Microstock Photography Forum - General > Photo Critique

Portfolio critique, and few thoughts how to progress

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Devotio777:
Hello all,

I have been creeping around for a while, made few posts, but never really introduced myself.
I am 36 years old czech guy living in The Netherlands since 2014, doing stock last few years, but it has been only last 2 years since
I delved into it on a slightly more serious level. I figured out only recently that me being an INTJ, metalhead, and antisocial outsider, this is really the
best hobby for me, only I feel like being a decade or two late to make a living out of it (with the comissions tanking fatally) Anyway, just few days ago my port at SS reached 1000 photos (and in few months time I should reach that as well on adobe and istock). That made me to evaluate a bit, and think about the future.

As of now, with port of 1000 (and bit less on other 5 agencies) my monthly average in last 3 months was 83 dollars.
I would love to keep shooting stock in any case, but as you can imagine, I would like to squeeze some cash out of it along the way.
So, here is my port: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/milos+ruzicka
I would love to hear some honest and constructive critique. I am all self-learnt, no photo courses, no friends photographers, and it is more than likely I am still making some beginners mistakes.

On the top of that, I had these ideas for the future to maximize my profit:
- do more videos (I got only few, and it is all taken with smartphone, didnt really master the video with my Sony A7IV+Tamron 35-150 f2-2.8 yet, shamefully)
- do timelapses (I live in Amsterdam, and I was thinking about finding some slightly elevated spots with good view on the landmarks)
- do more model released photos (selfies basically, I got almost no friends, so idea of asking someone to be a model for me is just unreal as much as I would love it)
- do more sets (I used to submit one photo only, while now I know it does not hurt to submit more of the same subject, different angles, slight changes)

Does anything of it make sense ?

Her Ugliness:
Welcome to the forum.

I am sure there are plenty of other tips people can give you, but after a first glance these are the two suggestions for improiving your port that popped into my mind:

- keywording and titles. Take this image for example:
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/skyline-amsterdam-south-agricultural-field-animals-2210434507
You named it "Skyline of Amsterdam south with agricultural field and animals in the foreground". If you want customers to find what they are looking for, you need to describe your images as accurately as possible. Here the obvious seems to be missing: Sheep and cows. You just name them "animals" and I don't see sheep or cows in the keywords as well. It seems like a no-brainer that sheep and cows are the main subject of the image, so you should name them.
This is not a major problem in your port. Most images seem to be described quite accurately and keywords are okay, but I still see room for improvement. This one for example is missing the important keyword "squash": https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/pumpkins-price-tags-on-sale-dutch-2199437709
I assume the Dutch language probably only knows one word for pumpkin, as does my language, but in English many of what we would call a "pumpkin" in our languages are actually squashes. It seems like a minor thing only, but you should really make sure to include every relevant keyword.

- photo editing. In microstock it is very important that you images stand out from the mass of millions of other images, especially if you don't have unique subjects that hardly have any competition. A lot of your images seem a bit "dull" color-wise. Your landscapes often have a kind of haze, even when the sky seems blue and I think a lot of them would profit from a bit brighter colors. I am not sure what you use to edit your images, but most programs, even the cheap or even free ones, should have an easy option for enhancing colors a bit.

stoker2014:
Devotio777, stop taking photos at all, don't waste your time on photography. In the photo you will not earn normal money. Shoot only video. That's all that you took in the photo, shoot now on video. Get yourself a tripod, gimbal. Yes, you can hire models and shoot them however you like, but models are a cost and you have no income. Therefore, shoot videos without models for now, and only videos.
If you are not satisfied with your camera, I can also recommend the Panasonic GH6, an excellent camera for drains. But the camera is not the main thing, the main thing is to constantly shoot videos so that the size of your portfolio grows to 6000 and more videos.
Look at my posts, I wrote on which stocks you need to upload a video or where you should strive to get.
That's all.

stoker2014:
When shooting a video, the main thing is that there is no stupidly static video. There must be some action in the frame or you must pan the camera slowly.
The main tools of a videographer are tripod, gimbal, slider. On GH6 I can shoot a lot handheld, the camera has a good stabilizer.
If you shoot at home, you need light. You can make your own soft boxes from cardboard, or you can buy them, they are not expensive. But I think that's all you have.

Her Ugliness:
Here is another advice: Do not take advice from people who basically do nothing but complain about their microstock income on the forum. Obviously they are doing something wrong.

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