OK, so it’s not actually one to one advice, I can’t just phone up and ask questions, but Ron Chapple has been shooting stock photography for a good few years and has his own blog passing on his experiences.

Just check out his post about one image that sold almost 100 licenses in 10 days. That’s around 10 sales a day! Talk about motivation. Get the right image and you can make quick sales, and lots of them. Getting the right image is the key though. Looks like I’ll be reading his blog for a while to try and pick up enough tips to get the right image.

Anyway, both sites are now regular reads for me. Let’s hope I can make some sort of contribution that makes this site a regular read for them.

For example, the lengthy QC process (at least with Alamy) can mean that it will take up to 25 days to get your images accepted and ready to sell. There are no guarantees that your images will be accepted either, and if one fails QC, the whole batch fails QC. This means that if you’ve been a bit lazy you might be waiting 25 days only to find that another few minutes spent checking your images would have meant you didn’t have to wait another 25 days after resubmitting your work.

So, not only can the whole submission process take a while, you then have to keyword your images. This again needs some thought and effort to make sure your keywords are accurate and not too generic.

Then there is the fact that you are up against so many other, and in my case, more talented, photographers producing some great images with plenty of experience in the stock industry. So how are your images going to be the ones that people want?

Well, that’s what I’m hoping to work out over the coming months and make some decent sales.

So, the message of this post is that if you are serious about stock photography, you have to stick at it because once you have a decent collection of images you will start to generate a passive income, meaning that your images will continue to sell without you having to do anything, therefore making you money for doing nothing. The holy grail!!

So check it out. Can you suggest any other ways to make money from photography… that’s legal?

The actual exam of VCP-310 is much easier as compared to the likes of 350-001 or 640-802. Still students go for 70-290 and 70-291 before thinking of vcp series and many even complete their 70-270 and 646-204 before doing so.

I have read a few things people have done, some have success, some don’t. It looks like Alamy Rank is the key factor and trying to figure out how to make the most of it is the way forward.

Every contributor to Alamy has a rank, so if someone types in a keyword to look for an image and two people are using that keyword for their image, then the contributor who has the highest rank will get their image displayed nearer the top than the other person.

So how does someone new to Alamy get higher in the rankings?

I should just say here that this is all theoretical. I don’t have any stats to back this up, I’m just thinking out loud.

Well, from what I have read, although the info was a little old, it looks like it’s best plan of attack is to have a wide variety of subjects and themes to your images. So rather than do a whole series of 20 images relating to a stapler, you should limit it to only a few.

Why? Well according to what I read (can’t remember where it was now) if your image is being displayed in search results a lot, but no one is buying it, that has a negative effect on your rank. So by only producing a few images on a given subject, you will only have a few images being shown and not bought, rather than a lot of images being shown and not bought. Thus having a lesser effect on your rank. Also, if your images are selling, then if the one that sells is shown with many other of your images, then the one that sells has a positive effect, but the ones that don’t have a negative effect.

Confused yet?

So what if you do have 20 images of a stapler, how do you maximise the potential of all of them while bearing in mind the rank effects. Well, the answer would be the keywording of the images.

Rather than use the same keywords, like ’stapler’, ‘office equipment’, ’stationery’, etc etc for each image. Try using the keyword ’stapler’ for a few images, ’stationery’ for another few images etc etc so spread out the keywords, rather than try and cram in as many as you can for each image.

Keywording can be a tricky subject to get right, and it’s the same for building web sites. Let’s assume you have an image of a web site about mountain bikes. You could use generic keywords like ‘bike’ or ‘bicycle’ but that would mean that anyone looking for bmxs, choppers, racers etc etc could show your image, whereas if your keyword was ‘mountain bike’ and not just ‘bike’ then you immediately increase your chance of selling your image because it’s far more specific. OK, it might not get shown as much, good for your rank apparently, but when it does get shown it’s likely to be up against fewer images and more on topic for what is being searched for.

So, that’s one thing I will be trying, and resisting the temptation to stuff the keyword box full of generic terms.

Do you have any tips for improving your Alamy rank, or just improving the chance of your image selling?

There are no hard and fast rules in internet marketing, which is why whether it is email marketing or methods like pay per click, it is upto you, and your web site hosting service has absolutely no say in it.

Read on to find out the 5 things I found to do while my batteries were charging.

#1 – Well, the obvious one, which I am doing now, is to update my websites.

I run three blogs, two of them are photography related and I also run a forum for Sony and Konica Minolta DSLR cameras. Websites always need a little attention so now is as good a time as any.

#2 – Educate myself.

I’m not talking about going to school, but I need to learn how to use my recently purchased Flash gun, so it’s time to dig out the manual and make sure I know what all the buttons do. Actually finding the manual is going to use up some battery charging time, so that’s good! Of course, using the flash requires batteries, so for now it’s just reading, the actual flashing begins once the batteries are charged.

#3 – Check out some of my favourite photography web sites.

There are lots of photographers that I look up to and am in awe of. So I always check there latest images out and pretty much always think… I wish I was that good. So here are a few of my favs:

Lord V – Well, he isn’t a lord, but he has God like status (IMO) when it comes to macro photography. He shows his images on my favourite photo sharing site, Flickr, and his work is just amazing. Well worth a look.

Strobist – This isn’t the work of one particular photographer, but a group of people who believe that off camera lighting doesn’t have to cost the earth. There are some truly talented photographers submitting work here via the Strobist Flickr group. There are also lots of tips for achieving great lighting, so it’s something I am reading a lot of at the moment.

Dave Hill – This is a marmite photographer, meaning that you’ll either love his style or hate it. Personally, I love it. Some really great images with amazing lighting. Always good to use up battery charging time.

#4 – Work on some images.

If I’ve managed to take a few pictures, I will use the charging time to process the better ones using Adobe Lightroom. I am a recent convert to Lightroom and really like what it can do and how simple it makes things. For a stock photographer building up an image library it is a must have tool in my opinion as it not only does the development bit, it also catalogues and organises your images.

5# – Plan your next photography outing.

I don’t get out taking photographers as much as I’d like to as my day (and night) job as a freelance web developer gets in the way. If you do get some time though, plan a trip to increase to your photo catalogue. I live on the doorstep of the Peak District and hope to do several trips over the next month or two to try my hand at some landscapes, but also, if I’m lucky, some wildlife. This time of year isn’t the best for wildlife, but I thought I’d see what I can find. So planning a trip will involve the location, but also finding out what wildlife might be about, when and where are the best times and places to see it, and also where the nearest cafe is to get a cup of tea to warm me up afterwards as it’s getting bloody cold!

So there you go. 5 things to do while your batteries are charging.

What do you do while your batteries are charging? Let me know.

Many web development professionals are now stepping in into the realm of online marketing as well. It is time that after web design, they take over website hosting as well.

Landscape photography is something I try from time to time but don’t really confess to knowing how best to tackle it. I get a bit bored of seeing landscape shots that don’t make me go ‘WOW!’ and that I think is what a landscape photo needs to do. I have to admit that most of my landscape shots fall into the boring category but occasionally I have a moment of luck where I get a shot that has at least a small bit of wow factor.

I think the best tip amongst the 6 from Denver Wang is to keep it simple. Trying to get too much into the picture can end up with an image that is too cluttered, too much for the eye to settle on and an image that just doesn’t feel quite right.

From a stock point of view, keeping things simple also means that there is often a lot of space that can be used by a publisher for text and other things making it a more attractive image to the person looking for one to buy.

If only it was that simple eh?

Well, the guys over at Crestock have blogged about their Top Ten Bestselling Images. Well worth a look.

You’ll notice that not all the images are photos, so if you are a creative type who’s good with a Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop then you might consider submitting artwork too to those libraries who allow it.

Before submitting any images to a stock library, make sure they are the highest quality images you can produce.  By this, I mean examine your images closely for things like dust spots (my nemesis), burnt out highlights, distracting details that draw the eye away from the main subject, poor composition and all the other things that may put someone off buying your image.

It can take just a few seconds to correct these problems in a software package like Adobe Lightroom, or Adobe Photoshop, so there really isn’t any excuse for submitting sub standard work.

Here are 3 simple things you should check for and tips on how to cure any problems.

1. Dust Spots

Probably the most annoying thing to search for, but also one of the easiest to correct.

Once your have your image open in your photo editting software (I use Adobe Photoshop CS2, but am now using Adobe Lightroom 1.2 more and more) you need to zoom in close to a portion of the image and then move the view around so you can inspect every bit of the image. While zoomed in, a useful shortcut key in Photoshop is the space bar. Zoom in, press the space bar and while it is down your cursor will change to the hand so you can use the mouse to quickly move around your image.

If you come across a dust spot, the healing brush is the tool to fix them. Select the tool (both Lightroom and Photoshop have healing tools) and set the brush size to a diameter that covers the dust spot. In Photoshop, press the Alt key (on the PC) and then click in a good area of the image that has similar colours and tones to the area you want to fix. Release the Alt key and now click on the dust spot to heal it. Simple as that. You may need to play about with this tool a bit to get used to how it works, but it’s the photographers friend, so be nice to it.

In Lightroom, the tool works in a similar way except you don’t need to press the Alt key. Just click on the area you want to fix and a circle will appear which you can drag to a good area of the screen to heal it.

2. Poor Composition

This one is not so easy to fix on the computer. If the original composition was really bad then it may be beyond help. If it’s just a little off, or there are some distracting objects at the edge of the frame, then the crop tool can be used to cut a chunk off the edge of the image to get rid of something you don’t want, or improve the composition. You can even use the crop tool to correct the sloping horizon issue too.

It’s simple enough to do. Select the crop tool, drag a box around your image and then use the little ‘hooks’ on the corners and mid points on the box to move the box to the desired size. Move your cursor a little way away from the corners of the box and the cursor will change slightly, now when you click and drag the crop will be rotated, thus correcting your sloping horizon. Press enter, or click on the little tick icon at the top of the screen and the crop will be applied.

One word of warning, only use this for cropping small bits off the edge of your image. Stock photography usually requires a large image to be submitted, and every time you chop a bit off you are reducing the image size and the file size, so you may no longer reach the minimum size requirements for submitted work. So don’t go over the top!

3. Highlights and Shadows

A very simple way to correct highlights and shadows is to check the levels, or histogram, of your image and make sure you have a good spread from true black through to true white. If your histogram is all bunched up towards one end then you’ll need to make some corrections. Levels will do this to a certain degree and correct any exposures that are slightly off. Obviously it can’t correct things that are way off, but make sure every image has a levels histogram that gives you the full spread of tones fro black through to white.

So there you go. 3 simple things to check before you submit your image. None of these take very long to do and if you find that you are having to do these to every image it means you might have to adjust how you take the images in the first place. Get it right in the camera to avoid too much time spent correcting things on the computer.

Do you have any other tips like this? What tools do you use most when preparing your images? Let me know. It would be nice to create a tip sheet people can print off and pin up next to their computers.

Many web hosting companies that have ventured into domain names are now offering search engine optimization services as well so that they can supervise maximum advertising of their services profile.

In an already highly competitive market, with new stock photography web sites springing up all the time, for Alamy to have reached 10 million images, that is quite a milestone and puts them head and shoulders, in terms of quantity, above most other stock image suppliers. Digital photography has gone a long way to make stock photography a more viable option to the amateur photographer wanting to take the next step and perhaps earn a bit of money. The range of digital cameras that are available now that give you the image size and quality to submit your work for stock is also making it a lot easier to enter into the world of stock photography.

So, if you are a stock photographer, have you found it harder to make a living, or a reasonable income, from stock over the last few years, or are you thinking about giving stock a go? Let me know your thoughts.

There are many exams like 70-620 and 220-601 that are more complicated than 70-649 or SY0-101. If a 642-901 student studies hard during his 642-812 exams, there is no reason why he cannot pass his N10-003 in first attempt.

So, welcome to my site.

Not a very spectacular launch was it…

70-431 and 640-822 are highly qualified exams and not possible after a mere 640-863 or 70-640. A 70-236 student will have to do 220-602 as well as 350-030 before even thinking of them.