I'm trying to break into photography on a professional level, primarily into photo stock.
Here are some samples of my work, I would appreciate very much your comments and suggestions on them. Thanks in advance!
Well, I'm getting hungry, so I'd say it achieves its purpose.
I'm not sure how helpful my CC will be with this type of subject matter. On first glance on that second picture, my eyes keep going to the cinnamon sticks in the background and the lines lead me out of the image.
All seem too tight to me - not enough space between the main subject and the side of the frame.
1 is tilted. I am not sure what the brown stuff is on the left but for a stock picture to work I think it should be obvious. I suggest not using brown stuff and getting it focussed if you do so. These look heavily cropped - most stock shops will not accept much cropping because they require lots of jpegs. I would get a plainer plait - stock pictures should be a simple as possible.
2 is framed too tight to frame for my liking and I don't like the stuff in background leaving the frame. I think get it all in or take it away.
3 you framed the bottom off the glass and the side off the straw and the too tight on the cinnamon sticks. The milk is nice and the ice cream is okay to frame through because you have a big piece and it is blurred.
I think you will need to reshoot and simplify and frame more deliberately to get somene to buy these in stock.
Woops I meant lots of pixels not lots of jpegs. I experimented with submitting some pictures to stock on line. The site automatically rejected them because they were less than about 5MB. This might be an anomoly but I think they get so many pictures that they can just reject automatically if you crop by noticing that the size of the file is small. They will also reject them if the quality is not high.
PS. I have also heard from a professional that most stock shops will not accept more than 200ISO.
The pictures must be very good to get purchased because there are so many choices for prospective buyers.
I agree with Scott's comments but I need to add a few things of my own. And as a designer (only a hobby photographer) that spends too much time looking for and buying stock photography I have a lot of information that can help you or any photographer looking to get into the market.
I need to get more information from you. I am not 100% clear on your intentions. Am I to assume that you primarily looking to get into food photography? What is your experience shooting food? What are your aspirations of how you see this panning out?
I don't see anything in the shots above that say "I want to use this for something". What would be the key word I would search to come up with the above images? What do the other images that come up in those keywords look like. That is the first place I would start. You have to think like a customer and not like a photographer. And cropping is always an issue with designers-we look at content and our compositional needs are seldom the exact crop that the image is provided in. More space around is always better.
And am I to assume you are in Ohio? I'm from there.
Scott Stoness wrote:
I experimented with submitting some pictures to stock on line. The site automatically rejected them because they were less than about 5MB.
Oh sure, 5MB won't work for traditional agencies as they serve all sorts of demands, from web to magazines, to outdoor billboards... In terms of file size, I'm a little shorthanded as my camera is a Rebel XT (8MB), which produces files that can be upsized to 49MB (with very good shots). But that still doesn't work for the largest agencies, needless to say that file size is the lesser of the problems trying to submit to them. Anyway, I'm planning to get a Canon 5D in the next two months to take at least that problem out of the way.
naypay wrote:
I need to get more information from you. I am not 100% clear on your intentions. Am I to assume that you primarily looking to get into food photography? What is your experience shooting food? What are your aspirations of how you see this panning out?
Hello naypay, first of all, thanks for taking the time to help me out.
I've done some art direction and had to plan and oversee product shots so that's where my experience with commercial photography comes from. I think food is a very fun and commercially atractive kind of photography. I do read about this subject (Lou Manna for example) and experiment a lot, but for the moment I'm kind of testing myself in different things.
I see myself in 5 years as a full time commercial photographer, doing editorial and stock photography. My intention is to specialize in hispanic / hispanic-american lifestyle, including and hopefully mainly, food.
naypay wrote:
I don't see anything in the shots above that say "I want to use this for something". What would be the key word I would search to come up with the above images? What do the other images that come up in those keywords look like. That is the first place I would start. You have to think like a customer and not like a photographer. And cropping is always an issue with designers-we look at content and our compositional needs are seldom the exact crop that the image is provided in. More space around is always better.
I did these photos for a specific request, these are all traditional hispanic beverages and they would be used to illustrate a publication. I labeled them "stock" in this thread assuming that "editorial" falls in that group. You are right, these images are relevant mainly (if not only) for those looking for these specific kind of drinks, so maybe they are best suited for niche agencies and for editorial use. Nonetheless, I can see that your observations are right on target as related to stock photography in general. I'm very interested in knowing more about what you look for in stock photography.
naypay wrote:
And am I to assume you are in Ohio? I'm from there.
That's a clever observation , however, I'm in NY, bohio is a spanish word for hut (long story hehe...)
You are on the right track for food photography. When working a subject, shoot hundreds of slight variations and then spend hours successively comparing two photos side by side until the best ones of each bubble up. Then compare the best ones with the good-but-so-so ones and look carefully at each of the dozens of photographic and artistic variables you control to find what makes the best ones work.
You seem to have very good control of the overall range of tones and colors, but you need to control the lighting in subtle ways to add a bit of sizzle.
Your compostions are a bit static and need work. All three shots are looking down from about the same angle.
But generally, you have very good technique and only need to make thousands of pictures to achieve your full potential. This is not the put-down it might sound like, but when you have mastered the fundamentals as you have, it is by making many many shots that they become so much second-nature that you are freed to create on higher and higher levels. By making so many pictures, you learn some very subtle things that are hard to put into words or even be conscious of.
, however, I'm in NY, bohio is a spanish word for hut (long story hehe...)