Teamwork, Challenge and a Dramatic Stock Photo

Quad Sculling, four people rowing a boat, demonstrates teamwork, adversity, challenge and risk in this "impossible" stock photo.
Timeless Photos and Long Term Success
This image of Quad Sculling (in sculling a light boat is powered by people using two oars each…quad sculling refers to such a boat with four people) is exactly the kind of image I most enjoy creating. It has a strong, but flexible, message or concept. It has drama and interest and even humor (as in “Yeah, right”). The photograph is on the ragged edge of believability…is it real or not? And finally, the photo is timeless, something I think is tremendously important for long-term success in the stock imagery business.


Teamwork, Challenge and the Impossible
Sculling has always been a strong metaphor for teamwork, and as such has been used countless times as a stock image. This version still speaks of teamwork, but takes it a couple of steps further. This is teamwork in the face of risk, challenge, adversity and perhaps even the impossible. I can’t help but think that an appropriate headline might be “Sometimes even teamwork isn’t enough”. Come to think of it, this image might be hitting a little close to home for us photographers!


Old Concepts, Shot In New and Different Ways
As I have mentioned before, old concepts, illustrated in new and different ways, with a strong message pertinent to the marketplace, tend to do well. This image represents any efforts being attempted by a team, but with huge challenges and an uncertain outcome at best. It could be the government attempting to deal with the recession, or a sales team overmatched by competition, or any number of other situations in which an entity, be it corporation, government or organization, is faced with huge obstacles. For example, I could see this being an editorial image about the government attempting health care reform!


Extra Ideas
This image is also a great example of how I work these days. I come up with an idea that I want to illustrate, and then build a more comprehensive shoot around that first idea. In this case I knew I needed four models (to replace the people I had originally photographed in the boat, two of whom were just kids). Then I went over my comprehensive list of ideas to see which other ones were waiting for me to shoot models in-studio in order to finish. I came up with 17 ideas. I knew that I would not be able to complete the photography for that many, but I wanted to make sure that I had extra ideas in case one or more of my planned ones just weren’t working out. As it turned out, I managed to get the raw materials shot for about eleven of the ideas.


Four Models, A Boat, and Three Waves
In my studio I set up the lighting to match that from the original sculling shoot. Since I had shot the boat from a bridge I stood on a ladder to get the correct perspective. I printed out an 11x17 print of the boat and kept it with me on the ladder. I then shot each model and compared the LCD image with the print to make sure I cam at least reasonably close to the poses that would work. Before letting the models go I also did a quick cut and paste in Photoshop just to make sure things lined up right.
I put this image together using four model shots, the boat, and three shots of waves taken from atop a bluff in the Marin Headlands on a day with particularly large swells. I crafted it in such a way that it can easily crop as a horizontal for, say, magazine spreads, or vertically for a magazine cover. There is also plenty of room for headlines and body copy, though the texture of the water might be a bit busy for that. Total Photoshop time was about six hours.


A Rights Managed Image
While the concept of teamwork is one that is always in hot demand, as are such themes as risk, challenge, and adversity, having the rather negative probable outcome as part of the image makes me think that the audience for this photograph will be on the small side. Combine that with the greater-than-ordinary amount of work that goes into such an picture, and I think it would be best served as a Rights Managed image, so that is how I am submitting it. And now I have ten more images to get back to working on!

Cultivating Curiosity To Improve Your Photography

Curiosity about other cultures and ways of life are a strong motivating force in great travel photography. I photographed this woman of the Padaung tribe in a remote Burmese village. They were as curious about me as I was about them; they had never seen westerners before! Note the brass coils around her neck!

Curiosity Makes For Better Photography
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it can greatly enhance your photography! Curiosity is a cornerstone for becoming a “people person”, essential for successful people and lifestyle photography. Curiosity, about other cultures and lifestyles, is a primary motivating force for great travel photographers. And curiosity about the world we live in can open up this world for photographic exploration and documentation and lead to all kind of opportunities and even adventures.


People Will Open Up And Share
Most people have the same favorite thing to talk about…themselves! If you either have a natural curiosity about people, or can develop that curiosity, then you have the key to creating great rapport with people. Just ask them about their lives, what motivates them, what interests them, where there passions are. That can lead to far more rewarding and productive experiences, photographic and otherwise, for all parties concerned. If you can generate genuine curiosity and explore that with people they will open up and reveal all kinds of fascinating and useful information, access, and adventures. In one case, when I had been in India for only a couple of hours, I asked a taxi driver, a Sikh, about his religious beliefs. One thing led to another and soon I found myself photographing inside the incredible Sikh temple in Delhi.


Curiosity Leads To Great Experiences
But curiosity is important at home too. Recently I was shooting a model and began to ask her about her family. Before long she was sharing pictures of her parents and siblings, all great looking people, and offering to recruit them for another shoot. Seldom, if ever, has my curiosity led me to anything other than great experiences, and it has invariably left the subjects of my curiosity feeling flattered and better about themselves.


Curiosity Is A Powerful Tool For Stock Photographers
Curiosity is an especially powerful tool for the stock photographer. We are always in need of ideas, subjects, locations and vocations. How often have we allowed ourselves to sit next to someone on a bus or plane in silence never knowing what great information or wonderful opportunities have been missed? I once spent an entire flight sitting next to man, from New York to San Francisco. We finally started talking as we exited the aircraft. It turned out he was an author and I had just finished his book days earlier…and by not being curious…and not pursuing that curiosity, I missed a chance to delve more deeply into what I thought was a fabulous book…from its author no less! Just by being interested in other people, and expressing that interest, I have gained access to race cars, yachts, ultra-light flying, and the most amazing meal of my life. I have been invited to weddings and funerals and family celebrations. I was once invited to fly in the cockpit of a commercial airliner, and another time invited to photograph a mock operation on a cadaver…though I have to admit that I passed that opportunity up.

Curiosity Can Be Cultivated
The key to making curiosity work for you is to have your curiosity be sincere. Like many other things, if you practice you get better. I have to continually remind myself that I am not the center of the universe; that I already know all about me, and that other people are a treasure trove of interesting things, if I can just bring it out of them. Despite all my wonderful experiences from expressing my interest in the lives of others, I still have to work to get myself to express that interest. I have to cultivate both my curiosity and my willingness to pursue it. I seem to have an unreasonable expectation that I will be imposing on people, and yet I do not remember a single unpleasant event from investigating that interest. I am sure there were many dead-ends, but so what? What is far more important is what is to be gained by a simple and friendly greeting, followed by a sincere interest in another person. Cultivate your curiosity and practice sharing it. You won’t regret it.

Funny Pictures: Humor In Stock Photography

Funny pictures, and effective stock photos, can be created by revealing the unexpected, as in this photograph of a nude audience to illustrate presentation issues.

Entertainment Advertising And Images We Want To See
Entertainment advertising is upon us. With the advent of TiVo and technologies that allow us to zip past commercials, with pop up window blockers, with viral advertising and with such a vast quantity of, well, stuff, to choose from on the Internet, on Television and even on Satellite Radio, advertisers are increasingly at the mercy of our viewing discretion. If they want to get their messages across, to get their messages seen, more and more they have to create advertisements that we want to see. They have to create entertainment advertising. One way for us still photographers to participate in this is through humor. We can increase our chances to prosper in these difficult times by creating images that employ humor with a strong concept that is relevant to the market.

Funny Pictures, Negative Concepts And Best Sellers
Funny pictures, stock photos employing humor, can take a variety of forms from black humor (negative or looming disaster) to silly (outrageous expressions) to the absurd (over-the-top imagery). I have often heard the negative images don’t sell, but my personal experience has been the opposite…when humor is introduced to that negative concept the image can be a best seller. Of course, the same is true for any of the concepts; humor, executed well, raises the bar for any image.

Facebook, Twitter And Going Viral
One particularly important aspect of adding humor to your photography, making your photos funny as well as informative, is that people love to share humor. Nothing can spread the word for an advertiser faster than people telling their friends, spreading the message, e-mailing it, posting it on Facebook and tweeting on Twitter. Humor is the grease for that Holy Grail, the message gone viral.

Half Time Commercials And Humor In Advertising
A premier example of the value placed on funny advertising is the Super Bowl, where in many cases people are looking forward to the half-time commercials more than the game itself. If you need proof of the premium placed on humor in advertising, you have to look no further.

 
By using a picture of a Sumo wrestler in this stock image I tried to minimize any possible offense to people struggling with weight issues.

Funny To One, Offensive To Another, And Sumo Wrestlers
You do have to be careful with humor though. It is important to remember that what is funny to one person, or one group of people, might well be offensive to another group. I encountered that very problem when trying to work out an idea I had for an impossible catch…a flying trapeze artist about to catch someone so overweight that the catch would seem impossible. I sat on the idea for over a year because I was afraid I would offend people who have to deal with obesity problems. Eventually I hit upon what I felt was a perfect answer…a Sumo wrestler. By using a Sumo wrestler in the shot the issue of obesity was sidestepped. Sumo wrestlers are extremely respected and proud of their size and are not generally regarded as suffering from obesity problems. I did check with my model, an actual Sumo wrestler, about whether there would be a problem with such an image, and both he and a Sumo wrestling association gave me a thumbs-up on the image.


Adding animals, such as with this lion trainer with his head in a lions mouth, is an effective way to add humor and impact to your stock photos.

The Unexpected, The Absurd, And Animals
As with the Sumo wrestler, showing the unexpected or the absurd is a great way to add humor to your stock photography. Another way of adding that “funny” element to your work is through the introduction of animals. People have a natural affinity for animals, particularly cats and dogs, but in the example here the cat is a big one and it works perfectly to create a timeless, funny and dramatic photo about the negative concepts of risk and danger.


This funny bowling picture works because the image walks that fine edge of possibility allowing a viewer to momentarily suspend their disbelief.

The Fine Edge Of Possibility
Another technique in adding effective humor to your imagery is by capturing situations that have plausibility, but are over the top. Part of the trick is to walk the fine edge of possibility, to create an image that is just real enough to make a viewer, if only for an instant, suspend their disbelief. If you can get a viewer to that place, where they pause and consider the situation, you have caught their attention and that is exactly the job of your photograph.

Funny Pictures, Success, And Revenue
Humor is a powerful tool to increase the effectiveness of your stock photography. It can turn negative messages into positive ones, increase the chance of viral success, and make people want to see your messages rather than avoid them. Funny pictures are the corner stone, for still photographers, of entertainment advertising, and as such can significantly add to your photography success, and to your revenue.

Flying Money: History Of A Best Selling Stock Photo

The first stock photo I ever made with Photoshop, 19 years ago, and still selling!

Flying Money, My First Photoshop Stock Photo
I noticed, when looking through my sales history, that many of my images have a very long life. The above image of flying money, which I named many years ago, Flight of the Greenbacks, is one of those long-lived pictures. It brought in just under $400.00 over the last year. Now $400.00 in a year for a stock photo is hardly what one would call spectacular, hardly worth mentioning, I suppose. But the cool thing about this image earning that amount over the last year, is that I created this image in 1990! This image was, I believe, the first stock photo I ever created in Photoshop.

Hundred Dollar Bills and Wings of Egrets
I photographed the money, a $100.00 bill, with a 4x5 Sinar camera using Ektachrome 4x5 transparency film. The wings came from a 35mm slide of an Egret in flight that I had photographed for part of a housing project brochure. I photographed the Egret using either Ektachrome or Kodachrome slide film, I don't remember which. The cloudy sky image was also from a 35mm slide. I had all the transparencies scanned on a drum scanner at a separation house. It cost me a hefty $110.00 a scan, and each scan was transferred to me via SyQuest disk.

Photoshop 1.0 And A Macintosh II
I used Photoshop 1.0 for the digital work on a Macintosh II. My machine had a whopping 32 megs of Ram and a un-calibrated 13 inch monitor. In Photoshop, back then, there were no layers, there was no history, there were no layer masks and there wasn't even a pen tool to create clipping paths (at least at don't remember one). It took me two full days to create this image, and probably a third day of just cleaning up edges. Trying to get things perfect was the difficult part. Well, that and the fact that everything took forever to do! Rotating a 30 megabyte file took over half-an-hour, and since all you could see during the duration was a bounding box, accuracy was non-existent! I don't even like remembering it. Finally, I had to deliver the image to Tony Stone Images (this was before Getty Images existed) as a 4x5 transparency output from a film recorder.

$15,000.00, Fifteen Years, And A Time Magazine Cover
Though the earnings of this image have dropped considerably, way back in the day, it earned some good money. I would guess my total returns for this image is in the neighborhood of $15,000.00. Another interesting point is that it took fifteen years from the time I created it for it to show up on the cover of Time Magazine. The people at Time isolated the flying money and added in a face to illustrate an article on what they called "The Great Retirement Rip Off".

Photoshop, Progress Bars and 3D Programs
In the early nineties I was constantly being told that you couldn't use Photoshop to do professional level work. I just smiled and went back to watching that progress bar. Actually, I should say several progress bars. You could be much more efficient with two or three machines. I remember once using the "radial>zoom>blur" filter on a photograph in an operation that took 19+ hours to finish, then it didn't look very good so I did the old "command-z". I suppose there are those out there (Colin Anderson, Shalom Ormsby and Phil Banko, for example?) who now experience those same situations doing high-end work with 3D programs.

Income Producing Assets
Every time I set about to make a stock photo, I am trying to create an image with that kind of staying power. In the well-known investment book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki advocates investing your money in “income producing assets”. That is how I view my stock photos, as income producing assets. I am investing my time, my money and my ideas in stock photo assets. I don’t know about you, but I find it very reassuring that those assets can still, even in these years of industry turbulence, have a long and healthy life.