Just got my royalty report for the month of December. It is a considerable increase of sales from last month.
A LOT of images sold where of the Bouchard-Taylor commission (God I’m happy I went there without an official assignment from a paper!). Two sleepers slipped in: a BMO building and the ADQ MNAs arriving for their first caucus.
As I was expecting, December was really not a good month for assignment (newsrooms are on lower gear before and during Christmas), so CP saved my month.
As a self-employed photojournalist, even when I don’t have something to do (an assignment), I HAVE something to do. Beside the “business” side (billing, self-promotion, etc), a freelancer always have to try to find new markets and new ways to make money out of his skill.
I recently told you about going back to my archive to put my photos into stock bank. Now it’s done, so as soon as the weather is cooperative, I go shoot headquarters, landmarks, or anything that might sell.
And when it’s snowing, raining, or when it’s just cloudy? I just started to try a new market: creative (non-editorial) stock photography. Earlier this week, I selected the theme “coffee” and spent a couple of hours setting up a little studio and shooting everything in the apartment that was coffee related. Some example below, complete sets of coffee stock photography on my Photoshelter page.
Coffee beans overflowing from a Burlap sack
Keywords: bag, coffee, beans, bean, white, background, studio, shot, food, cuisine, diet, food and nutrition, meals, breakfast, beverage, drink, drinks, nonalcoholic, cafe au lait, café mocha, cappuccino, drip coffee, espresso, Burlap, close, up, Textures, caffeine, roast, roasted, legume, seed, raw, icon, symbol, pip, grain, detail, still, life, group, java, flavored, hot, ingredient, black, sack, texture, fabric, Abundance, morning, decaffeinated, decaf, Caffeinated, gourmet, flavor, rich, fresh
Coffee and milk poured into a cup
Keywords: Same as above + sugar, milk, glass, cup, transparent
A cup full of coffee with sugar and cinnamon sticks isolated over a white background
Keywords: Same as first + spoon, sugar, cinnamon, stick, cinnamon stick
Remember when I told you about being a CP contributor? I got my first Cheque, covering the sale made in the month of November.
I made 4 sales:
I was pretty confident the Bouchard-Taylor picture (or this other one with Cardinal Ouellet) would be a good seller. It was an important moment of an historic commission. I’m sure this photo will still sell 10 years from now.
I was pretty confident too that my 6 Max Gros-Louis portraits would be a good seller, and this first month proved me right.
The Quebec flag could be used in every story who need an illustration of the nationalist/separatist movement in Quebec, so I think it is something I will sell again in the future.
Yes, it’s “just” 4 sales, but it’s a good start. I can make recurring sale, and this will grow over time as I add new images. This is a neat addition to my current revenue. That will help during month where the phone will ring less often.
Shooting stock photos can be fun. And tasty. And fun. And tasty. And tasty. VERY tasty. I mean it. Tasty.
A sausages poutine from Chez Ashton, a popular fast food chain in the Quebec City area. Poutine is a French Canadian dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds and covered with hot gravy.
Technical: Canon EOS 20d, 1/250 at f9 with a 16-35 at 31mm – ISO 200 + direct flash on the upper left
Other Chez Ashton poutine stock photos
Got my Actualité today. I flip the page to find on page 16 a picture of Ann Bourget: Photo Francis Vachon / Presse Canadienne. This is going to be fun!
I’m pretty new to stock photography. I had a nice collection waiting on my hard drive, unused. I then applied to be an Alamy contributor. But their minimal requirement, a 50mb uncompressed image, is so high that just a couple of my photos could fit in – the one I shot in RAW mode.
Then, maybe 2 weeks ago, I applied to be a Canadian press contributor. This time, pretty much all of my photo could fit. I went back to my archive, key worded and captioned pretty much everything that I though could be usable, and started to FTP them.
I was really wondering how much I could make out of this. After all, most stock photographers say that you need 1000 images for 1 or 2 sales a year. 1000 images was more or less what I had.
Fast forward to today. I open Maclean’s (The English Actualité, for my Quebec friends) and what do I see, right there on page 12? One of my photos to goes with an article on separatism, with “Francis Vachon/ CP” as the byline. Sweet!