It's a plain prop that every microstocker has but the composition/cropping is very creative, and also the color tones. Well deserved. How many tried to copy it?  
(it's the kind of shot for which you bang yourself on the head: hey I could have done that too, but you didn't  )

Congrats on that! Nice clean shot, its little wonder that it has sold well.

I'm still 13 DLs away form my first flame.
It would really be cool to finally get one of those suckers 

Woooo! Congrats Adelaide!

..

congratulations!

Well, double congrats then!
Reminds me of my stethoscope I still have to photograph tough 

Well done Maria!...great shot!!!

...
Curiously, I never easly find this image searching for obvious things like "stethoscope white background" or "stethoscope isolated", so it's really suprising that it sells well.

Your image will never be found using the search "stethoscope white background" because you don't have it keyworded well enough for that. Yes, you have "stethoscope" and "white background", but you don't have "white" or "backgrounds", which you need because of the way iStock's search engine works. When multiple search words are used it breaks down the search into its individual terms, so that "stethoscope white background"  becomes a search for "stethoscope" and "white" and "background". Same thing holds true for "storm cloud full moon", which becomes "storm" and "cloud" and "full" and "moon". iStock sure could learn a thing or two from Google.

Congrats on the flame, madelaide, I hope you have many more.

Yes, you have "stethoscope" and "white background", but you don't have "white" or "backgrounds", which you need because of the way iStock's search engine works.

Actually I tried stethoscope "white background", but I'm sure very few people would use the quotation marks.  And I didn't add the separate keywords because background alone doesn't make much sense.  Should I add both anyway to any "white background"?

Quote from: sharply_done on May 24, 2010, 10:27

Yes, you have "stethoscope" and "white background", but you don't have "white" or "backgrounds", which you need because of the way iStock's search engine works.

Actually I tried stethoscope "white background", but I'm sure very few people would use the quotation marks.  And I didn't add the separate keywords because background alone doesn't make much sense.  Should I add both anyway to any "white background"?

Your keywords have to take into account how the search engine works, so yes, you should. There's also one big huge caveat: You will incur a search penalty once you modify your keywords - I'm guessing they do this to discourage/counteract people trying to game the system.

Quote from: sharply_done on May 24, 2010, 12:55

There's also one big huge caveat: You will incur a search penalty once you modify your keywords - I'm guessing they do this to discourage/counteract people trying to game the system.

Is this written down somewhere? this is the first time for me to hear something like this and quite useful info for me to know if its true

Try it yourself: Note the best match placement of one of your images, modify the keywords, then check the best match placement after the changes take effect.

An admin (emyerson) told people at a lypse recently to review keywords regularly. If an image has a not very relevant keyword listed first then it will be pushed back in search for other more relevant keywords. I think the suggestion was to delete irrelevant keywords that are at the top of the keyword list.