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What To Shoot For Stock Agencies
Answer: Anything.
Back in 2004, I joined the photographic agency, Alamy. I’ve just realised that was twenty-one years ago. I feel old now.
In that time, I’ve uploaded about 10,000 images to them, and because stock photography is a numbers game, I’m getting sales every month. Whenever I’m notified of a sale, I record it in a database, which allows me to sort this sales data.
One of my favourite views is to sort it by image, which then gives me a great visual representation of the images that repeatedly sell. And I always find that data fascinating.
Over the years, I’ve read a plethora of articles about whether stock photographers should shoot for the market or just shoot what they fancy. Well, my twenty-one years of taking and submitting photos has taught me to shoot what I like and upload what I like because … you just never know.
I take the attitude that I’m the photographer — who knows what a picture editor is looking for now or, more importantly, at some point in the future.
As you can see in the screenshot above, there’s one image that has sold eight times. Numerically, it’s one of my bestselling images.
