I will give you 10 best tips that you must consider before shooting stock photos and submitting them to stock picture sites. If you want to make money online with photographs, you don't want them to get rejected. Also because it involves a lot of investment on equipments, models, studios etc.
My years of experience with royalty free images has taught me that there are no limitations. Except for the fact, that you need to be careful about the technical quality and composition of photographs. I will guide you through the most important thumb rules that you must keep in mind, before you think of entering the stock photo business.
1. Use Clean Backgrounds: To save on initial money expenditure, you can start shooting photos mostly against white background. Your photos are going to be used by a pan audience for different advertising purposes and white backdrop gives one a better option to cut the subject out and put it on a desired background. Every detail can be neatly cut out.
2. Keep Subjects Withing Frame: For mid long shots of characters or portraits, try to keep the subjects within the frame at least from left and right sides. Often photographers by nature get excited about composing them tighter to make the clicked frame look better. But that would generally be a mistake for general stock photography. This is because the buyer will then have not much choice to crop it the way he/she wants. For example if you have photo with your subject in the frame cropped from right hand side, then generally the best print layout with that photograph will be right aligned. This might be a disadvantage for you. So leave both edges clean for alignment options to remain open. You can definitely explore all other compositions after you have got your basic shots with a high resell value.
3. Shoot Subjects with Resale Value: If you are starting out, try and shoot subjects that can be resold time and again. Photos that can be used well for a wide range of advertising campaign needs. Not necessary though, but subjects like smiling faces, fitness, business, children, teenagers, expressions are a few of the topics which sell for a variety of advertising concepts. You dont have to follow this as a strict rule, but it can help you sell your photos right from the start. Later on, you may shoot just subjects close to your heart.
4. Shoot Various Compositions at a Time: Make it a point to shoot different compositions of the same frame on the go. For example, you could click mid-long, long, mid-closeup, and extreme close ups one after the other without changing any of your props, setup or lighting. This will help you save money. And you can eventually generate stock for various categories in less amount of time. The idea is to make your photo sessions as worthwhile as possible.
5. Use Different Props for Same Setup: If you are shooting with characters, try and arrange for various props beforehand, that you can easily shoot with the same character and using the same setup. This again will save you enormous amount of time and you can churn out various concepts in one photography session itself.
6. Shoot Various Expressions and Concepts at a time: While shooting with people and faces, always try to shoot various expressions of the same person within the same frame. Suppose you are shooting a model smiling at the camera, make him/her frown, scratch, show anger, love, get ecstatic, scream, shout, sulk and anything you can think of. Your imagination is the only limit.
7. Avoid Brand Names: Never let any brandname or an existing brand identity show up in a photograph ever. It will simply get rejected. It often happens even due to carelessness. E.g., if you are shooting stock photos of an young girl sporting a watch and a t shirt, even a little exposure of the label or the brands in the photo may make it a complete NG. So avoid revealing existing brand names, logos for sure.
8. Research before you shoot: Making money online with stock photos is all about recurral income. Hence, choose your subject wisely. Do some research, before you start shooting. Use free Google keyword tool to find out what keywords are hot in a particular niche that you are confident about. Use sites like Alexa and SEMRush to find out the keywords, the top sites are getting their traffic from. This will help your finalize subjects that can help your earn fast.
9. Make your photos look special: Specially, if you are shooting outdoor photographs, try to make your snaps interesting. Try to consciously look at your subjects from different angles or capture a moment, dynamism that generally an amateur photographer wouldn't think of. Make your picture look special. Remember this will help your photos getting approved and beat the competition from other photo contributors too.
10. Shoot Highest Resolution: Last but the not the least, shoot the highest resolution possible with the best photo camera you can afford. I will definitely suggest you to invest in a professional camera. But whatever gadget you have, doesn't matter as long as you deliver quality stock pictures in the best resolution possible. The last thing you want to do after a shoot is sulk over the resolution and dpi. It's usually hard to re-shoot the same mood all over again. Also remember that higher resolution pictures sell for more, and thus will get your better revenues online.
Hope these quick tips help you in the long run.
My years of experience with royalty free images has taught me that there are no limitations. Except for the fact, that you need to be careful about the technical quality and composition of photographs. I will guide you through the most important thumb rules that you must keep in mind, before you think of entering the stock photo business.
1. Use Clean Backgrounds: To save on initial money expenditure, you can start shooting photos mostly against white background. Your photos are going to be used by a pan audience for different advertising purposes and white backdrop gives one a better option to cut the subject out and put it on a desired background. Every detail can be neatly cut out.
2. Keep Subjects Withing Frame: For mid long shots of characters or portraits, try to keep the subjects within the frame at least from left and right sides. Often photographers by nature get excited about composing them tighter to make the clicked frame look better. But that would generally be a mistake for general stock photography. This is because the buyer will then have not much choice to crop it the way he/she wants. For example if you have photo with your subject in the frame cropped from right hand side, then generally the best print layout with that photograph will be right aligned. This might be a disadvantage for you. So leave both edges clean for alignment options to remain open. You can definitely explore all other compositions after you have got your basic shots with a high resell value.
3. Shoot Subjects with Resale Value: If you are starting out, try and shoot subjects that can be resold time and again. Photos that can be used well for a wide range of advertising campaign needs. Not necessary though, but subjects like smiling faces, fitness, business, children, teenagers, expressions are a few of the topics which sell for a variety of advertising concepts. You dont have to follow this as a strict rule, but it can help you sell your photos right from the start. Later on, you may shoot just subjects close to your heart.
4. Shoot Various Compositions at a Time: Make it a point to shoot different compositions of the same frame on the go. For example, you could click mid-long, long, mid-closeup, and extreme close ups one after the other without changing any of your props, setup or lighting. This will help you save money. And you can eventually generate stock for various categories in less amount of time. The idea is to make your photo sessions as worthwhile as possible.
5. Use Different Props for Same Setup: If you are shooting with characters, try and arrange for various props beforehand, that you can easily shoot with the same character and using the same setup. This again will save you enormous amount of time and you can churn out various concepts in one photography session itself.
6. Shoot Various Expressions and Concepts at a time: While shooting with people and faces, always try to shoot various expressions of the same person within the same frame. Suppose you are shooting a model smiling at the camera, make him/her frown, scratch, show anger, love, get ecstatic, scream, shout, sulk and anything you can think of. Your imagination is the only limit.
7. Avoid Brand Names: Never let any brandname or an existing brand identity show up in a photograph ever. It will simply get rejected. It often happens even due to carelessness. E.g., if you are shooting stock photos of an young girl sporting a watch and a t shirt, even a little exposure of the label or the brands in the photo may make it a complete NG. So avoid revealing existing brand names, logos for sure.
8. Research before you shoot: Making money online with stock photos is all about recurral income. Hence, choose your subject wisely. Do some research, before you start shooting. Use free Google keyword tool to find out what keywords are hot in a particular niche that you are confident about. Use sites like Alexa and SEMRush to find out the keywords, the top sites are getting their traffic from. This will help your finalize subjects that can help your earn fast.
9. Make your photos look special: Specially, if you are shooting outdoor photographs, try to make your snaps interesting. Try to consciously look at your subjects from different angles or capture a moment, dynamism that generally an amateur photographer wouldn't think of. Make your picture look special. Remember this will help your photos getting approved and beat the competition from other photo contributors too.
10. Shoot Highest Resolution: Last but the not the least, shoot the highest resolution possible with the best photo camera you can afford. I will definitely suggest you to invest in a professional camera. But whatever gadget you have, doesn't matter as long as you deliver quality stock pictures in the best resolution possible. The last thing you want to do after a shoot is sulk over the resolution and dpi. It's usually hard to re-shoot the same mood all over again. Also remember that higher resolution pictures sell for more, and thus will get your better revenues online.
Hope these quick tips help you in the long run.
| I recommend you to visit the fastest growing and one of the Best Stock Photo Site in India, which has a vast range of Asian photographs sufficing every visual need. One can buy high resolution Indian images in xsmall, small, medium, large, xlarge sizes and rights managed options too. You may consider picdif.com to buy or sell stock photos as well, because it explores a less competitive niche and India being a huge market for online photos. Does this interest you to know more about photography tricks and techniques? You may subscribe to my photo site offering the latest reviews and news about Making Money With Photos Online. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kris_S |
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