Stock Photography - Myths To Overcome

Many of us may be asking what stock photography actually is. Well let me tell you. Stock photography is basically photographs from photographers that are taken ahead of time. The photographer is always taking a gamble as they are producing photographs that they feel will be useful for publication and in return they will have a financial gain.

One advantage of stock photography is that you can take photographs of almost anything at any place. The disadvantage, however, is that you may end up producing hundreds of photographs and not one of them will make a single penny so it's important that you know the market if you are considering on taking up stock photography as a career.

Stock photographers not only need to be clued up on the market and latest trends but they will also need to ensure that their photographs are up to date if you want any success with the publishers. Stock photographers don't just take photographs as there is a lot of planning and thought involved to. They need to know exactly what they are taking photographs of and to be sure that they are taking photographs the way that they should be done.

Think of stock photography and packing shelves in a shop. If you pack the wrong products on the shelves, there will be no sales, whereas with stock photography; if you take the wrong photograph it will just collect dust and not any revenue.

Myths about Stock Photography

There are a countless amount of myths related to stock photography, most of which aren't true in the slightest. Some myths include, "you need thousands of photographs to stand any chance", "stock photographs sell for next to nothing" and "it's impossible to make a living with stock photography".

Yes, that's right! These are nothing more than myths and to prove that, certain stock agencies have paid massive amounts of money for stock photographs ranging anything from $300 to $28,000 and you should be able to get into most stock agencies with nothing more than 100 images or less, so in conclusion these myths are nothing more than false.

Many of us may be attracted by the idea of earning extra income through stock photography but it's important to note that it's not an easy job. If it was an easy job, we would all want to become stock photographers. A lot of research is involved and you need to be extremely clued up on the latest trends and technical developments.

Editorial Captions and Their Importance

If you a planning on getting into editorial stock photography then it's important that you provide captions which are accurate or they may simply be rejected so be creative not just with the photography but with the captions too. Editorial photographs is all about illustrating concepts, topics and ideas, or showing things which are much harder than if it were explained through words.

With your editorial photographs, you need to consider what you can illustrate. For example, if there was a drug bust on a neighborhood, you could use the likes of, "The war on drugs", "The dangers of being law enforcement" or "How law enforcement team work pays off". There are just a few among many that you could use. Just be creative and try to get the best that you can for your photographs.

Without any caption for your stock photographs they would be less valuable as it would be very difficult to determine what the picture actually is so it's important that you use them at all times.