Thirty keys to stock photography

26) Caption editorial concisely but with the maximum information. The ‘Caption’ IPTC field should be used as a sales clincher for editorial stock. If your caption alone was printed below the picture, it should be good enough for publication. Of course some shot
s will just need the name of item or place or a mere three or four words. But if you can write a storytelling, explanatory, enhancing caption then do so.

27) Vary your keywording even if the subject is the same. This depends of the outlet involved, some will keyword for you and others use keyword selection methods which do no-one any good, buyer or seller, even if they keep it simple for the library. For Alamy, for example, if makes sense to have a complete set of keywords in their Comprehensive field which might be identical for five images. The more weighted Essential keyword field could be given just one different keyword for every image, or maybe a set of three in a different combination and order for every image. The better you can diversify keywords, the more potential users are likely to see your work. I’ve realised this far too late, and also find myself simply copying the same keyword sets because time is short and I’m impatient. But I know how it should be done even if I neglect to do it…

28) Upload work to as many tested and proven portals/agencies/outlets as possible, as long as their licensing models and acceptance procedures suit you. If you can, send different images not duplicates. The important thing is ‘tested and proven’. I do not try enough outlets, because there is not enough time. To test an outlet properly, several hundred images need to be filed and left for a year. The temptation to simply leave images on non-performing sites, because ‘it might sell for thousands’, is considerable. I would argue for closing accounts entirely on inactive sites, and making sure you actively promote those sites which work well for you. It’s very hard work to find, and to populate with images, new outlets.

29) Promote your work directly to known customers of your agency! I used to send sets of images out to magazines listed in various freelance newsletters, or found on the bookstalls, with a high success rate. My ‘response to requests’ often worked in the days of physical images presented in filing sheets, with documents and return postage paid. In contrast, I have tried sites which send out picture requests to their photographers, and wasted a great deal of time without success. You can create a better quality JPEG, larger than any preview on a library site, place it an email and create an embedded link so that if this image is clicked on, it leads straight to your image on sale. Do this with the right image, to the email of the right person, at a publication which has a deal with your online agency. It works for a few individuals I’m aware of. It is no accident that the same bylines crop up frequently in the same publications. Guess what? Picture editors actually like using images from photographers they ‘know’. Being proactive can increase your overall sales as well.

30) Ignore everything written by all other stock photographers, photographic journalists and gurus! If they are working stock photographers, they will only be trying to mislead you slightly, being helpful but NEVER letting out what really works. If they are photographic journalists, I can assure you as one myself that they are just making it all up as they go along. That’s what journalists do in every instance which does not involve a direct quotation from a third party or a reference to a source. Now they may be making up good stuff, or complete rubbish. And if they are gurus, by which I mean they make money from providing workshops, insights, 1-to-1, seminars, books, subscriptions or other help-you-get-rich-quick secrets… well, they are helping themselves get rich by NOT doing what they are claiming to be so good at!

I am not entirely serious about this last point. Everyone has something to teach you, and if you ignore every bit of opinion and advice out there, you will be throwing away tons of free help. But you do need to be aware of where each source of help is coming from. You need to weigh up, filter and factor all the advice you get.

Often, the hardest advice to take comes from the agencies or libraries themselves. That’s because you really don’t want to hear it. They know the failings of images and the strengths of them. Most could provide you with a list of subjects they need, instruct you in the exact shooting style required, and tell you how many sales you would make. Welcome to the world of iStockphoto (etc) where thousands of photographers are given exactly this kind of information and do indeed sell many thousands of images – for small change.