SOUNDIMAGEPLUS: The end justifies the means - A successful picture in stock photography terms.

This is my most downloaded stock picture. It's coming up to close to 2000 sales from several libraries. It's a 10MP file shot with a Pentax K10 APS-C camera. Because of the strong sunlight part of the windows and the wall are burnt out in terms of the highlights. It's not perfect technically by any means, but it sells and sells. I've seen it in various places including a full A4 page advertising mortgages. There are three main reasons why I think it's so popular. It's 'clean' and uncluttered. There is space top and bottom for text and it has a warm sunny glow. I used a tripod to get front to back sharpness from a cheap Sigma wide-angle zoom.

It's a classic example of when you get into the real world, forget all the nonsense about dynamic range, full frame sensors, expensive lenses and pontificating about the specs. of the latest cameras and lenses etc. The 'success' of an image, either financially or aesthetically has nothing to do with what it was shot on and everything to do with what the content is. It is pretty unexciting, it wouldn't get many likes on Instagram, but it's proven to be the 'right' image for a large number of clients, who care nothing about everything the photographic internet obsesses about. Does it fit their brief? is the question they ask most.

Many of the best selling images on stock photography websites are like this. As indeed are most of the images that are either commissioned or bought from libraries for publication in print or electronic media. Well crafted and executed images that have little to do with photography as art, are not flashy in any way and are functional and serve a purpose while being pleasing to look at.

As a stock photographer you have to live with this. Many of what I consider to be my best images have never sold and some pretty boring images have sold again and again. Now I never 'dumb down' what I shoot because of the above and indeed the (few) images that I have sold for advertising campaigns and which have generated huge fees are generally amongst those I am very proud to have taken.

The reason for writing all this is because of the way the photographic internet spends far too much time arguing about trivia, when you can be a commercially successful photographer using gear that many 'enthusiasts' wouldn't be seen dead with. In fact the bulk of my most financially (and aesthetically) successful pictures were taken on cameras that these days would probably be consigned to museums. i.e. The film cameras sitting in my camera cupboard.

So another post in my low key war against photographic hype and disinformation. And no I'm obviously not against the tools we use improving over time, I just think that we often give those 'improvements' more attention than they merit. After all it's what's in the picture that counts. Though that concept is, unfortunately, often seen as largely irrelevant these days

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