Nothing changed but my password didn't work, so I clicked lost password and reset my password and still it says name and password don't match. What a shower!

There seem to be an awful lot of istock and other images here if any food photographers want to check it out.


In answer to Carl on my last thread, yes, you can make money but you need a lot more than 49 products! I'm up to 1200+

I enrolled on this forum thinking I might get into micro/macro stock, but decided it's not for me, I'm going to go the hard route of trying to do it all myself. But that's beside the point. I noticed there has been some discussion over some sites offering free photos.
I'm also setting up a business in another field and need some photos. Yes, I've gleaned all I can from the free photos (money is tight - if people offer them for free, I'll have them), and I will buy the few that I can't find there. I'm not going to say what business as I intend selling photos in the same area (those of you with private eye capabilities could probably find out   ), but a few points I've noticed.

a) free photos won't boost your sales to cheapskates like me. If I'm looking for something I'll do a general search for what I want regardless of the author. This probably applies to others in many areas, therefore:

b) keywords. Some that I've come across have been appalling in their lack of, or incorrect, keywords. Know your subject, find all the keywords relating to it, and you'll appeal to a much broader market. I've waded through 54 pages of "blue" to find one image that could have been found on the first page with correct keywording, sad person that I am. As an example, a yellow insect has a latin name, and someone who really wants to buy it will be searching for the latin name, not "a yellow insect".

Apologies to everyone to whom this is obvious, but having just searched umpteen pages of stock sites, with some absolutely ridiculous keyword references, or in some cases, none at all, I sometimes despair of ever finding the right photos, and I'm sure others must too.

I also blame the stock sites themselves - they're narrowly focussed on what they think sells best, but perhaps there's a niche for a stock site which will supply accurately named stock, not aimed at the same market.

I expect I'm in for some flack now so I'll take cover but I hope this insight may be of use to someone.

Edit: I just thought I'd add, any photos of mine you come across may be cr*p, but they're keyworded to the best of my ability.