When it comes to stock photo/videography, I am a generalist, shooting little bit of everything. I have recently analyzed my top 20 best-sellers across top 3 agencies (AS, IS, SS), to see which topics sell the most. Here are the results, including some specific examples:

1. Environment - Solar panels, green walls, sustainable buildings, pollution, power plants, climate activists
2. Skylines/Cityscapes - interesting vantage points showing general view with good light (sunset)
3. Food - isolated, in hand, typical national dishes etc.
4. Vintage - may not sell that often, but is more likely to bring exceptionally big sale
5. Futuristic architecture, financial buildings, new, modern neighbourhoods

I hope you find this information valuable. Now, if there are other generalists out there, please feel free to share what sells for you (if you are comfortable with revealing it) I love the idea of discovering new topics I would be capable of covering (like when I attented protests the first time, struggled a lot with both the atmosphere and the settings of my camera, but eventually improved to the point that I sold couple of shots and even videos, and became much more confident in reportage subgenre)

All the best! Devotio

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 ?