Microstock Photography Forum - General > Photo Critique

77 sales on SS from July

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Jo Ann Snover:
I think that in part you're starting with SS at a hard time - massive collection and there isn't the almost automatic download of new images that used to occur, which helped give you a boost in searches that allowed popular images to take off.

However I also think there's a lot in your images that explains low sales - and remember this is about your images as stock, not in a more general sense.

For your outdoor images, you should perhaps consider correcting perspective and editing out people (where it makes sense) so you can avoid an editorial license. Most of your architectural images are of things, not events, so there will be much more sales potential if you can avoid editorial license. The comments above about post processing are worth considering too. Bratislava returns over 13K photos on SS and if you look at the first couple of pages you'll get a sense of what sells.

For the still images, I think a big problem is odd styling - you're over thinking things and over complicating the composition, leaving something that will have very few buyers able to use the image in their design. For example: This image is full of fruit, glasses, blender, etc. in ways that you'd never see if someone were actually making smoothies. You've also put objects behind one another and half off the edges that further reduces usability for a designer.

Another: this says it's in a beauty salon but this is someone painting their own nails. There's a bracelet and part of a watch showing on one arm which I think would be better removed, and do the whole thing on a white surface as an older woman painting her nails would sell better.

This is just a jumble of Christmas objects that would be hard to use as a background in any design - less is more. Where does the designer put text? Also, if you search for Christmas background photos, there are nearly 3 million - it's a very competitive segment.

This how to buy a house image just doesn't work. Houses aren't bought with cash (mostly) and the headings on the paper don't make any sense (to me anyway, and I've bought and sold a few houses in the US). And if it were a cash transaction it would be huge piles of much larger denominations :)

Who puts a pear on a vase?

You don't inject pills, so unless you show crushing these pills into powder, I don't see why these objects go together

Lighting on food shots is really important - it needs to make you start drooling when you look at it! This might be a local dish served in a traditional way, in which case highlight that in description & keywords

That last image has a lot of spam keywords - it says it's chicken meat but pork, cutlet, turkey, beef and burger are there too. It also has healthy and diet, but the meal looks the opposite and wooden although there's no wood. You must stick to what's in the image - it won't help you sell more to add in irrelevant keywords.

There are more examples, but I hope this illustrates my point well enough. Apologies if it sounds harsh, but it's about the sales not about you or your photography. Good luck.

maxop-plus:
Thanks a lot Jo Ann Snover  for very valuable comments - not harsh at all. Definitely help. I read it only ones. I have to go over and analyze it couple of times. Thanks again.

ShadySue:
Actually, maybe you should check your keywords on all your files. Intrigued by Jo Ann pointing out the pear on vase, I clicked on it and it has these irrelevant words:  agricultural, agriculture, countryside, crop, diet, fall, farm, farming, growth, outdoors, plant, sun, sunny and vegetable. All of these are just wrong for this image, and another 4-5 words are certainly debatable.

qwerty:
You're obviously keen if you've submitted >1200 since July, you need to think about quality, there are millions of images getting submitted each week. Before the bar was lowered a lot of these images wouldn't be accepted.

The lighting on a lot of the images look dull to me.

You're trying some concept images which is good but some just don't make sense.

Old Shoe filled with pens ?

Don't waste your time submitting images of clouds and your cat. There too much competition.

Think about a niche that you can submit to where there's less competition, something you have access to or knowledge that others don't.  (Work place, location, sport, hobby)

hatman12:
It's a nice portfolio and you've got all the right ideas for someone starting out.  Over time you'll be able to refine your ideas once you begin to sense what sells.

As jsnover said - don't make things too complicated.

Your processing technique needs attention as a lot of images look dull and unattractive.  Work out how to get better colors and contrast.

Things with a white background have to be properly isolated and the background has to be truly white not grey.

Otherwise it's a good attempt at starting stock photography.

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