Stock Photography - Can Transformed Photographs Work

The first thing that struck me about Stock Photography sites was that they encourage photographs of very high technical quality and often see transformed photographs as somehow inferior. I was therefore worried whether I would be able to sell transformed photographs through stock sites. Now that I have a significant number of sales I am able to look at what I have sold.

55% 0f the images I have sold were transformed photographs like the batch below

while 45% were original unmodified photographs like these

I suspect this is much to the dismay of some of the photographers who inhabit some of the forums, arogantly pushing almost unachievable quality standards, bemoaning the ability to "cover up" poor quality while still achieving desirable artworks.

Looking to do Something Different I - Portraits & Issues

This is going to be a series of posts where I link to new ideas I have come across while using the internet to inspire me in my quest to develop a unique offering for my photography.
The objective being to encourage the thinking process and hopefuly to generate new ideas, that lead to the opportunity to differentiate what you are doing so you don't get lost in the flood of digital images.

The first in the series is an approach to brining more of an understanding to a portrait through the integration of the portrait of a council member with an image of an issue the councellor identifies as defining their activity in the council.

click the image to open this Petapixel post.

Apparently these images were produced in camera and not with editing. This must be some undertaking and I wonder whether its really worthwhile. To me it doesn't seem to work that well with landscape images having to be vertically orientated.

Posted with Blogsy

Starting DaveH Photography

Now that I'm faced with the empty first page of my site I wonder what to say? I suppose the best is to start with what I am most interested in at present!

I like this photo taken at the Abbesses metro station in Montmartre in May 2014.

Sightseerers relaxing at the entrance to the Abbesse metro station
© 2013 Dave Harcourt. All rights reserved

 

As soon as you decide you want to share this image widely, hopefuly for payment, things become complicated!. A GOOGLE image search on Abbesse gives you 16 pages like this. On Flickr there are 36 pages although the images are more diverse

A screenshot of a page of the GOOGLE image search

So what could you do? maybe go to black and white to make its more of a Street Photography shot. But definitely not another short of the art deco entrance to what is the deepest station in Paris!

You could also pick bits out of the photo which are more individual and striking

Cropped image of interesting people in the crowd
© 2013 Dave Harcourt. All rights reserved

 

Someone rather disgruntled with his phone or the sms he has just read or the disinterested woman, picking here nose! it is interesting that in any crowd photo there are always people doing interesting things if you zoom in.

Group of friends discussing what to do next?
© 2013 Dave Harcourt. All rights reserved


Or what about a classic lets be "different" and just shoot the feet.

Footware near the  entrance to the Abbasses metro station
© 2013 Dave Harcourt. All rights reserved

Art Deco ironwork over entrance to the Abbasses metro station
© 2013 Dave Harcourt. All rights reserved

Most of these increase your chances but what are your chances of being seen? This will be one of the focuses of my posts as I follow this path.