Ahoj! This is Zdenka Darula. I have been shooting stocks since 2007 and if you
look at my portfolio, you will see that I have about 13,000 photos there. In those
years, they are rare 5 very important key steps I kept doing over and over and
over again to get more sales and bring more passive income. And today I thought
it would be a very good idea to talk about those steps.
I've been making videos about stock here on YouTube for a while now. And I've been reading all your
comments, I've been always responding and I've been reading comments such as my
photos are not good. I am not selling anything. I have uploaded my photos to
Shutterstock 2 months ago and I keep uploading but I don't see any sales. I
gotta say I ready do understand and I hear you. First of all, if you upload
photos to stock, their library is so huge, it will sometimes take it even 3
months before you start seeing your first sales from that set you just
uploaded. And just like any other youtuber here, youtuber says about YouTube.
It's a marathon not a sprint. The same thing applies about stock. It's
a marathon. It's not a sprint. If you just take some random photos with camera or
phone or whatever you've got, upload it to stock and you think that
overnight you're gonna generate income, you will be very, very disappointed. You
have to take it as a job. You have to be willing to work hard, upload constantly
and you mainly have to be willing to improve on daily basis. And these words
my friends are taking me to step number 1. Master one thing, never stop learning,
always improve and become a perfectionist. Now, I know I've said a lot
of words here, but they all really are combined together. When I started taking
photos for stock, I was a terrible photographer. Terrible photographer. I had
no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how
use camera at all, I had no idea what to shoot. I didn't understand what stock
market really wants. Just take a look at my first photos. I had it on automatic
mode, I was just snapping photos around and I thought that you know I'm taking
photos and I'm gonna be selling it. Obviously, they were zero commercial
value. I didn't sell anything. Those photos were not sellable. Because of my
modeling background, naturally, I started taking photos of other models. I felt
comfortable with it. That's what I really wanted and that became my niche, my
direction in photography. I started looking at other stock photos of models.
I started studying them. What is it, that those photos sell? From my own rejections
I was getting better and better because I had to get better. I was learning. I was
improving in order to get accepted. And over the years, I'm the photographer I am
today and here are the photos I shoot these days. I rarely get any rejection
and these photos sell. Every one of you.. even you, you..... think. What do you like to
photograph the most? Did you just say anything? Narrow it down. Is it people?
Is it pets? Is it nature? Is it objects? What is it?
That one thing or two things will become your niche and study that niche. Type it
into Shutterstock. See what sells and just study those photos and think. Do
your photos look like those photos there? If the answer is no, then definitely
there is room for improvement. You need to improve. But that should not stop you
from uploading right now. That should not stop you at all. Practice makes perfect.
You will improve as you go and you will start seeing sales. Once you master that
1 niche, then you can get another. The worst thing you can do though is try to
copy somebody else's top selling photo. Why? The chances are, it is not good
look good at all. How many times I've seen people trying to copy my flower
splash shot. How many times I've seen people trying to copy the same blue-eyed
baby shot I did. The same blanket, the same pose, everything. It never looked
that good. The best thing would be to just let go.
Be creative, come up with something new and unique. You will come up eventually
with your own top-selling shot. Don't you think I tried it too when I was starting
out? Guilty. I tried to copy too and it never never looked the same. It was never
the best photo, it just never looked great. Step number 2. Trends come and go.
Fashion. What's popular these days will be probably forgotten in next few years.
Technology. What is hot popular trendy today will be old tomorrow. So when you
are taking photos of models and you're picking their outfits, try to use
something very general looking. Something which is timeless. Nothing really fancy
and popular. The same thing applies to technology. If you're taking photo of a
model holding a phone, just use some generic looking phone. Don't use a very
trendy phone. If you're shooting stock for a very long time, you can shoot for
sure something trendy here and there to kind of pop your sales. The buyers
usually if you have one very popular photo will look at the rest of your
portfolio and possibly pull up more photos from you. But if you only shoot
trendy photos, your sales will look like this...... If you shoot timeless photos, your
sales will look like this..... and that's what you want. Step number 3.
Authenticity, real expressions and real models. Authenticity has never been
more requested ever like now. No more fake stuff. Do you remember those
commercials when they were just kind of like doing the full smile and just
selling stuff? Well, that's gone. Just look at
TV commercials. Look at the people they are using. Look at how they are acting.
Look at their faces, their skin tones, their hair color. When you're casting
models for stock, they should not look like a supermodels.
They should be just very generic looking people with friendly face and beautiful
smile. It will also depend on the scene shooting. Here is a perfect example. I
wanted to photograph a woman in the kitchen so I just grabbed a
model. Well, the photos don't sell. Why? She doesn't look like a cook.
She doesn't really belong to that scene. She's also more of a fashion model in
the face, so that's why they don't sell. And then I called my friend, which is a
cook. Well, she's a chef. She's an amazing cook. She loves to cook. Let's take a look
at her photos. Her photo sold well and still sell.
Let's compare both women. My friend was the better casting choice. She's
authentic and real. When you pose your models, don't be afraid of doing real
acting, real expressions. And not just the positive expressions. Negative
expressions sell really well as well. Step number 4. Recreate your own
top-selling photos. Whenever you get a photo which sells, which kind of pops,
study it. What is it about that photo that really sells? Is it the model? Is the
location? Is it the lighting? What is it about that photo? Make more of those.
Maybe change something little. Add something extra, shoot the whole set.
Here's another example. I took a photo with the splashes right and it started
selling well, so next thing I took all kinds of flowers of different colors,
took photos of them added the splashes and I created the very big set. Or I took
photos of a model to yoga. It sold well so we shot more yoga. Step number 5. Keep
simple, be bold. Lose the clutter, make it very, very simple. Make sure, that the
message comes out very clear of the photo. For example. If I'm taking photo of
a person's face and I want to show an expression I zoom in close on the face
to show the expression. Or if I am taking photo of a relationship of a mom and
daughter, I choose very simple kind of generic
background because I want that relationship to pop from the photo. If
you keep doing those five steps over over over again you will be on a way of
generating your own passive PJ income. If you would like to learn more about stock
photography I included links to all my other stock videos in a video
description below so please check them out. Give it a thumbs up if you liked
today's video, subscribe to all future videos. If you have any questions,
comments, want to say hello or maybe suggest a topic for the next future
video please do so in a comment section below. I always read them all and I
always respond. Thank you very much and I'll see you in the next one. Cau… Ahoj..