rather than join millions of other photographers at the big-four stock libraries, you'll do much better to find 3-4 boutique stock libraries that you can submit to. Pick one photo stock agency as your main web presence and use the others to repost your content (photographic and written) and add substance to your internet footprint. Original Content: If you look around, you'll find a heap of experts who'll tell you the quickest way to make money with microstock is to study the photos that sell best on the major libraries, and copy them. It's quite possible this could work for a while, but you only have to see the masses of weak images of popular subjects to understand why buyers are sick of it. Much better that you adopt a Client-centric approach and think about your end user, who they are and what they actually need the stock photos for, so you can then set about producing images they can use. The best thing about this approach is, you can still check the major libraries to see what's selling, but then, instead of simply copying what you see, you can identify the messages and concepts that the buyers need associated with the subjects, and from there create something new and unique that you know your buyers will need.. Personal Service:In an industry where the buyers were always racing to meet an impossible schedule, instant downloads must have seemed a Godsend, for a while. As one of the few stock photo libraries that didn't offer instant downloads, we certainly felt the pressure when we started out. We soon realised though that the photo buyer's top priority was to 'find the image' and as long as a reliable delivery followed, 'instant' wasn't really an issue. In reality, photo buyers are creative people who enjoy interacting with other creative people. These days we're still finding plenty of high-end photo buyers who are happy to take a little more time and enjoy the 'photo research' journey, dealing directly with the photographers, as long as it's professional and efficient. So however and wherever you choose to sell stock photos, make sure you make yourself available to photo buyers. They'll appreciate it and once the connection is made, they will come back to you time and time again. Value Your Work & Your Time When you approach stock photography on this basis, you're actually positioning yourself as a high-end provider, which helps you stand out from the crowd even further. Without going into the whole rights-managed vs royalty-free argument, there are millions of photographers on the internet these days queueing up to give their work away for peanuts, so it you follow the crowd you'll be facing enormous competition for the smallest of returns. By comparison, the rights-managed market is much less competitive and pays considerably more, so if you have the high quality, original content, then it makes perfect sense to carve out your own niche there instead. Specialist photographers have always prospered and in the current market place it's more important than ever that you focus on doing a few things exceptionally well rather than a jack-of-all-trades approach. When you specialise your work interests, you narrow your market and you're able to really get to know your buyers. This in turn allows you to understand their needs and create the unique high quality photography that will make you stand out from the crowd. And if you then back every sales lead with exceptional personal service, you'll soon build a Client list that will come to rely on you as a creative partner they want to work with.Looking for a platform to sell stock photography online? We offer a whole-business approach to selling photography and we're always keen to hear from talented new photographers. Please check out our photographer's information page, and if it sounds like an approach that could work for you, pelase register and submit an application. http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=749 Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:12:24 GMT I was shocked to discover recently that 2.5 percent of the visitors passing through GlobalEye & OzImages are using mobile phones. That's over 500 hundred people a month, trying to view a stock photo library website on a 2 inch phone screen! To be honest, we'd looked at the idea of setting up a mobile version of our website a couple of years back, but we pretty much decided it wasn't necessary ... surely anyone serious about searching for photos would do it on the proper website?I'm sure most photographers with their own websites have thought much the same thing. Well that might have been the case in the past, but it's clear now that things have changed. 2.5 percent and growing tells me it's time to start exploring the options and making sure were offering these visitors what they need. Fast. So I just got together with a friend to put together a simple system to let any photographer set up a mobile-friendly website in just a few minutes.   >> http://www.photosites.mobi There's no programming or HTML knowledge required, and we take you through the process step by step. Everything is hosted on our server, and we even show you how to detect when your desktop website visitors are using mobile devices, and automatically redirect them to your mobile site. If you have a have a website of your own, I really encourage you to look this over sooner rather than later. I think it's something we're all going to need before too long, but even more importantly, I think this offers enormous opportunity to those photographers who get in early.There's a free report there you can grab as well: Creating Effective Mobile Websites. We wrote it just for photographers and even if you decide against setting up your own mobile website just yet, it will save you a bit of leg-work later on.   >> http://www.photosites.mobi Anyone already have a mobile website for their photography business? Thinking about it? Not convinced? Please share your thoughts below! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=744 Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:31:29 GMT Anyone who's been around GlobalEye-OzImages for any length of time will have heard me go on about 'backlinks'. After your basic on-page SEO it is the most important factor in getting good listings in the various search engines.  So for a photographer with a presence on a photographer portal site such as GlobalEye, where you have limited control over the on-page SEO factors, building backlinks is a simple and effective way  to increase your exposure right across the web. We spend a lot of time and effort (and money) developing good links back to our websites on your behalf, and currently have about 17,000 backlinks pointing to OzImages and over 6,000 more pointing to the newer GlobalEye website. Interestingly, Google only recognises about 2/3 of these. So it's important to remember, your link profile is just as important as the total volume. All the search engines use various mechanisms and algorithms to assess your link profile and decide how much weight to give them when assessing the value of your page. One way links are better than link swaps, a link from a page with hundreds of other links is near worthless, and a link from a known search-engine-spammer will actually do more harm than good. So the number one rule for building backlinks is simple ... The absolute very best way to get quality backlinks is simply to publish high quality content that other website owners will want to link to. That way you get the double benefit of quality content on your website, and a mix of quality one-way links pointing to it. And while that's all good in theory, it takes a long time to see results, so it pays to keep an eye out and add your own links when the opportunity presents. This can be time-consuming, so I'd usually suggest you keep your eye out for 'quality' opportunities and don't get bogged down trying to submit your links to every site out there ... quality rules over quantity every time! Here's a few suggestions on how to identify quality backlink opportunities. As always, there are exceptions, so be sure to read through to the end! PageRank This is the holy grail ... if a site that has a higher rank than yours links to you, then it's basically passing along some 'link-juice' and telling Google et al that maybe you're a bit more important than your current PageRank suggests. So any webmaster out there is permanently on the look out for links from any website with a good PageRank. In fact, I wouldn't bother submitting a link to any site that didn't have a PageRank of at least 1. In fact, these days, I'll rarely stop what I'm doing for anything less than a PR 3. I might bookmark the PR1 & PR2 sites to 'get back to', but only if they're relevant. (See below ...) So how do you check PageRank? Well there's plenty of handy-free websites you can type a URL into and find out, but I prefer to have the info there as the page loads ... so I use a Firefox Add-on called SEO Status PageRank/Alexa Toolbar. It's a free download and near installation, and displays the PR and the Alexa rank on every site I visit. The added bonus of having the info there is, I'm rarely ever looking for link sites these days but often I'll spot a good PageRank on a website I'm already on and decide to look around and see if a backlink is possible! Of course the higher the PageRank, the harder it is to get a link, but it can be done if you're persistent. Look for relevant forums to join, comment on blog posts, set up profiles, post content of your own ... just be sure you are adding relevant, valuable content or ideas that you would add, even if there was no backlink option!  (Anything else is spam!) .Edu & .Gov Domains As a rule, these tend to be considered authority websites, so any backlinks from .Edu and .Gov websites are particularly useful. Part of the reason they're so valuable is because they're so hard to come by. As a guide, of the thousands of backlinks pointing to our two stock library websites, less than 50 are from Gov or Edu domains!  (And that's not through a lack of trying!) Again, the best option is to publish content that people at these kinds of organisations might want to link to ... The other trick is to ask for them. It's not often I'd give away a photo for a publishing credit, but I'd probably consider a serious discount for a publishing credit that includes a permanent link from an Edu or Gov domain. Obviously you should ask for a link from any online use of your photos, but if the buyer is in education or government, consider making it a part of your license conditions ... or be prepared to beg. It will be worth it!  On that note ... if anyone reading this does have access to add a link to www.GlobalEyeImages.com to a Gov or Edu website, it will be great karma and very much appreciated! Relevance: So you might have gathered by now that websites in the first two categories aren't all that easy to find, so if you want to build any sort of quantity, you will need to cast the net a little wider. You do that by looking for relevant/related websites. In short, the website you add a link to should bear some relevance to your website, otherwise it's a waste of time. Google will barely recognise the link and it won't have any major impact on your listings/rankings. The best guide is to simply ask yourself if the average user on the other site is likely to have any real interest in your site?  If you can't imagine any cross-over, save your time and effort! If you think you might get some direct traffic from the link, then submit. A good way for photographers to do this is to search Google for phrases like ... "Submit Photography Link" ... "Add Photography URL" and so on ... you'll find there are literally hundreds of 'photography' directories where you can submit links. And because these are relevant to your website, you can afford to relax the PageRank rule a bit as well. You'll soon spot the tacky directories where someone is out for quick buck ... avoid those and look for the sites where it's clear the operator has a real interest in photography and is serious about developing a useful resource. They are the sites that will eventually establish a good Pagerank and pass some of that link-juice on to you! Again it comes back to avoiding the spammy approach of blanket-submitting links. All the search engines are really trying to do is filter out the weak content and give their users a better search experience. As long as you respect that and always keep your focus on improving the user experience, you'll find the search engines will treat you with much greater respect as well. OK, this has turned out a bit longer than planned, so I'll leave it there. I was going to add a few good sites to add your links, but I'll put them in the comments instead. Please have a look and feel free to add your own ... especially any high PR or Gov or Edu sites where photographers are welcome to add their links! The comment function will strip any html, so just write the domain: ie. www.GlobalEyeImages.com http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=738 Sun, 7 Aug 2011 17:04:08 GMT On average I look at about 25 new photographer applications every month and I've been doing that for almost 10 years now ...  that's about 3000 photographers and 36,000+ photos. I also spend a lot of time each month watching the new images being added to both our stock libraries. Again this amounts to thousands of images each and every year.I can tell you, in amongst all those images there have been tens of thousands of photos that could have been great stock photos with real sales potential, if the photographer had only done their job right. The frustrating part is, in all those cases, the damage was done by a few fairly simple mistakes that could have been easily avoided. Now I'll freely admit that I'm no master photographer ... in fact I've hardly touched my cameras since we started work on OzImages back in 1998 ... but I do know what separates an OK photo from a stock image with real sales potential. So here are three areas where any photographer can take their work to the next level with a simple change to their mind-set.LightingIf I could only make one suggestion, this would be it. Most amateurs only really think about lighting after the sun has gone down. An even then, all they usually do is pop up the flash. Some 'outdoor' photographers might time their work for early morning or late afternoon light, but even then they tend to look at lighting as a separate element of from the image. The pros on the other hand, consider the lighting of their subject, with every single shot. Their focus isn't just on the light, but how the light affects their subject and whether that works for the image they're trying to capture. The pros will consider additional lighting, or shading, on every single shot. It is as much a part of their routine as removing the lens cap.  So make it a part of your pre-shot routine to stop and ask yourself how your subject is lit. Are the key features properly lit? Is there anything you can do to make it better?  Flash might be an option, but so might a reflector, a different camera position, turning on a light ... coming back in a few hours time. Make the lighting of your subject your main concern and your photos will improve dramatically in both quality ... and commercial potential. Nothing kills the commercial prospects for an image as quickly as uneven lighting ... buyers take one look as deep shadows and/or washed out highlights and walk away every time. PatienceIf all you do is capture a visual representation of what's there at the time, you're taking snapshots, and they are a dime a dozen. If you want to capture images that are going to stand out from the crowd -- and sell -- you have to convey a message or a story about that subject to your viewers. So make it a habit to study the subject in detail before you even look through the viewfinder. Work out what it is that you want to convey to your viewers? Conversely, what might your viewer want to know about the subject? What can you capture and convey that the viewer might not know? (Some of the strongest images you'll ever see are revelations rather than simple records). Once you're clear on the key elements of your subject, you can start thinking about the effect different perspectives, techniques and lighting might have on the final image. Then you'll find you're really creating new and unique images with real potential. A lot of amateur images come across as indecisive. You get the feeling the photographer 'knew' there was a photo op there, but rather than dig around a bit and find it, they just kept pressing the shutter hoping to get something. Sometimes they might get lucky, but more often than not, the end result is vague images with a subject lost in the middle-ground, lots of clutter in the background and no clear point of interest in the foreground ... and zero commercial potential. Work out EXACTLY what it is you're trying to say before you start. Then consider your lighting and point of view. Then use your technical skills and creativity to say it.  TechniqueFor all the convenience of automatic-everything cameras, I sometimes wish they were somehow only available after the photographers had passed a manual photography course. Unfortunately, it is so easy and so convenient, that most photographers who start out on automatic never go back and learn how to control those settings themselves.And that means there are a huge number of photographers out there producing images that are almost great ... but because they have absolutely no theory and only very basic technical skills, they'll never know what's holding them back and more importantly, how to correct the problems and start making great images. I see this every week with the membership applications. Shots that could have been perfect if the photographer had only turned off the center weighted auto-focus and paid more attention to their point of interest. Shots that could have been perfect if they'd turned off the preset exposure mode, and thought about their depth-of-field.  Shots that could have been perfect if only they'd thought about the effects of shutter speed ... The other frustration is those photographers who don't even bother to read the manual that came with their camera so they might take full advantage of the features available to them. Here are just a few problems .. and the photographer's explanations ... that I've seen just recently ...1. Great submission of images, but they all had a serious colour cast that even I (seriously color-blind) could spot.  "Yes, I saw something about setting white balance, but figured the factory settings would have it covered..."2. Fantastic subject & compositions, but grainy beyond belief ... "That's probably because I keep the ISO set to 1600 so I don't have to worry about flash using up my batteries ... "3. Fantastic submission ... technical & subject matter perfect for stock, except they were captured as medium jpgs ... "I didn't want to run out of space on my memory stick ... "The last one will sound totally ridiculous to most of us, but unfortunately it's actually a very familiar story around here ... often from 'professionals'. In this case the photographer had a $2000 camera and was shooting hundreds of images every week with real stock potential, if only he'd splurged another $50 on a couple of extra memory cards. The average point-and- shoot these days captures a better quality file than the one this guy was saving! This is an extreme example, but I regularly get a similar response when I ask people why they don't capture RAW or even TIF ... it's almost always to save buying an extra memory card.So the final suggestion here is twofold. First of all, capture as large as possible. Buy some extra memory and use it. That should be common sense for most people. Beyond that, if your entire photography experience is digital-auto, every chance you can, switch back off the auto-everything and learn to do it yourself. Even better, call into the local second-hand shop and pick up an old manual film camera ... they're giving them away these days ... and put a few rolls of film through it. You'll learn more from those 100 shots than a year with your digital auto-everything! OK, that's just a few general ideas to get you started. Next time around we'll cover a few more specific elements we see in the best selling photos and a simple trick to make sure you get them right every time. For now feel free to add your own suggestions below! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=720 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:38:22 GMT Sometimes it seems the Internet was made just for photographers. On a social level it lets us share photos with friends and families, we can get together and talk camera gear and photographic technique, and it helps a lot of us overcome the isolation that often goes hand-in-hand with a photography career. On a professional level, it provides the means to showcase our work to Clients, access new markets and conduct the entire stock photography sales process without leaving our desks. It also offers the means to monitor trends, see what our peers are doing and see what our customers are buying. And for all that, the sad reality is, for many photographers, the pure volume of information and options becomes more of a hindrance than a help. They only have so many hours in a day, and deciding what's worth their attention and what isn't becomes a chore, and as a result they tend to brush over the important stuff and get way-laid with the trivial. Well if you ever find yourself in that situation, here's a bare-bones list of the 5 essential website types every freelance photographer should have bookmarked and should be using regularly. 1. Stock Photo Library Few freelance photographers wouldn't have a stock library presence of some sort, but plenty of part-timers still leave it as something to do later when they're more established, or have more photos. These days that's just not necessary and the best way to sell photographs online is to start early and add to your stock catalog  consistently over time. Stock photography is a long-term business though, so do take your time and find a library that suits your work and your style. Make sure it leaves you in control of your work and doesn't expect you to give up your rights, or sell your work for peanuts, just to be involved. 2. Photo Price Calculator To that end, make sure you bookmark a good online stock photo price calculator.We al lused to manage this with hard-copy books, but things move fast these days and new types of usage emerge every week, so a live stock photo price calculator is essential.. Be warned though, most people are blown away when they first use these... simply because most photographers seriously undervalue their work. If you've never looked at a Stock Photo Price Calculator before, I'd suggest you make a list of 5-10 of your main markets, and then list a couple of 'average' usages for each. Then open the calculator and work out a price for each usage. Keep it handy and you've got a ready-reference guide if a Client ever puts you on the spot, but more importantly, you'll get a whole new insight to the value of your photography. 3. Photography Business News & Information If you're keen -- and you don't mind sitting at a computer all day -- you can subscribe to dozens of different newsletters and services to try and start up to date with goings on in the industry. Or you can find a single Photography/Business site that does it all for you. There are quite a few really good websites out there if you go looking. My suggestion is to check them out and follow a couple until you find one that does the job right for you, your field of work, your interests, your location etc. The good ones will give you all the important stuff in a nutshell, the include links for more information if you need it, so you can stay up to date and get all the info you need, without the information overload. 4. Shopping & Auction Sites It's no secret, photographers are gadget-junkies! We're always searching for that next piece of must-have camera equipment that we simply cannot function properly without. The fact we've already functioned quite alright for years without it doesn't matter... once we know it's out there we have to have it. Sound familiar? The flip side is, quite often we've got just as much gear we should really get rid of... and again, if the internet was made for us then I'm sure the creators of eBay are either photographers themselves, or they have a few in the family. So bookmark it and use it. If you have a cupboard of old gear that's not been used in years get it out and post it, while it still has some value! 5. Online Photographer Community Freelance photography is often a solo career so the ability to interact with your peers online should not be taken lightly. We all see hundreds of images on any given day, but to be able to look at new images and talk about them with other photographers is priceless. Pre-Internet, it was something that only happened at Camera Clubs or waiting around at the Pro-Lab ... but the online forums and portal sites now give working photographers to ability to interact with their peers, share ideas and information and really grow as artists. And if you're not making good use of them, you're quite possibly stagnating! Well that's my top 5 must-bookmark website types. The internet offers us the opportunity to 'round-out' our photography businesses in ways we never could before, so make sure you are getting maximum value from the time you spend online... and remember all work and no play, makes for a boring photographer! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=639 Sun, 12 Jun 2011 11:07:10 GMT OK you should have a small list of urls by now. Make sure they are 'complete' and include the http://. Some might have an XML suffix others an RSS suffix, but it's could be just about anything. As an example, here's a few from my Globaleye list: http://www.globaleyeimages.com/RSS/recent.asphttp://www.globaleyeimages.com/RSS/stockphotography.asphttp://www.globaleyeimages.com/RSS/buystockphotos.asphttp://www.globaleyeimages.com/RSS/photographers.asphttp://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=globaleyeimages http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?id=152570728103443&format=rss20 http://globaleyeimages.tumblr.com/rss http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/Yorkey181/videos.rss http://archive.aweber.com/globaleyephoto.rss Some might be quite lengthy. So be careful to only add one to each line. Once you have your list, you have three options: manual submissions, a submission service or submission software. Manual Submissions: Most people aren't going to bother with this but I'd suggest that's an excellent reason for you do this at least once. Automatic submissions are great, but if you can get listed on sites/services that don't accept auto submissions, you're going to stand out from the crowd. There's an excellent blog post below that lists the top 55 places to submit RSS Feeds and it's really worth getting your blog/rssfeed listed on each of those manually before you start. http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ There are some real gems in that lot, and getting listed on each of them would be a great return for a couple of hour's work! Many of these sites will offer paid listings. They are quite cheap so it can look appealing, but mostly you'll find these sites have no PageRank to speak of. (If they do, a front page listing won't be cheap!) So the best option might be to watch your traffic logs, and if one site stands out as sending you some quality traffic, consider an upgrade then. Submission Services: There are a number of services out there that will submit your RSS feeds to a large number of sites, some for free, some for a fee.Generally speaking, I've always found these kinds of services a bit frustrating. The cheap or free services only submit to a handful of sites, while the more professional services cost as much as some decent submission software. So personally, I'd prefer to pay once for a software submission program than pay every time for a service or try to combine several services. That said, if you prefer to out-source, there are a heap of good, fast submission services out there and it could be a good one-off option to get your website/feeds out there and listed. Here's one that's pretty good value ... (50 submissions for $16.50) http://www.best-web-directories.com/blog-submission-service.htm As mentioned ,there are some free services out there if you prefer to go looking just do a Google search for 'Submit RSS Feed' and the like, and see what comes up! RSS Submission Software: These days I use a commercial application since I'm doing a lot of URLs to a lot of sites on a regular basis, but for most people wanting to submit a short list a few times a year, the following free program submits to 16 sites in a semi-automatic mode. http://www.allscoop.com/rss-submit.php It's fairly self-explanatory once you install it. Just follow the prompts to add each of your RSS feeds, select all services and let it run. Some feeds will require you to solve the 'Captcha' or select categories, so you do need to monitor it. Again there are plenty of other options. Do a search for 'RSS Feed Submission Software' and you'll see what I mean. There may be some I've missed, but I've never found a free option that submits to more than 15-20 sites. Pinging Your RSS FeedsPinging is basically a process where you let the major search engines know that there's new content to index. It's not guaranteed that they'll index it, or even that they'll come, but it works well enough, often enough to make it worth doing regularly.As a guide, if you're adding new 'content' to your web presence at least once a month, I'd suggest you submit/resubmit your RSS Feeds 2-3 times a year and use the service below to ping your list of feeds about once a month.  http://www.bulkping.com/ Obviously if you're not publishing new content that often, there's no value in  pinging your feeds. Instead just make a point of pinging your feeds when you do add new content. Final Thoughts: As with most website promotion strategies, the key is content. Most legitimate web traffic/promotion strategies only work if you're adding real content with genuine interest value on a regular basis. If you just try to submit junk feeds for the sake of it, it will backfire. Google and the rest have a pretty good nose for sniffing out spam submissions, and once they decide that's all you've got to offer, it is incredibly hard to change their minds. So no matter what traffic or promotion strategies you're working on, always make it a priority to be adding valuable content that your visitors will appreciate. If you do that consistently, you'll get better rankings and traffic without trying, and any promo work you do complete will be ten times more effective! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=613 Wed, 8 Jun 2011 16:22:42 GMT Finding you haven't got a lot of RSS feeds to work with?Here's a little trick to help you automate and leverage the process using a blogging site called www.Posterous.com The short version is you can post to your Posterous Blog by email, and once you set it up, it will automatically repost those items to a host of other social media accounts There's currently 26 different services listed and you can actually have multiple accounts in several of them, so in theory you could set up 30+ different accounts and have every blog post you write automatically posted to each of them! That would be overkill though. Social Media accounts work best when you use the service regularly and personally. So what I'll suggest is that you only use this strategy to automate the work you'd be prepared to do manually. ie. Only post to the sites you actually visit regularly. So to get started. Go take a look at the service, sign up - it's totally free and set up your blog. You can added a couple of 'web pages' so adda bit of a bio and some sample images.  Make sure you link to your other website/pages and post a short article to your blog to test it out. It's worth noting that the 'autoposts' will link back to your Posterous website, so you want to spend a little bit of time making sure that 1. looks fantastic and 2. has plenty of links back to your main website! Make sure you use a relevant keyword phrase for your username. (Try and slip photos or images in there if you can!) You have the option to use your own domain name if you like. If you do, you can register a domain here for about half the price of the service they offer! Once you're all set up, have a look for the Add A Service button under the Autopost tab. That will open a list of all the social media accounts you can post to automatically. Start with those you already use and set them up with permission to post to your account. Then you can set up accounts on any other Social Media Services that interest you. As you set up each of these sites, make sure you copy the relevant RSS feed URL to your plain text list. When it comes submission time, there is little difference between submitting one feed URL or submitting 20, so it makes sense to get as many as possible set up and then complete the process just the once for all of them. http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=612 Wed, 8 Jun 2011 13:06:09 GMT If you have any sort of photo web site - whether it's your own photographer website or simple a presence on some other sites - then chances are you already have all the ingredients on hand to take advantage of one of the most overlooked and most powerful web marketing tools. RSS Feeds are pure gold for anyone trying to promote a website and they are particularly useful for photographers. The best past of it is, most people don't understand them, so it's a great way to stand out from the crowd. RSS Feeds 101 RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is system used to automatically publish updated content on the web in a format (a new Feed) that makes it easy for other websites to republish the content for their own readers. Interested visitors can 'subscribe' to the Feed and read it in an RSS Reader or an 'Aggregator' . Aggregators can be web based, desktop software or even mobile based, and allow the user to follow feeds from multiple websites in one easy location. So rather than visiting a dozen different websites to see 'what's new', the visitor can simply open their newsreader and have the updates come to them. RSS Feeds As A Marketing Tool RSS Feeds offer multiple benefits for website owners. First of all, it's becoming a very popular way for people to keep up to date with changes on their favourite blogs and websites, so it's an important news option to offer your website visitors. Where it comes into it's own is for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), in particular, for getting new content listed in the major search engines and generating backlinks. RSS feeds are written to a format that is search-engine-friendly, so once Google, Yahoo etc 'find' your RSS feed, they'll come back regularly to look for updates and add new content to their index. And since so many webmasters don't understand RSS, this is easily the fastest way I know to get new web content indexed. It gets even better though: You can also submit your RSS Feeds to hundreds of Aggregator sites across the internet and they will list your feed, it's description and a link back to your website. So if you have multiple feeds, you can generate hundreds of high PR (Google PageRank) backlinks with a single submission. If you're new to SEO, don't let that intimidate you. There's just two things to understand ... The more sites link to you, the more important the search engines will think you are and the higher they'll rank you in the results. And if those links come from sites that the search engines already consider 'important', you'll do even better. And the good news is, the aggregator sites usually have pretty good PageRank! Putting RSS Feeds To Work The first thing you need to do is make a list of the feeds you already have, and most people usually have a whole lot more than they realise. If you have a blog, you can simply click on the RSS Icon and copy the URL from the page that opens.If you have your own website you probably have 'something' built-in, just look for the orange & white logo! If not ask your webmaster or look for RSS options in your documentation.If you have a presence on a photography portal, look for links to news needs, rss feeds, live updates, recent photos etc. Most will offer at least one or two. Here's a step-by-step to show you how to find the RSS feed on any website or blog.GlobalEye photographers will find a full list of their GlobalEye/OzImages newsfeeds in their Marketing Center. Copy each of the URLs into a plain text file - Notepad or SimpleText - one to a line. Then go and have a look at any social media accounts you might have. Here are a few to give you the general idea ...Facebook. Look for the Subscribe Via RSS link, bottom left hand margin.Twitter has removed the RSS icon from your pages, but you can still view(and submit your feed using the link below ... remember to change the globaleyeimages account name for your own: http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=globaleyeimagesFlickr: Open your PhotoStream & look for the link at the bottom left of the page.YouTube: Use the link format below changing the username to your own. http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/USERNAME/videos.rss You'll usually find a feed of some sort for ANY social media or blog account you have, so it really is worth taking some time to find them all and make a list before you go any further. As a guide, we currently promote 37 feeds for GlobalEye and 32 for OzImages and we submit those 2-3 times a year to a list of over 100 aggregator websites. That's 69 x 100 links! Are you starting to see the power of this approach? So we'll leave it there for now and let you go gather your newsfeeds. Next time we'll show you a few options for submitting them quickly and easily for maximum benefit so don't put it off. http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=23 Tue, 3 May 2011 11:32:01 GMT I've had a few questions lately about filesizes and camera specs, and what's the minimum required for stock, so I thought I'd run through it briefly for everyone. First up I'll make the disclaimer that I'm dealing with hundreds of photographers, each with different makes and models of camera, so I don't make any attempt to keep up with the latest specifications for any specific model. Life's far too short to even try! It's also worth noting, 'megapixels' is a marketing term and means very little to photo buyers. They don't give a hoot about your camera specifications. They only want to know about the image you can supply and whether it's suitable for the job at hand. So that's what we need to focus on. At GlobalEye, we generally recommend to photographers that, as a minimum, they should be able to provide a file that can be printed at 300dpi, to a full page size, ie 10" x 8". So in pixel dimensions, that simply means you need a file that is 3000px (10 inches x 300dpi) x 2400px (8 inches x 300dpi). In practice, we find that is ample for the majority of sales going through our library. In fact, the majority of images we sell are reproduced at a half page or less!  But that doesn't necessarily mean you can make a living with a low end point-and-shoot. Because we're licensing images under a RM (rights managed) model, the value of the sale is based on the usage ... and generally speaking, larger repros are going to demand a higher payment. So the problem you face is, if you're only shooting the small images you're not even in contention when the larger sales come around. Here's a quick example ... let's assume we;ve got 3 photographers shooting similar images with pro gear, high-end consumer gear and compact digital gear. They each get 10 leads where they have the content the buyer desperately wants ... Photographer A is shooting large files on professional gear and makes a sales for all ten leads as show below ... 6 x 1/2 Page Images         AT   $200 = $12002 x Full Page Images        AT   $400 =   $8002 x Large Format Repros AT   $600 = $1200... 10 sales for a total of $3200 in revenue. Not a bad month. Now Photographer B has the high end consumer gear and can supply all but the 2 largest images. He only misses out on 2 sales, (20 percent ) but loses $1200 (37 percent of the income). And it should be pretty obvious, that Photographer C trying to make a go of it with low end gear might be able to supply the half page images, but has effectively shut themselves out of 40 percent of the sales and 42 percent of the income.The takeaway here should be obvious ... capture as large as possible to maximize your potentialCan Med-Low Res Images Sell? OK, but what about all those images from your early digital cameras that are smaller than this ... should you throw them out or can they actually sell as stock? A lot of people have some serious collections of images taken on older digital cameras or compact digital cameras, and they'll often ask whether it's worth submitting those to our stock library. As a guide I usually suggest only the very best, and only if they are honestly exceptional or somehow unique. By all means sort them, edit them and catalogue them, but don't waste time submitting them all. Pick out the best 1-2 shots of each subject that have real commercial potential. Submit those with a caption-note that more are available and store the rest. Then use the time saved to get out and shoot new images with broader potential. If a Client sees you have 1-2 images of a subject they want, they'll automatically assume you have more and ask to see them. Alternatively, if there's no interest in the subject you haven't wasted too much time on it. Stock photography is a volume business, but it's because of that you can't afford to waste time and effort on images which aren't likely to generate a reasonable return. Whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of submitting anything and everything you've got, just to build up numbers. Your time is far too precious. Capturing The Largest Possible Image The message here should be clear enough ... you should ALWAYS capture the largest possible image to ensure it has the best possible sales potential. Storage is cheap, so capture large every time. For most people that will mean shooting RAW files. If your camera captures RAW, learn how to use it and incorporate it as a simple step in your workflow. RAW is far from standardized, so it's extremely unlikely that a buyer will ever ask you for a RAW file, but you will get a larger, better quality image file if you use it. The theory goes something like this ... All digital cameras capture image info in RAW format and will either save as RAW (if your camera has that option) or convert in-camera to TIF or JPG. If you do the conversion in-camera, quite often the processor in your camera has to throw away a certain amount of image data to get the job done. As a general guideline, he cheaper the camera, the less grunt it's got for this processing work, so the more data will be lost. On the other hand, your desktop computer and raw conversion software have much more grunt than your digital camera, so no data is discarded if you capture and export RAW files from your camera. There are some exceptions when you start looking at the high-end professional gear but as a rule of thumb, you will get a better end product if you leave the conversion and processing until the file is on your computer. If your camera doesn't offer the RAW format, the next best option is TIFs. These are uncompressed image files -- so the conversion is done in camera but there's no further data loss that might occur with a compressed JPG file. There is some debate about uncompressed JPGs, and some people/manufacturers will tell you there's no loss of data with high-quality/uncompressed JPGs, but if a buyer asks me for an uncompressed file I am always going send a TIF, so it makes sense to capture and store your master copies in that format in the first place. The exception might be if I'm in a situation where I've got limited access to download images to a computer and I'm running short on storage, but it would have to be extremely remote and I'd still be kicking myself for not being more organised. Like I said earlier, storage is cheap these days so as long as you've got battery power to shoot images, you should make sure you have the cards to store them or the means to transfer the contents to other storage devices. Software For Upsizing There are a few options available for upsizing your images to something more useful, and this is great for one-off jobs, but it's not something I'd recommend for a large collection of low res images though. At Global Eye we actually recommend to new our new Members that they download a demo of our preferred program -- http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/suite/perfect-resize/?ind  (Previously Genuine Fractals) -- and get familiar with it, so they know just how big they can go if a Client comes knocking. We've seen some great results with this, including a 35mm scanned image that was upsized to over 750mb for use on the side of a fleet of semi-trailers! We've also seen a number of full- and double-page sales of images that have been upsized from files output by compact digital cameras. It's definitely not something you'd want to do for all your small files, but it is good to know what's possible ... before someone comes asking. OK, this has turned out a bit longer than I planned so I'll leave it there. To wrap up, don't ever go throwing away all your smaller digital files, but do be very selective about which ones you invest time on trying to market. In most cases you'll find it more productive -- and a lot more fun -- spending that time shooting new images! Feel free to post your comments below. http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=22 Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:22:20 GMT One simple thing every photographer can do ... and should do ... every time you make a sale, is ask for a backlink as part of your photo credit. This won't work for all situations, but these days a huge proportion of sales do have some sort of online component, so these links could really add up to something significant, if you make it a condition of using your photos online. You only have to look at the stats for the likes of Getty and iStockPhoto ... they have 73 million and 25 million backlinks respectively. And that sort of link-popularity plays a huge part in placing them on page one of Google for any sort of stock photography search. Those links didn't happen because other webmasters decided it would be nice thing to do ... they happened because those two libraries make it a standard condition of using any of their images online: that the photo credit include a link to their website.  Every photographer out there should be insisting on those exact same terms!The good part about this strategy is the viral effect ...  the more sales you make, the more links you get ... the more links you get, the higher you rank in the search engines ... the higher you rank, the more visitors you get ... the more visitors you get, the more sales you make ... and on it goes. So add a clause to your standard licensing terms for use NOW, requiring a link to your website page for any online use. Make sure you specify the exact page they should link to and use the full URL.  For example GlobalEye Photographers should link to:http://globaleyeimages.com/portfolio/YOURPAGENAMEYou should also specify how long the link must remain visible: "3 months or as long as the image is published on their website, or whichever is longer". This is super simple and you only need to do it once, so do update you Terms & Conditions template now! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=21 Tue, 8 Mar 2011 16:04:15 GMT With over 100 million photographers listed in Google alone, the average freelance photographer has their work cut out for them if they're ever going to stand out from the crowd. Professional photographers have always known that specialization is the single most effective strategy when it comes to selling photos online, you need to take it two steps further ... Keyword Research & Search Engine OptimisationWe've put together a couple of videos, checklists and step-by-step instructions to show you exactly how we do it, and how you can apply the same processes to your own business. It doesn't matter what fields you work in, or how long you've been at it, these are simple systems you can use today to start finding high value Clients for your photography business.Please enjoy ... and remember to post some feedback when you're done! Keyword Research & Search Engine OptimisationPS. The good news is, once you have these simple systems in place, you can market yourself as a specialist in 100 different fields if you want ... all with minimal time & effort! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=8 Mon, 6 Dec 2010 19:59:21 GMT Every year as soon as the shops start to display all their Christmas wares, I start getting emails from photographers wanting to know what subjects they can start shooting to make some holiday sales. These emails have been coming thick and fast this year, so I've put together a short list of ideas for interested photographers. Unfortunately it's probably too late to expect any sales this year, but the good news is, with a little planning you can get some highly marketable images ready for next year. Around here photo-buyer interest for Christmas/Holiday subjects usually peaks back in July-September, so as always, the key is to plan ahead! That said, here are four top holiday subjects that our photo buyers look for every year. Remember, buyers might search for subjects, but they buy the message, so most of these are all about developing a visual story line, though there are some simple icon shots you can be grabbing as well. The good news is, a lot of the shots can be taken any time of year! 1. Family Groups in a Holiday Setting Here the key is natural but professional: natural in that your subjects aren't just posing for the camera, but professional in that you've controlled the situation and created an image that's more than just a family snapshot. You'll need to arrange your subjects, get them involved in your storyline and you'll almost certainly need supplementary lighting. None of that is going to be easy, especially if you have excited kids in the frame, but if you can convince your family & friends to sit for these shots, you're on a winner. Your best option will usually be to keep the 'trimmings' and set these up after the excitement of the holidays has passed. Alternatively you can make a game of it and have a dress rehearsal before the holidays! Either way, use these holidays to study the images you see used, and make plenty of notes or even start a scrap book. Study the lighting, the compositions, the use of symbols & props. 2. Children Unwrapping Gifts If you can capture the pure excitement of a young child unwrapping a gift; that unique mix of curiosity, anticipation and joy, then you'll have an image that buyers will fight over. Again you'll need to give some thought to the set up. You'll want bright, even lighting. Buyers never want hard shadows or moody lighting on children! You need uncluttered backgrounds that aren't going to distract, and just a few simple props to set the season. For a lot of people this will be far too contrived for a family holiday, so you might prefer to set it up another time if you think your models can carry it! 3. Christmas & Holiday Icons The best guide here is to go visit your local newsagents and flick through some magazines, checking out all the icon shots … these are a staple of almost any magazine you pick up this time of year … those small images editors drop in here and there to set the season and make sure their readers know the publication is getting into the spirit of things. You can add dozens of highly marketable images to your collection here that are also relatively timeless … Christmas trees, Christmas lights, (professionally) wrapped gifts, decorations, table settings, religious icons, seasonal icons for your part of the world. This is a great one to work on after the holidays … or any time of year for that matter. Just put anything of interest aside for a shoot before it gets thrown away or packed up, then spend a day or two on it. Remember to keep your backgrounds plain so they can be easily cropped, and use a white table for smaller items. 4. Festive Food & Beverage This is a tougher one if you're not a specialist, but there are plenty of opportunities for the generalist stock photographer to add some very saleable photos to their catalogue. If you have the experience and the skill, good strong images of traditional Christmas fare will always move, but don't try to do it on the day. The best kept secret of food photography is that the food items in the best images are usually inedible! If you interrupt your own Christmas dinner to try and grab these shots you'll be seriously disappointed in the results (and probably find yourself in major trouble with the cook!) A huge amount of manipulation goes on ... of both the food and the resulting images … so if it's not your specialty, you'll usually find it's much more productive to look for lifestyle 'food & beverage' opportunities. If you turn your camera on the people enjoying the food and drinks we associate with the holidays everything changes. Your main point of interest becomes the people, the food & drinks become symbols or props and you can develop a variety of storylines by focusing on different members of the party. Plan your set-ups to include the iconic food items & decorations on the table, but focus on the interaction between the people in the frame, as they're enjoying the meal. This is a great one to set up after the holidays … just invite some friends around for a late holiday meal, but warn them in advance that you're going to make them work for their supper! Final Considerations When you do get behind the camera, attention to detail is the key. Do plenty of market research: check out the magazines, the catalogues, websites, the junk mail. Anything that comes your way this time of year will usually have a few holiday images included so start a scrap book, then save your decorations and props, and set up a few shoots once things settle down. Lighting and mood is all important. Work out exactly what you're aiming for and make sure you use as many different light sources as necessary to achieve that result. eg. In the moody candlelit shots you often see this time of year, the candles are rarely the primary light source. Use a variety props & symbols carefully to set the scene. Mix them up to shift the emphasis between frames. In your research you'll see some buyers are much less subtle than others, so be sure to do the same in your own compositions. If you want to add highly marketable holiday photos to your catalogue, you'll need to get people into the frame in an interesting and believable way. Get them involved in the situations and never just posing for the camera. Pay close attention to detail and make sure every face in the frame is telling your story. Make sure their faces are well lit. The lighting should be bright and even with no deep shadows or hard lines, even if you're setting is low light! You'll see by now that you're usually going to get better holiday images if you wait until after the holidays! There is little point driving your family crazy trying to compose commercial images in the midst of the holiday celebrations, so grab your holiday shots for your personal archives, but make sure you take some time off and enjoy the holidays! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=7 Wed, 27 Oct 2010 09:36:08 GMT One question I get over and over from photographers is 'what subjects sell best'. Mostly it's photographers thinking about getting into stock photography and wanting to know what subjects they can go out to shoot to make the most sales. Unfortunately it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of stock photography and the difference between Photo Subject and Photo Content. Your Subject is basically whatever you happen to point the camera at to capture a photo. Your Content is the way you combine the physical elements, the intangible elements and your photographic skills/techniques, to create an image. So 100 random photographers could point their cameras at the same Subject and chances are you'd end up with 100 photos with very different Content. Of those 100 photos, my guess is only about 10 percent would have real sales potential. They might all be great photos, but in a commercial context, content rules. The amateur takes a photo of the subject. The professional uses the content to create an image. A good example of this is 'people photos'. Pick up virtually any stock photography book, or read any articles on the subject on the internet, and you'll see it over and over... 'people photos sell'.However, you only need to take a quick look through Flickr or iStockphoto to know that most of the people photos in circulation won't sell in a million years! It's not the Subject that makes the sale, but the Content. It's not What you shoot that determines your sales potential, but How you shoot it. Once you get clear on that -- once you really get it -- you get a whole new perspective on things and virtually anything you look at has real stock potential. All you have to do is start at the other end and think about the possible end-users; what they will need the image to be and do, and suddenly even the most mundane subject can have 'stock' potential. For most photographers making this step up requires a total reversal of their photographic process though. Most photographers tend to approach a photo opportunity looking for some supposedly perfect or ideal photo, according to what they've learned from the camera clubs, photography magazines and critique websites. There is a lot to be said for peer-feedback on your work, but all too often the comments in these forums suggest the 'right' or 'correct' photo could have been achieved "if only the photographer had just done it this way.... " Unfortunately in a commercial situation that severely limits your options. While you'll see some excellent images in any of these forums, chances are they aren't going to be all that commercial. The best example I can think of is the extreme flower macro. These turn up in all the photography magazines and on all the critique sites. Closer to home I see a lot of them in the Membership Applications that come through... at least half of those we look at have at least one flower macro! So it's no surprise that when the average photographer is faced with a flower, they will automatically reach for the macro lens... because that's the 'best' shot they can think of. The funny thing is, I don't recall ever seeing a macro flower shot published... except in the photography magazines. When I think published flower photos I think of the soft-focus single bloom shot for gift cards, the mass of blooms used on seed packets and plant labels, the specimen shot used for text books, the detail shot (not macro) that turns up in gardening magazines... and so on. Getting past this concept of the one perfect image can be quite simple. All it takes is a slight shift in mindset. Instead of approaching each photo opportunity with your photographer mindset (What photo do I want to get here?) train yourself to look at it from a buyer's perspective (What are my Clients going to need from this image?) Before you even look through the viewfinder, stop and think about what buyer-types might be interested in the subject matter, and what each of those buyer-types will need in terms of content. As a result you'll usually come up with multiple buyers types and some very specific information on the type of content they might need. Then you can go to work and use your skills to create images with the kind of content that sells over and over. Try it next time you're out! http://GlobalEyeImages.com/BlogDetail.asp?ID=6 Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:07:15 GMT We've set this blog up to share news & information with ANY interested photographers. There'll be industry news & trends, various sales & marketing strategies for photographers, plus tips and techniques to help you sell more of your photos. We understand that Global Eye Images isn't going to be for everyone, but you can still benefit from our co-operative approach and the many, many years of photography business experience gathered here. Subscribe via your newsreader, or enter your email to the right to have all new posts delivered straight to your in-box!