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8 Tips For People Stock Photography That Sells
Posted October 15th, 2011
There’s no question, there is always a demand for quality people photos. All the stock photography books and websites will tell you this, so anyone serious about selling photographs online is going to try add these to their portfolio on a regular basis. Unfortunately, most photographers do it without really considering the end-user, and as a result, most of the people photos you see online are never going to sell in a million years. As with most fields of stock photography, if you take a Client-centric view and think about the needs of your end- users, the photo-buyers, it’s actually quite easy to not only shoot more marketable people stock images, but you can increase your output exponentially as well. Here are a few tips to get you started. 1. Get To Know Your Markets Think about the demographics of your usual ‘models’ and then take some time to look at how images of those groups are used? If you tend to photograph a lot of seniors, explore the markets for those images. If you mostly photograph kids, it’s going to be different buyers/buyer-types again, so identify as many of those as you can. Start a shot list for each of your key markets, so any time you have a photo opportunity, you’ll know exactly what you want from it. It’s all about getting clear on who might use the images you shoot, so you can shoot images that are optimized for their needs. So that means studying the images used to identify what elements are most important for each buyer-type? Most photographers aren’t going to bother, so any time and effort you put into this will help you, and your images, stand out from the crowd. 2. Tell Engaging Stories There really is very little demand for posed portraits in stock. If you’re photographing people in the hope of selling the images as stock, you need to be creating images that tell a story or convey and idea or emotion. They don’t have to be action shots, but the elements of the image need to convey that there is more going on than a person having their photo taken. You can do this with setting, clothing, props and facial expressions, and each element should be congruous with the message of the image. The message itself can be very subtle, as long as everything fits. (In fact subtle images often work best as the photo-buyers can then add their own copy to the images to fine tune the message). 3. Focus on the Eyes People being people, when we look at a photo of a person, our eyes automatically look to the face to determine what’s going on in the image. I suspect it’s some sort of primitive survival instinct that allows us to assess mood from a quick glance… and in people stock photos, the eyes, and the facial expression will usually be both visible and clear. If either of these are obscured, it’s done deliberately to convey another message entirely. In those cases you need to ensure the other elements of the image are congruous with that and as a result, the accidentally obscured shots are rarely going to work. 4. Stay in Front There’s very little call for rear-end views of people. For commercial work, buyers need clear emotion and expressions that they can tie their own message on, and as soon as you shoot from the rear, you lose all that. I actually see a lot of shots like this in photographer submissions where they caption the image with some emotionally descriptive term… because that’s how they remember the situation… but looking at the photo, the viewer wouldn’t know if the model was laughing, crying or fast asleep. 5. Get in Close Another problem I see far too often is shots obviously taken anonymously from a distance. There really is no commercial value in this. Much better you approach the people in question and simply ask if you can take their photo. Tell them what you’d like to achieve and encourage them to work with you to get the shot. Sure, some will decline the offer, but just as many will be happy to try for you if you make it sound like fun. Of course you should have some pocket releases with you, and offer to send them a low-res copy of the image for their own use in return for a signature and their email address. 6. Take Control Of Candid Situations I think there’s a certain mythology about some of the great street photographers, in that they fired from the hip and just happened to catch their incredible images, almost by chance. The fact of the matter is, good ‘candid’ photography is usually the result of very careful planning and preparation, and a good understanding of the subject’s habits and behaviour. The shots might have been captured in an instant but the set up could have taken hours. Shoot from the hip without that sort of preparation and you’ll be getting snapshots with zero commercial potential… you might get lucky from time to time, but don’t hold your breath. On the other hand, get to know your subject so you can anticipate behaviours and reactions, and you stand a good chance of catching some great images. Take it a step further and plan for ‘candid’ situations which tell stories that photo buyers might be able to use, and you’ll also be creating images with real sales potential. 7. Take Extra Care With Friends & Family If you’re only ever photographing family members or close friends, producing marketable images is a big ask. The emotional connection makes it very difficult for the photographer to work objectively and even harder for them to assess the results, especially when the images are shot in the course of a social/family event. Over the years I’ve seen some very talented photographers publish images to their portfolios that were absolutely terrible, but the photographers are totally unable to see the problems, because the emotional connection to the model was so strong. That said, it is a great way to learn and practice, if you do it right. The first step is to treat it as work, and be totally clear on the message or story you’re trying to convey with each frame. Write out a shot list before you start and make sure your model knows what you’re trying to achieve. Make sure the setting, the clothing, the props all work towards the same purpose, and work with your model to make the poses and expressions work as well. And when you’re done, make sure you’re totally ruthless when assessing the results! 8. Lighting Considerations This is more simple than you might imagine. Outdoors look for cloudy days or find settings away from direct sunlight. You can use reflectors and fill flash as required, but if you start with a ‘good day’ the extras are just fine tuning. Indoors, light you subject anyway you like, as long as you don’t use on-camera flash. If you’re serious about shooting commercial people stock images, you will need to invest in some additional lighting or flash equipment. It doesn’t need to be overly expensive or complicated, as long as you can move it and fire it away from your camera. Even a flash you can hold outstretched in one hand, while you hold and fire the camera with the other hand, will be a massive improvement over on camera flash. As with most fields of photography, there are going to be exceptions, and most rules can be broken from time to time. But as a starting point, if you keep these in mind whenever you have the opportunity to photography some human subjects, you should get some stronger images with good commercial prospects. Matt Brading Visit GlobalEye Images to view amazing examples of people stock photography: If you’d like to sell your own stock images of people, please review our Photographer Information pages (and download your free stock photography business kit):
Posted October 15th, 2011 in Photography by Hannah.
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