It’s often easy to figure out what you want to shoot when you have a creative, artistic idea as inspiration - you are bringing to life your vision. However, as much as we would like it to be different, there is not always a market for our artistic visions outside galleries. Stock gives artists a way to distribute their works, though sometimes there is a bit of a limit as to what will be sellable to a wider market.
Creating stock doesn’t mean you have to give up all your creative aesthetic or ideals, but it may mean you have to alter them a bit in order to make them more appealing to potential buyers. At Novel Expression, we had to figure out how to get the most out of our shoots to appeal to the largest number of buyers possible. While it would be much more creative to shoot our models in various locations and fancy them up a bit with Photoshop, leaving the backgrounds clean and shooting with somewhat flat lighting gives our end user a clean palette with which to work.
If there is something in particular you enjoy shooting or illustrating, do a bit of research and see if there is a site or company that distributes that type of work. There are numerous niche agencies out there for all types of topics, so you might find the perfect home for your work. However, if you are looking to get in with some of the bigger, more general agencies, you might have to make some concessions.
First, find something that is missing in the existing collections.
Stay away from things that are common and find something unusual. Do you like to shoot flowers? Flowers and landscapes are beautiful, but they are very popular to shoot so make sure you find something that makes it stand out from what exists or shoot something in a unique way.
How about food? It’s currently a very popular subject, but there are still some areas that can use imagery. When I did the occasional food shoot, I found there was a lack of regional dishes and international foods. I found the vegan market was lacking imagery, as were various cuisines such as Persian, Salvadoran, and Peruvian. I was able to make some lovely, marketable images and still stick with my enjoyment of shooting food.
If you can find the magic intersection between what inspires you and what might appeal to someone looking for stock imagery, then you are getting closer to turning your creative passion into a possible source of income.
