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Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes
  This’ll be my last post on 36clicks on stock. 36clicks will cease to be on stock, and I am moving my stock photography activities to Corepics. The series of articles I’ve written have already been moved to their new location on corepics, and future thoughts on the photography business will be added on corepics, too.
36clicks itself will continue as it was originally intended for: the trade name of my own company, De Wolf Images. In about a month or two, this website will be automatically redirected to De Wolf Images
Why these changes?
With the current developments in the market, it makes sense to separate my photography business, shooting assigned work, from my stock activities. It will make my businesses more transparent, more accessible, and more effective. A web-presence cannot be overlooked, these days. Having too many channels, however, has turned out to be more of a hassle than have the intended added value I hoped for.
I’d like to thank all of you for your support, and your visits to 36clicks on stock. I hope to see to you again on corepics.com!
Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes
Everyone, active in a creative profession, has to deal with it every now and then. The Creative Dip. However, there are a few very basic tricks to overcome this feared block rapidly.
The situation
Over the last few months, I’ve hammered through a lot of shoots for clients and for stock. Processing the results, I noticed my enthusiasm for the photos faded away rapidly. Not that the images were bad – they matched my clients expectations – but somehow, they failed to appeal to me. They lacked the “wow-factor”. They were kinda bland, missing the sparkle and the eye catching effect. To me, those images were uninspiring, unimaginative and – basically – dull.
The next thing
Doubt. Frustration. Postponing things, because I didn’t feel like it. More evasive maneuvering. Rut. As I believe in the merits of striving for continuous improvement, this situation is opposite to where I’d liked myself to be.
The Pitfall
The danger of creating uninspiring images is that people will still buy them, creating room for leniency, and failing to pursue continuous improvement. There’s no creativity killer like indulgence. When you’re in a rut, it’s bound to lead to a creative dip. You’ll end up failing to follow up on leads, because you lost interest. A total killer.
The cause
Overproduction, perhaps. Shooting too many comparable images, shooting too many similar subjects, shooting too many familiar themes, and too little differentiating factors. It just all became repetitive. The weather has been gray, rainy and gloomy for almost 4 months now, forcing me into the studio a few days too many, producing more uninspiring images
At this point, some consider taking a creative break, and pursue other interests. I believe, there are several very useful – yet uncommon – methods to break this downward spiral. In this article, I’d like to are a few with you.
Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes
Crestock just launched a new wordpress plugin, offering bloggers free images. The plugin allows bloggers to directly download blog-sized images (max 400 pixels), free of charge, into their wordpress blog. The plugin has full search functionality. The images will provide credits to the photographer, and a link back to Crestock.
- More about Crestocks wordpress plugin here.
- Download the plugin here.
Continue reading Crestock offers freebie images
Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes
We supply too many images to (micro)stock agencies, and there are too many photographers to base a sustainable business model on for most of us. The suppliers market seems to be over-saturated.
On the other hand, microstock is rapidly gaining market share as cheap source of images for many purposes. The RF microstock pricing structure facilitates new buyers looking for alternative (and cheaper) outlets, due to the current financial situation. As the marketplace is changing, and microstock as business is maturing, competition grows. For the contributor, this means a rapidly growing challenge in meeting the changing image requirements in quantity and quality. This new – microstock – type of User Generated Content is eating away business from traditional stock agents as well as commissioned based photographers. Microstock has changed the photography business. Possibly forever.
All doom and gloom, or has this cloud a silver lining?
Continue reading Thoughts on a changing photography market
Reading time: < 1 minute
It’ll probably be an open door for you when I say that with a decent planning, you’ve already done half the work. I believe a thorough planning is vital for any photoshoot. Whether you work with models, or go go out into the wild. Both indoors, as well as outdoors, a planning will only help you to be more productive.
This guide thoroughly describes the way I go about my major productions – using a group of models, on location outside my studio, using one or more assistants. For most (micro)stock productions, this approach will be way too elaborate and time consuming, and a more lean approach can be followed.
Continue reading Planning a photo shoot
Reading time: < 1 minute
With a minimum effort – basically the result of trying out new lighting schemes on myself – I ended up with about a 50 different images of myself. Combining them into different conceptual groupings, all related to business methodologies, a vast series, quadrupling the number of shots needed, erected. This series even won me an iPod in the Dreamstime Engineering competition.
Thinking about the business methodologies and concepts, there is plenty of room to expand….:)
Reading time: < 1 minute
After only 5 months online as Wolf on Stock, a lot of things have happened, which resulted in a bit of downtime, to put it mildly. But, we're back!
36clicks is now fully dedicated to stock photography, separating the name from my other businesses, and I've reserved this domain for stock related issues only.
That's not all, folks! We also moved to a new provider, a new host, on a new server in a new datacenter. This also gave me the a nice photo-op, to extend the technological niches I tend to shoot. All photos are available through my agents.
I’ve got quite a few topics in the pipeline, let’s see when I get around to actualy typing a few blurbs about them… :)
Reading time: < 1 minute
Following up on my previous post on finding your niche in (micro)stock, I'd like to draw your attention to a very useful tool in assessing if what you have in mind is a potential niche to be explored; picNiche
Also, there is an interesting article for comparison on mystockphoto worth checking out (and not just in respect to finding your niche!).
Thanks to Roberto Marinello and Bob Davies for re-drawing my attention to this subject!
Continue reading Find your niche in (micro)stock – updated
Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes
 It’s splattered all over the various forums of microstock agents: If you want to be successful in stock, build a large portfolio. Aim for a versatile collection of images, as that ensures a wide spread interest from buyers, designers, and such, and thus realises sales and generates revenues. All very well intended opinions, shared by the big names in microstock.
Outstanding! Now that’s something to aim for, then! Pick up that camera, and go shoot everything around you. If it moves – even better, right? – Wrong.
 Five tips to build a porfolio that stands out, and can potentially make you some cash:
- Do your searches. Start with popular themes, such as “business handshake”, which’ll generate a lot of hits of high selling images. I
- Don’t copy what’s already popular unless you manage to find a new, refreshing, approach, targetting new prospective buyers
- Go take a good look at the popular images. Forget what those images are about, but remember the style. you’ll notice a crispness and refreshing style, that sells
- Try narrowing down the search query to a theme that complies with two rules: the subject of the photos is accessible to you, and there are only a handfull of images depicting that same theme. If you find a search that results in a few images with a lot of sales, then you’ve found a niche.
- Expand that niche. What could images of that readily accessible subject be used for? How many angles of use can you identify? And how different would photos using that share the same theme look for different uses?
Continue reading Find your niche in (micro)stock
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