Hey all

Trying to do some research, to find shooting opportunities, mainly focussing on Shutterstock search results. It has raised more questions.

Firstly though, I'm wondering if many of you take this approach? - targeting keywords and phrases, looking at the market, the supply/demand, predicting trends, spotting opportunities?

The first thing I've been looking for are search terms with few results. But how many pages of results would you class as "low hanging fruit"? 1, certainly.. How about 20? or even 100? Can you compete for something with a lot of competition and if so, how? I'm guessing good photography would be a good start.

Another thing I've found is, many items are in huge supply, but only when isolated on a white background, and not in context. For example, "cheerleader baton" on SS brings up about 10 images of batons, all on white (as well as a couple of random cheerleader shots).. You don't however get any close-ups of a baton in the context of a table, bedroom, locker room or whatever. Similarly, "bowling ball" brings up 145 pages of results on SS, while "bowling man" brings up only 22. I understand that still lifes are easier to shoot than people (for the most part) but on certain items, the ratio of still lifes to contextual shots is astronomical.

What other techniques could be used to find opportunities for keywords or subjects?

Thanks for any thoughts on this.. 

Just wondering what approach people take when coming up with ideas. I imagine over time, you end up with more ideas than you have time to shoot, but where do they come from, and how do you choose which ones to shoot?

Do you play to your strengths? i.e macro, food, landscape? .. or try all sorts of things?
Do you take advantage of experience in hobbies, or a regional advantage?
Do you research trends in culture, technology etc? ..
Do you weigh up the competition?

Thanks for any replies on this subject.

Hey everyone.

Just wondering if you think it is important to have a consistent style or theme in your Shutterstock portfolio?

I shoot different styles including macro, bridal, conceptual. I was wondering if that would be a problem. Should my name and style as a contributor be "branded"?

Thanks for any thoughts on this