Stock Photographer Blog is moving and expanding. Just writing about stock was too limiting, so I decided to expand to blog about all things photography, from how to use your camera to how to use lights to how to take all manner of interesting shots (and, quite likely, some examples of how not to!).

The content from stock photographer blog will be moved over to Photo Bug Blog here and there while being mixed in with new content.

Heading out camping for 4 days, for what will probably be the last trip of the year.

The real question is can I get anything that’s remotely stock worthly while camping? Frankly I think it’s doubtful, as nature-type shots do not seem to be wanted so much. But we’ll see what I can pick up!

I got an interesting email from iStock today in response to my application:

Thank you for taking the time to apply as a contributor with iStockphoto.com.

The iStock administrators have asked that you upload new samples based on the feedback provided below. You’re welcome to return in 3 days, upload some new samples and we’ll re-process your application.

If you’ll recall iStock Submission requirements make you send just three photos. Two of the three were accepted, including the bumblebee shot below, that was rejected by Shutterstock and Fontfolia.

The photo they didn’t like was the high-key shot of Sioux. They felt that the highlights were blown out   However I’m very encouraged that they gave the opportunity to resubmit rather than just rejection the application out of hand.

Now I just have to figure out what to replace the high key shot with!

My friend and fellow photographer Emily brought the best toys over the other day – the Norman ML 600 monolight strobe.

Emily purchased a whole pile of used lighting equipment for a crazy good price, and brought some over saying, “This way you can figure out how they work and teach me.”

I’ve always wanted to work with strobes, because it’s just the most logical way to handle photographing people and eliminating the need for inane amounts of light to get decent shutter speeds. I’ve never actually used strobes for two main reasons:

1. I also do independant film stuff and it just made sense to get lights that would work for video and photography.
2. When researching strobes I read a lot of horror stories about the web of cables and power packs required to trigger the flashes together.

The monolight however, was a joy to work with. It has a built-in optical slave – so I just used my camera flash (set to lowest output, with diffusion filter, pointed straight up) and when the camera flash went off, so too did the monlight.

Emily is supposed to come over with more strobes soon and we’re going to play with them more thoroughly.  I’m anticipating a delightful experience of actually using the camera hand-held in the studio! Delight!

As I mentioned in my last post, I think that it’s vital for your inital submissions to stock agencies to include at least one shot of people. This is the most in-demand kind of shot from marketing types. As I’ve been sorted through my photos to decide which to submit, here is what I was going to use as my people shot:

This shot has some nice stylish aspects and leaves good room for ad copy. Additionally we’ve got both dreadlocks and tattoos going on – and tattoos are a surprisingly highly searched keyword on stock sites, so I’m hoping that a reviewer would look at it and think “Hey! We can sell this – we always need more tattoo and punked up looking shots!”

Only one problem: no Model Release.

In fact, I don’t have a model release for any of my people shots. Sure I’m going to try to track down this model – but it’s been a couple years and I’m not couting on it. So I’m also setting up a quick emergency shoot of a person to have something that I can actually include in my initial submission. My schedule requires me to submit to the first stock site on Monday — and I gotta have a shot of a person to include!

Fingers crossed that the shoot works out!

I imagine that I’m much like you. I’ve been taking pictures for most of my life, since my father gave me my first cmaera when I was 7, a sad little twin lens reflex.

Over the years my equipment has upgraded and I’ve gotten a littel better about knowing when not to press the shutter, even if I don’t know anything more about when to press it. As the photos piled up on my hard drive, at some piont I began to think about selling my photos.

Fortunately with the recent advent of micro-stock agencies, that’s now a possibility.

After more than a year of researching micro-stock on and off I’m going to start. This blog will record the process, from the first submission to the first sale (we hope!) to tracking what kinds of photos sell well and which micro-stock agencies do best.

Along the way we’ll also take a look at equipment, software, and everything else remotely related to stock photography.

Thanks for reading – hopefully we’ll both learn something!

Shot with a NIKON D200. (90mm, 1/125 @ ƒ/4.2) © Stock Photographer Blog

This is my sample of uploading a photo and how it will look complete with description and watermark. Click to make it bigger!