To be honest, I think there might be some room for improvement in this area. I�m not sure if I�m understanding the distribution of images in Steve�s portfolio correctly. If his portfolio is over 15k images, and 15% of earnings come from the transportation category, would it be possible to share what percentage of images from his portfolio are transportation-themed? It matters if it's 90% of his images are transportation-based and account for 15% of his earnings, or if 5% of his images are transportation-based and account for 15% of his earnings. That would help us understand the situation better. Without knowing the number of assets per category in his portfolio, it�s difficult to draw any conclusions.

Spike, I agree that the distribution of images would be a big help, but there�s no need to be quite that forceful about it. We all tend to get super defensive if someone comes down on us.

You're right. I've made it more polite.

Thank you for your feedback. I updated the blogpost with portfolio composition information and indeed, it helps a lot!

P.S. I saw your original message and I don't know why this blogpost made you so allienated.

Appreciate the update. I still feel it could be improved by including the assets from Shutterstock portfolio that had not sold even once. The blog post says "On Shutterstock Steve has a bit more than 10,000 images that were sold at least once out of 15,000 total." - in other words, that means one third of the portfolio never sold! It would be interesting to see which categories are the worst sellers.

Furthermore, after adding in the asset #, it would be useful to know the ratio between the earnings and the # of assets. Then it's more clear that transportation-themed photos overperform parks/nature.

I apologize for the harsh words in the original message. It was due to my perception of analysis quality and has nothing to do with you personally.

Quote from: spike on August 16, 2023, 11:06

It would be interesting to see which categories are the worst sellers.

It certainly would and it will be a topic of a future blogpost / research at some point. Stay tuned!

but is the category poor because it has low interest from buyers? or because it's oversaturated with images? or because of quality? etc...

The addition of the portfolio categories intrigues me even more, as the major categories are pretty closely balanced with his sales percentages. I�ve got a significant imbalance in my portfolio sales as I have all of ten industry images but one of them makes up probably 20% of my total sales across my entire portfolio. I got really lucky with it and keeping trying to replicate it unsuccessfully.

Hi,

I do appreciate your post - looks like you post a lot of hard work into it.

However:
a) While it is good for Steve specifically, I think the sample size is too small to necessarily be applicable to other people. You did show a few 'concept' shots - and (without having looked through his entire portfolio) - what Steve defines as a "nature" shot could be completely different from what most people upload as "nature" shots. I.e., looking at the concept shots - he took time to do "good" concept shots (i.e., top of surfboards which have lots of blue sky, conveying a 'summer concept') - which has a lot of utility - as opposed to say surfboards on sand with a beach background (too 'generic', etc).

Maybe he has a really good eye, maybe he does super macro shots (i.e., closeup of a chipmunks face with a blue sky) - which has elements much more useful, than say a 'generic shot' of a chipmunk in a tree.
b) It doesn't necessarily show trends. That's 16 years. For example, if he took a picture of BarackObama (hypothetically) 15 years ago - that would have probably sold like bonkers when he first got elected (i.e., 'first black president'), whereas nowadays no one really cares/would really be seeking out that kind of photo...

What I would say however the data is good for is, if someone takes a look @ steve's portfolio and emulates his style - they know which elements of his style to focus on.

Anyways, thank-you for putting together the article, still interesting regardless!

Cheers!