Unlocking the Potential of Your Photo Archives
Lesson 2 from: Adding Revenue Streams with Adobe StockJared Platt
Unlocking the Potential of Your Photo Archives
Lesson 2 from: Adding Revenue Streams with Adobe StockJared Platt
Lesson Info
2. Unlocking the Potential of Your Photo Archives
Lessons
Class Introduction
09:22 2Unlocking the Potential of Your Photo Archives
10:56 3How to Organize Photo Archives
06:46 4Plan Ahead to Optimize Your Stock Collection
18:49 5Posting Your Content to Adobe Stock
04:39 6Making the Most Out of Every Image with Keywords
15:46 7Upload a Release to Adobe Stock
02:15 8Fix Rejected Images
09:26Lesson Info
Unlocking the Potential of Your Photo Archives
So the first thing we have to figure out is where we're going to get all this stock photography from. And I can promise you that all of you already have a whole bunch of photography that could be doing something for you other than sitting in a hard drive somewhere where you don't know where it is. All right, so that's your portfolio. And in their portfolio there are great images from travel there. Interesting Children's images, funny pictures, all sorts of stuff that you could be using. Textures, uh, you know, just clouds, Uh, interesting places, buildings. All this kind of stuff could be used for stock photography. Now, there are people out there called designers that air either designing magazines, their design magazine advertisements. They're trying to design Facebook advertisements. They their they're tasked with designing a lot of stuff, and they need content. And you could be providing that content with stuff that you already have. If you'll just go back into your portfolio and f...
ind it, and we'll talk a little bit how to organize your portfolio so that you could do that, the next place you can find him is on your current client jobs. So if you're gonna go and photograph an engagement portrait session somewhere, this one was specifically in off the coast of Florida in the basically the Florida Keys. It was out on a little island and it was called. The island has a four on it called Fort Jefferson, and it's just this little sand bar with a big old civil War four on It's super cool. Anyway, we flew out there on a seaplane, landed we camped the night there. Then we got on a, um, on canoe are not canoes but kayaks. And we kayaked for about three hours to another island that just had a lighthouse on it. So we were the only people on the island. And then we did this cool engagement portrait shoot, right? But while I'm on this client job, I can also get other images. And so I got this image and I got this image like It's just it's just everywhere I am. I can be getting images. Plus, if you'll just get a model release from your clients, you also can use the cool images that you create with the clients that you already have. So you have an option of people who are paying you to do work toe. Also use that work, or at least the work that you're getting on the side. If they're not willing to allow you to do a model release, then just do work on the side while you're there. So I wasn't just photographing for my client. I was photographing for me while I was voting for graphing for my client. My client paid me to come to the Florida Keys. They paid me for the work I did, and now I use the work that I shot while I was there to get more work from my part by putting my portfolio online and showing people in portfolio get more work out of it. So that's one way it sells me. And the other way is that I can put it on stock photography, and then that could be paying me as well. So we're looking for different areas of revenue that we can bring in from one paying job. All right, so the other place that we can create stock photography is actual stock photography projects. So if you have some nieces or nephews that like to play around and And you have Ah, you have a cousin or a friend or of the sister in law that likes toe. Have photographs taken of her kid, make it into a stock photography project. This is super cute, and it's a perfect stock photography sales piece like How many different I ways Can you put that together like think about that for an advertisement? And when you're thinking about putting together stock photography, you need to start thinking about what is it that people are looking for when they're selling a product, go through magazines and look at all of the advertisements and all of them are selling a lifestyle or they're selling a concept. So a good stock photograph allows you to put yourself in that position. You could say adventures. Okay, this is an adventurous photograph of little kids on an adventure, right? They've got They've got the little spyglass and he's got his little lantern and he's got the compass, right? So it's a great photograph that has some kind of an idea behind it, right? Or making a statement. So think about how someone in a designer shoes would be looking for photographs, and that's what you need to make photographs off. Okay, so we can make our own stock photography projects. Now when we're making stock photographs, there's some considerations when we're making them. First off. Think about multiple cropping options because people are not always going to may making a horizontal advertisement they need to meet. Many may need a vertical version of it or a square version of it. So think about this kind of an image. How do you think about the crop? Can I crop that image square? Can I crop it vertical? Can a crop it even more horizontal? What can I do with a? Give it some space so that you have multiple cropping options. Or if you're photographing something specifically and you're paying a model to be there or someone's paying you to be there and you've got a model release, make sure that you take a horizontal and vertical of everything that you shoot. You've got a great image. Find a way to make a horizontal and a vertical so that you have multiple cropping options for the people who are buying the work. All right, so multiple cropping options is important. Room for copy is important No one can use your image if they don't have the ability to put copy over it, because in most cases people who are making advertisements are trying to put the copy over it. So lots of vacancy and an image is really, really helpful or nice white spots or black spots in the image, dark areas or light areas so that people can actually work there. So if there's important information in your photograph everywhere, it's hard for someone to use it. So it's easier if there's copy space. So think about that when you're photographing and even if you don't think your client will want a photograph of them off in the corner with lots of sky, take the picture here and then zoom out and take this picture to that's yours. You're doing that for you. You're doing this one for them, right? So think about photographing in different ways. Zoom out, zoom in, get different ideas. Plus, if all of them turn out to be really cool, then you've got three or +45 or 10 different options that someone might be able to use. If someone doesn't like zoomed in version and you took three different, you know, zoomed out, and then it really is in doubt. Image, then the person who is looking for stock photographs. They can choose how far out they want to be, how much white space they need. So the more options you can give someone and the more copy space you can give him, the better off it is for them as well. Okay, also think stylistic and original. So when you're making photographs, especially when you're making stock photography photographs or when you're traveling, so you have time to do your own thing. Look around for things that are original are interesting. They are different. In fact, if you want to learn how to great to make great stock photography, go to stock photography sales pages. So like goto adobe stock and look around and do some searches and find things that are really interesting things that come up on the top of the search and look at those things and see what is it that they're doing? Oh, that's really original. That's really cool. Look for that kind of style and then go out and do something that's your own figure out your own style for a certain concept that you're trying to put on the stock photography, so it's got to be original. It's got tell story. It's got to be interesting. It's gotta You gotta be able to sell an idea with it. You know, like I can say, Not this a knockout product or something like that were, you know, like fight the good fight or something where you could come up with a statement based on the image you see, that's what you're really looking for. Okay? And then, of course, you need to be able to say something, and we already talked about that little bit. Your image should actually be saying something. So you want to be able to look at an image and come up with three or four slogans that could be used 11 way to think of stock photography is like, for instance, if I was photographing on older couples, so someone who's in their seventies or the eighties, then how could that be used? Well, it could be used for retirement homes. It could be used for medical products. It could be used for, uh, you know, drugs. Not not like drugs, but like, you know, get better type drugs. It could be used for all of those kind of things. Dentures like there's so many things that you are. It could be used for travel, you know, like take a travel, go on a cruise. Those kind of things are the people who are those people who are advertising those types of things cruises and retirement homes and second cabins in the woods and stuff like that that they're marketing to those people. So if you're photographing someone who's of that age group, start thinking, What is it that I would need to say to someone like that in order to get them to buy something and so start photographing in that way? All right? And that will inform what it is you need, toe dio. All right, Okay. And then, of course, you need to lead people to your images, and we're gonna talk a lot about that in order to get sales as a stock photographer, you actually have to put a little effort in. It doesn't magically happen. You actually have to basically be good at search engine optimization in order to get people to find your images. Because a stock photography site is basically like Google. When someone types in something in Google, they have to find your image, which needs to come up pretty high in the search in order for them ever to see it. And so we'll talk about some of the tips and tricks that you can use in order to make sure that your images come up higher on the search.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Ryan G
This is a great class if you're just starting out in any kind of stock photography. It seems that the other stock agencies require you to "audition" a few pics before they "let you in." I just uploaded 1 at a time to Adobe and they accepted my 2nd image after rejecting the first. Easy. I just started to upload to go through the process to see what it was like. I think the feedback they give you from the rejected photos would help me become a better stock photographer. Thanks Jared for the inspiration to try this. BTW Jared, I couldn't believe your high school bleachers photo where you added "Looser High" and pronounced it Loser high. I cringe whenever I see this and sincerely hope this was just a joke.
John Oeffinger
This is a very good "beginner" course. Jared uses excellent and creative examples to nail his learning points. He offers up solid nuggets or ideas in how to develop your workflow. I really appreciated learning how to use Adobe Stock to research and develop keywords. Definitely recommend this course for people thinking about or just starting out in stock photography.
John Dowling
Great teacher, great class. Highly recommend this to anyone contemplating getting into stock photography.