This question is for those who are successful at selling classical commercial microstock imagery. Do you guys enjoy shooting the classic microstock image-teams of business people in board rooms, happy people on laptops, people shaking hands, doing various things, or various objects on white backgrounds? Is this what really appeals to you? Or is it more you do it because you are good at it and it brings in good money so you don't have to do things you like even less, such as working for "the man"?
What kind of images would you produce if you were given full artistic freedom?, i.e. make similar money no matter what kind of image you produced? Would you do more editorial, nature, landscape, travel, cultural, artistic, black and white? Or do you like commercial lifestyle imagery that you would still produce that regardless of what sells best? What really appeals to you deep down?
Do you think to be successful at producing this kind of stock your heart has to really be in it? That you cannot be in your studio shooting the commercial imagery while secretly wishing you were out shooting some scenic golden hour landscape or black and white artistic nude or whatever?

I don't shoot classic business concepts, because it would make me crazy.  Instead I shoot what I love and is readily available...food, disabled people, travel scenics, and editorial.

Bring your camera tomorrow, Mark.  We can shoot Starbucks pastries on their patio.     Mmmmmm.

Geez, you sound bitter, marcopolo.

But it doesn't have to be that way.
Shoot what you like and how you like to make it.
Create imagery that matters to you.
Produce work that you can look (back) upon and feel proud of.
Trust that you will be successful if you are passionate enough.

Be the best you can be at making your kind of stuff and you will be rewarded in far more ways than money can ever matter. Go for it.

I like what I do too.

The nice thing about microstock is you pretty much have freedom to do whatever you want. No clients, No boss, very few rules. If you want to try and do what other successful people are doing, feel free. If you want to be artistic you can do that as well. If you want to shoot only what you love then have at it. The choice is yours, try to have a good time because life is short and at the end of the day there are only memories. I feel fortunate to be doing stock.

I really like it - seeing that someone can find a use in something that I created gives me personal satisfaction.

Me personally - I'm a full time graphic designer by trade.  I just lost my job due to company downsizing and a bad economy about three weeks ago.  Stock gives me full creative freedom, which I love.  Sure - you don't have TOTAL freedom...but the types of stuff I like to design or shoot don't really fall out of the boundaries of what is acceptable.  I'm hoping I can stay doing this instead of going back into a corporate deskjob.

.........Shoot what you like and how you like to make it.
Create imagery that matters to you.
Produce work that you can look (back) upon and feel proud of.
Trust that you will be successful if you are passionate enough.

Be the best you can be at making your kind of stuff and you will be rewarded in far more ways than money can ever matter. Go for it.

Amen.  I couldn't agree more, SD!!  Well put!   =tom

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..........I shot a lot of photos before I ever got paid for any of them and would continue to take pictures if I never received another penny � because I love it. .....................

I turn 60 in a couple months.  I've been shooting a 35mm since I was 13 years old.   I never sold a pic until less than 2 years ago and only then because my wife asked me if she could post some of my stuff on a microstock site.  I had no clue what the heck that was and I wasn't all that interested.  When the stuff started to sell,  I looked at it.  Wife said, you make more money shooting people on phones, ladies posing 54 different ways on the same chair and the like.  I thought about that,  I did actually spend  several hours shooting isolateds of anything in a little white box ....once.   
    I hated it. This was work.  I didn't want to screw around with models, models idiosyncrasies, model releases and the like... so I never shot people for sale in the microstock world.  I just continue to shoot what I want.  If someone else likes it and wants to buy it, that's okay with me. 
     If no one else likes it and no one wants to buy it .....  that's okay with me too.

I was soon asked direct from a publisher about my work and after a couple meetings in Starbucks and several cups of coffee later,  I now free lance for hire and have had entire articles written around series of pix I've taken... having fun.  This lead to being noticed elsewhere by others and now.............   my wife and I turn down work.  We pick and choose what we want to do.  I make far, far more bucks doing this than I ever will on microstocks.  I will never forget that I actually felt embarrassed when handed my first check for pix that were published in a magazine article.  That I should be given this much money for having fun out on a trail in the woods hiking with my wife  'n taking pictures. (I don't feel that way anymore, now I just say 'thanks').

   The up side.  We just went away for our anniversary.  Of course we shot pictures.  I will no doubt sell some of those pictures.  And the entire trip will become a write off as a business trip. The lodging, the travel, the food, the phone calls... the works.  I have a great accountant.

The point:  I shoot what I want which is primarily landscape & nature, and I get paid to do it  and I am still doing what I enjoyed doing when I shot my first 35mm picture  47 years ago.

On the other hand,  my wife and daughter are now shooting 'traditional microstock' pix.  They like it, more power to them, I think the will be good at it too.

As for me.....  I look forward to next weekend when I will hike up a mountain trail, be the only human within ear and eyeshot.. and sit on my fat backside until the magic hour when I'll snap off  several dozen pictures......  for my own personal enjoyment.

Then,   .....I'll sell some.  =tom

I don't shoot people because I do not have any studio gear for that. Hopefully I will eventually so I can do time for print to get models.

Most my stuff is of products, or my hands etc.

It certainly has increased my skills as a photographer. And the benefit for me is I have gradually bought better gear from the income which currently just pays for my habit.

Quote from: fotoKmyst on June 06, 2008, 19:40

...
still, microstock is not artistic in many way. it's more like prefab house vs real architecture, or as an articulate purist tells me, "stock photography is like porn, it sells with a lots of potential but little true feelings".

I could not disagree more.

You are missing the boat if you believe this, fotoKmyst.
Big time.

well, this is my point for you to ponder.
if as any of you say that stock photography is NOT  like prefab houses are to architecture...
how do you account for as one of the regulars mentioning "i upload 100 images a week" on a regular basis.
that would make 1200 "masterpieces" a year.

if you're a musician or a painter, you will be a millionaire if you can truly mass produced 1200 masterpieces a year.
my goodness, even Ansel Adams or Karsh, Bruce Springstein or the Beatles,  Rembrandt or Picasso,...
would be jealous of you all.
i don't even think Ansel Adams produced 1200 masterpieces in his lifetime, never mind 1200 pieces a year.

as i said before: stock photography is like porn to reallife bedroom sex.

Microstock for me is:

at the end of this month having enough cash from a few months of sales to buy an Alien Bee ringflash and battery pack.

Then I can produce better images. As a result I can then start to load to Alamy. I can then make some better margins.

The point:  I shoot what I want which is primarily landscape & nature, and I get paid to do it  and I am still doing what I enjoyed doing when I shot my first 35mm picture  47 years ago.

I'm a lot like you in the sense that I shoot what I like and upload it.  If people buy it, great.  If not, oh well.  I am not really into photographing people.  But I love hiking and nature.

If you've heard of Pavlov's dog salivating at the sound of a bell because it's been trained to link the sound with food--that's what shooting stock is like to me.

I like to get some recognition for my work and my gallery sales and Microstock payments satisfy that need for me.

Pavlov called the training method with the dogs "intermittent rewards" because he knew that by rewarding the dog with food with every ring of the bell wasn't as effective as ringing the bell only some of the time.  So when I get a sale, or not, I can't wait to upload some more.

Arf.