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Microstock Photography Forum - General => Photo Critique => Topic started by: maxop-plus on November 18, 2017, 04:19
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Hello everyone,
I started stock from July this year. In SS I have over 1200 photos and I made 77 sales. I am obviously doing something wrong. Would you please look at my portfolio and tell me what you REALLY think. It seem to me, that I have learn a lot. Thank you all.
https://www.shutterstock.com/cs/g/Maxop-Plus (https://www.shutterstock.com/cs/g/Maxop-Plus)
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Some of your images are not bad, try to vary your subjects a bit more.
For your outdoor images you definitely need to improve your post processing and color grading. There is a lot of competition and your images need to stand out, to pop up more, in order to be noticed.
Taking good pics is part of the job, but good post processing is paramount
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Thanks Brightontl. I also thought myself to slow down and submit less images with better quality.
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Hi,
I can see you're thinking about different concepts and experimenting - great stuff. As Brighton has pointed out, need to focus more on the execution to improve your post-processing.
I would add that some of your editorials could easily be commercial. You seem proficient in PS so should be relatively straightforward to get rid of some people / signs, such as in this image and other similars.
Keep experimenting and submitting. Once you see an image is being downloaded regularly you can focus on creating some themes around those popular, continuously upping the technical standards.
Alex
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Cool portfolio you have there.You still photography is good( i think anyway ,i can`t do still photography to save my life ).
Like Alex said it will take some time for sales to pick up once you find out what sells and focus more there.
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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 (https://www.shutterstock.com/search?searchterm=Bratislava&search_source=base_search_form&language=en&page=1&sort=popular&image_type=photo&measurement=px&safe=true) 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 (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fruit-smoothies-blueberries-raspberries-apple-orange-748752808), 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 (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/manicure-old-woman-hands-polishing-nails-756471685) 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 (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/christmas-background-decorations-bells-ribbon-on-728846164) 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 (https://www.shutterstock.com/search?searchterm=christmas+background&search_source=base_search_form&language=en&page=1&sort=popular&image_type=photo&measurement=px&safe=true), there are nearly 3 million - it's a very competitive segment.
This how to buy a house image (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/how-buy-house-paper-one-dollar-705364879)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 (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fruit-pear-sit-on-top-red-695393386)?
You don't inject pills (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/injections-needles-pills-on-background-683939179), so unless you show crushing these pills into powder, I don't see why these objects go together
Lighting on food shots (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rissole-chicken-meat-young-beans-cream-679546099) 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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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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Thanks a lot guys, I appreciate any advice a lot. You know what they say: You don't see your own mistakes with your own eyes. And tell the truth, If I see my images what I submitted in July, I wouldn't submit them today. I was thinking like this: the more images I submit, the bigger chance I sell. Now I see, that I was wrong. AND YES, I have problem to isolated objects. I just put whatever I shoot on white table, 2 strobes on 45° on sides, 1 strobe above on background. ......and not happy with the result. I slow down and focus on the quality.
And just for curiosity. From 77 downloads were 5 sky images. Isn't that ironic? Thank you again.
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Now I can't tell you how to get more sales and stuff but I can see that you are post-processing your images to a kind of HDR-ish look, you might want to reconsider that because the HDR-ish look went out of style long ago and is now mostly considered unfavorable. Along with it, the saturation in your photos is really on the low side, you need to make them pop out and don't forget to use sRGB.
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You've done great work. From the first sight, it may seem that you have so many variants of photos' topis. But if it doesn't work, you need to keep experimenting.
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You've done great work. From the first sight, it may seem that you have so many variants of photos' topis. But if it doesn't work, you need to keep experimenting.
Welcome. Please stop dredging up old threads. Thank you.
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You've done great work. From the first sight, it may seem that you have so many variants of photos' topis. But if it doesn't work, you need to keep experimenting.
Welcome. Please stop dredging up old threads. Thank you.
This thread only dates to November 2017 it isn't that old
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There was a lot of great advice there from Jo Ann, I enjoyed reading it... must have missed it when it was new ;) 8)