20. Good selling subject
20.1. An overview of good selling subjects
20.1.1. People
Without doubt the most popular subject are people. Just do a search on "people" on each microsite and see how many times the best selling pics have been downloaded. This will show you this is a very important category.
But there is also much competition in this area. It will not be easy to distinguish yourself from the mass. This is why people shots are not selling that well for me. They are just not good enough to stand against the mass.
The picture here under is mine, and it has everything to be a good seller. It's spontaneous, it's isolated and you could definitely represent something with it. The only disadvantage it has is that a boy is depicted. A Good looking women probably sell better.
20.1.2. Business
photos covering the business concept are also selling well.
Underneath again one image of mine (those were the cheapest to buy - LOL) which could do well. The advantages are that it's isolated and that you certainly could represent or express something with it. The main disadvantage is that it depicts European money wares the bulk of the buyers are still orientated towards the US.
20.1.3. People and Business
Now if portraits sell well and photos about the business concept do the same. Than a photo combining both most be really hot. And this is true. If you're able to combine both there is a chance you will be selling really well. But be aware that you will have lots of competition.
This rather simple shot sold almost 2000 times in 8 months !
20.1.4. Illustrations / Vectors
Not only photos can sell well, also illustrations and vectors seem to sell pretty good. Actually they sell much better than real photos on some sites.
In the week of 1 Sep, Shutterstock had 44 vectors in it's most popular of the week top50. 44 out of 50 .... ....
Thus if you can work well with illustrator or the like, I would certainly try to sell some illustrations.
Underneath you see an example of a simple background and an vector of webbuttons.
20.1.5. Isolated object
Finally a huge part of stockphotos are isolated objects. Categories like Food & Drink or special occasions like Christmas always do well.
Underneath again two pictures of mine which do well. I often get questions how I achieve such a neat backgrounds. I will make an tutorial about this if I see the time and will post the link here.
20.1.6. Simple pictures
But it certainly hasn't always need to be a topshot or a technical difficult setup which sells good. Even a very simple picture, like this house, can do well. The image underneath has had more than 1000 downloads in a year. If the photo can represent something, you'll certainly have a good chance of selling.
20.1.7 Summary
The most important thing is that your picture represents something. A designer needs to be able to sell or express something with your photo, keep that in mind.
20.2. Inspiration
With thousands of photographers contributing and millions of photos online, it's not always easy to come up with an original or unique concept. So how do you choose your subjects to photograph ?
Personally I often browse the internet looking for ideas. Sometimes I use an interesting picture as the base for my next shooting. Is this wrong ?
Some may say it is, but I don't have a bad feeling about it.
There are so many images for sale that I think that everything has been done before. If you can't upload an image similar to one that's already online, I think not many images could be uploaded these days.
Does this mean that you are a bad photographer by doing this ? That you aren't a real photographer because you lack the inspiration to create something unique ? Let me highlight the following example :
Do you remember the B&W version of the goldfish jumping out of his bowl which I used on page 15 ? The second best image for the keyword "fish" on that site was clearly influenced by that B&W version.
Do you really think the maker of that second image is not a real photographer who lacks inspiration ? Well, do you ???
If so, please contact iStocks top contributor Lise Gagne ...  because that second image is made by her.
I think we agree that Lise is definitely not a lesser photographer. So if even the most successful photographer on the microstock sites uses this technique, I think there is nothing wrong with it.
And be honest, aren't we all influenced in some degree by someone else work ?
If you copy the work from an exclusive contributor to one site and you put such a work on an other site. You'll have no competition on that second site.
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