What Should I Shoot? That right there is the million dollar question.  Even seasoned stock contributors find themselves asking this at times.  The world of stock is a mindset, and even once you’re in it, it’s easy to get to the point where you wonder, “Okay, what should I try and shoot now”?  If you really struggle with coming up with ideas on what to shoot, then you need to start opening your eyes to the world around you.  I don’t care where you are, what you’re looking at right now – inspiration can be smack dab in the front of your fat head.  Sometimes it’s there and we don’t even realize it.  Open your eyes, and don’t just see, but try to truly observe.  Reflecting on the who what, when, where, why, and how of everything around you is an easy way to come up with stock concepts.  Try to write things down when you think of them.  This applies in the graphic design world, as well.  Rip out that cool magazine ad you saw in the latest issue of your wife’s Elle magazine (I wasn’t looking at it, I swear…I was just sitting next to her on the couch at the time).  Save that piece of junk mail with the interesting modeling pose.  I tend to note things a lot, but I forget to follow through.  Make a little notebook or scrapbook of the things you’d like to try, the things that look are cool, and the things you think would appeal to a buyer, especially.

Getting Organized One of the toughest parts about stock photography is all the organization that goes into planning and properly executing a shoot of any given topic.  It’s a lot of work and effort.  Sure, there are times you might wing it and come up with a nice variety of different themes, but if I find that if I’m always trying to “wing it” my time isn’t used the most effectively.  If you’re going to be shooting models, you need to orchestrate the entire shoot with them.  Then, you need to decide on a location, wardrobe (what to tell them to wear) props, ideas and themes to try.  You want to make the shoot effective for the short amount of time you’ll be working together, for me it’s usually 1-2 hours tops.  Making sure you have your model release ready for them to sign, and not forgetting to have them actually sign them is even a chore.  Then there is the scanning and uploading of the releases to each and every agency you’re submitting those images to.

Shooting Subjects That Can’t Talk Back If you want to shoot food there is the purchasing of the ingredients, the prep and cooking time, the presentation of it all on the plate and table setting.  Food could sometimes be easier to work with than models, depending on the model.  Sometimes models can decide to cancel last minute, then what do you do with your time slot?  It’s very similar to any other business where you have to make appointments for your clientele, such as dentistry or a beauty salon.  There also is no “extra work” later on when shooting subjects other than people.  You don’t even have to edit the entire shoot unless you want to, and there is no mailing of a disk required.  You save on your time and money shipping a disk out to them.  Maybe you’re not interested in food. Well, maybe you could shoot other objects over white. Please don’t bother with apples, unless it’s done in a truly creative way.  Stock sites’ reviewers have seen enough of those and they’re be extra eager to slap that “reject” button as quick and hard as they possibly can.

Motivation This is the part where you come in. If you can’t get yourself motivated, nothing creative is ever going to happen.  Working from home, and being your own boss, can especially be challenging.  Maybe there isn’t a boss looking over your shoulder, and asking you whether or not you’re going to make the deadline.  You need to make your own deadlines for yourself.  Without having weekly, daily, even hourly goals, your time is going to be wasted.  I’m living it right now – some days I spend way too much time doing social networking on twitter or facebook.  Other days I spend too much time editing older, similar images that probably should have just been backed up and tucked away.  If you are having a rough time staying on task, don’t think you’re the only one.  Stay tuned, as one of my future posts here will address this topic.  There are things you can do to minimize distractions, and stick to your workflow.  Speaking of which, I think it’s time for me to stop blogging and start keywording my images!

Ever wish you could rename a whole bunch of files or folders at once, so that you don’t have to go and do it manually?  Well, you can.  You just need this:

http://download.cnet.com/File-Renamer-Basic/3000-2248_4-10306538.html

File Renamer Basic is simple to use and does an excellent job.  A must have utility for your Windows PC. The best part – it’s free.

(screenshot via download.com)

PicNiche Contributor Toolbar

Today I discovered something that is going to greatly improve my workflow.  This toolbar for firefox has a slew of features, the greatest of which (I feel) are the workflow functionalities.  When you submit images to certain stock agencies, you always have to go through and check off boxes or click certain buttons before pushing through the submission.  I always referred to this part of the job as “pushing” as many other microstockers do.  Well, pushing just got a whole lot easier for Fotolia, Shutterstock, and Dreamstime.  More features are sure to come, as the toolbar gets developed further as time goes on.  Thanks so much to Rob Davies (follow him on twitter: @bobbigmac) for all of his hard work on this excellent tool.

You can also enter in your username for FT, SS, IS, DT, BS, SX, and 123 so that it will instantly alert you of any new sales, as well as your current total earnings.  It reads all of this stuff from cookies, once you’ve logged into each specific website.

The bar does way more things than I even have time to mention.  Read the full instructions here:  http://www.picniche.com/toolbar/help.aspx

TIP: to hide the toolbar for more screen space, simply middle click on the P icon that shows up at the lower right hand corner of your screen.

Anyone that sells microstock photography is going to love this program. Try out the free demo they have here:

http://cushystock.com



This is a really easy program to learn, and it saves a lot of time.
Once you have your latest batches done, set it and forget it. Cushy
will upload your daily batches while you get on with your life. No
dragging files to multiple FTP site windows, and waiting for one to be
done to start the next.



If you haven’t already heard about it, Cushy Stock is a new application
designed specifically for photographers and illustrators to speed up
workflow and make submitting images to these agencies a breeze. It
allows you to upload to any site that has FTP upload, as well as the
others that are currently supported.



Let me know what you guys think – so far I’m very impressed with it!
Cushy Stock seems to be very active with program improvements and updates as well.