I wanted to document a bit of how we prepare for a new stock shoot.  Unfortunately I’m not shooting hot models a la Chase Jarvis so I’m not going to be live demo’ing anytime soon!

Our thought process on a new photo shoot works something like this:

1. Overall concept/theme/ingredient
2. Specific recipe
3. Lighting/angles/technicals
4. Shop
5. Shoot Day

1. Overall concept/theme/ingredient

We shoot two days a week – Friday and Sunday. If we shoot more that’s fantastic.  If not, oh well.  We plan those two days to have one breakfast or lunch type shoot (Friday) and one dinner/dessert (Sunday).  It’s easier to spend a long time cooking/shooting on Sundays for us and dinner/dessert usually seems to take longer than breakfast/lunch.

I follow some really great foodies on Twitter/Facebook/blogs.  One thing I always look for is a recipe that a) will taste great and b) will LOOK great.  As a bonus I often look to see if I can find a healthy version so nobody gains 10 pounds per recipe I shoot.

2. Specific Recipe

So Friday we need to create a lunch. I bookmarked a delicious looking recipe two weeks ago and decided quickly I’d try that this week.  The recipe will be 3 Cheese Chicken Cacciatore Manicotti.  That was easy.  We also need to figure out dinner for Sunday.  I wanted to find something not as “fancy” as cacciatore manicotti so we looked at several recipe sites, some cookbooks and finally decided on something the Biggest Loser Cookbook called “Mom’s New Beef Stew.”  That fits my requirements: tastes great, looks super yummy and bonus: it’s fairly healthy at 275 cals per serving.

Some weeks I will decide on a recipe by ingredient.  Take Kahlua for instance.  We have leftover Kahlua from the chocolate mousse we made a week ago.  This Chocolate Truffle Pie also uses Kahlua.  If we don’t make that Sunday for dessert I’m certain we’ll make it next week.  Using ingredients you have on hand greatly reduces wastes and product going bad/old.

3. Lighting/angles/technicals

After printing the recipe and making a shopping list we write on the back of the recipe some ideas for the shoot.  Mostly this is just note-form.  Here are some examples from our banana split shoot:

• Yellow/orange
• high key
• OJ – don’t think milk will work
• Balance the color
• Angles: will be propped up?
• Spoonful

Generally meaningless until you get in the shoot.  We did end up using a yellow napkin and orange juice – it balanced the color very well.  We did some shots near the end of the shoot with a spoonful of split in front of the dish.  We tried but didn’t use milk because it did, in fact, look bad.  We ended up propping the bowl with a small bottle cap for a few shots.

4. Shop

Shopping day is Thursday.  That dictates our Friday shoot – if we need something super-fresh we may have to pick that up Friday morning before the shoot.  Sunday’s shopping is done except fresh on Thursday as well.  WE have a local Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings year-round so we do our fresh shopping for Sunday then.

With our recipe and our ideas already in place shopping day is generally pretty straightforward.  Pick the best items you can find.

5. Shoot Day

Well, shoots are shoots.  The only thing we try and do specifically at each shoot is pre-organize our ideas so we don’t cut up the food before we’re done with it.  The further into a shoot we get the more we “mess” the dish and the more we feel free to cut, chop, move, adjust, add to, take from, etc.  We want to get those setup shots first, the meat of the shoot, then start playing with the outer edge of the shoot – closeups, eating, some unusual stuff just to see how it works, etc.  Get the bulk of work done when the food is as fresh and perfect as possible.  Once you get that THEN experiment.

Wrap Up

So that’s the way a typical shoot has been going for us.  We are pro photographers but very amateur food photographers. The combination is sometimes an interesting one.  I can figure out how to light something I’ve never shot before but I may not know how to drizzle syrup “correctly” yet.  We continue to read foodie sites, blogs, watch food stylist tutorials on Youtube and read food photo books.  Many many ways to learn in 2010!

Hope you enjoyed the post!  It’s great to be back and thank you for all the comments and well-wishes recently.

I’ve started to push images and get reviews.  I was pending this morning but a lot of batches were reviewed and now I’m starting to go live everywhere.  I can’t wait to see how the food images sell!

Our shooting has started off very well too – I want to get ahead a little. We have now completed 6 food shoots in the last 9 days – about 200 new photos to submit now.

We need to plan our dishes for this week – we’ve done a lot of desserts so I think it’ll be great to get a few lunches and maybe an entree out this week.

What are your favorite foods?  What foods do you really LOVE to cook?  And eat?  I’m really interested in the types of things you enjoy.

I know a lot of readers were concerned when I said I was going into food photography. Why the change?  I told you then and I will say it again – I’m OBSESSED with food now! I’ve made some healthy recipes, lost a few pounds and will keep shooting food.  I LOVE this job!  These images are all shot in the last week.  This is our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th food shoot.  We’re still learning but hopefully you like em!  Actually, hopefully stock photo buyers like em!

During the last few months one of my major goals has been to shoot more food photography.  I am really interested in the subject, I enjoy all aspects of it, and I think I can do it well (eventually).

So my past few months have been focused on learning – studying food photos, “becoming” a foodie, learning styling techniques – I never wanted to jump straight into food but rather be a food person who knew how to photograph.  I’ve been studying food, food photos, collecting recipes, deciding on what I want to focus on. In learning to “be” a food stylist/chef  you learn about presentation.

Thus my thought for the moment – become involved in the shots you want to shoot.  You shoot sports?  Go PLAY sports more – referee for the kid leagues, shoot hoops more at the park and watch more games.  See how the pros present sports.  You want to shoot business people?  Get deeper into business – meet with SCORE, talk about business planning and attend a seminar so you can see how someone has designed their speech.  Desire to shoot more animals & nature?  Interact – get out there, follow wildlife, hunt (with or without the gun), track animals – learn their behaviors.

— Related tangent —

When I first started learning to be a wedding photographer I listened to everything wedding photographers said. Advertising, marketing, sales, websites, SEO, photography & lighting, everything!  Eventually it dawned on me that photographers were good at making images.  I should learn advertising from an advertising specialist.  I no longer pay much attention to wedding photographers when they speak on subjects other than booking or shooting weddings.  The thought is very similar to what I’m talking about above.  Learn to be great at your subject – not just aware of it.

Sometimes when I want to shoot something I just pull it up, shoot it, wonder why it doesn’t sell.  I think the main reason is because someone else understands the subject while I just wanted a good photo of it.  Can I take good photos?  Yes.  Absolutely!  I shot models for years – and then I realized that because I don’t enjoy it all that much, the images weren’t high-class.  I can shoot well enough but the connection wasn’t there.  The question is – how involved are you in the shoot?

It doesn’t make sense for a city-dweller to go shoot cows and barns.  It doesn’t make sense for a sporty jock to shoot ballet.  Who are YOU and what can you shoot better than everyone else?

Images are going up now – mostly stuff I’ve shot in the past because we’re moving and my photo stuff is packed.  I am working on submitting older images.  I know they won’t sell quite the way I want but honestly I need to start getting momentum back and start submitting, get into all the right habits and patterns, etc.

Once we get moved a lot of our work is going to be focused on fixing up the house, prepping the new studio locations, shooting some new images, and so on.  I hope to get a bunch of great images from the move but who knows what will happen when we actually get moving.  I don’t want to be the slacker who’s taking photos while my friends & family lift boxes.

So going forward – momentum, new submissions, new imagery, a solid approach to the new 2010.

Let me quote myself.

I am not going to stick around and pretend to be something I’m not.  Too many people set goals and fail to reach them, yet still continue the journey unfazed.  I often share my experiences and ideas in hopes of helping you.  If I can’t help myself first, I can’t help you.

If I fail to reach both goals (10k images, $25k for the year) by 12/31/09, NiltoMil.com will close for good whether I continue to shoot microstock or not.

At this point in the year it is obvious that I will not reach 10k approved images OR $25,000 this year.

I am modifying what I wrote above.  I am not going to destroy or delete Nil. I am going to stop posting earnings, stop posting ideas until they are working better.  I AM going to keep Nil up for the archives and the posts that often get referenced.  I AM going to continue to put up posts of interest to me – whether that’s of interest to anyone else or not.  My journey will continue.

I need to help myself first.  I need to figure out the steps I should be taking to reach my goal  and when I do, I’ll be back full force with the full effort I can give Nil.  Until then, expect sporadic updates on what I’m doing, how stock is going and what I am trying to do to improve.

Total Earnings: $440.55

That’s a number I can live with.  Granted it doesn’t get me a lot closer to the “mil” portion of this goal but it also represents an increase over August of $13 and an increase over last Sept of $31.  I upload no new photos, keyworded nothing and submitted not a dang thing.  So an increase in my earnings with no new work is definitely motivating and exciting.

As always my fully detailed results are in my Google Spreadsheet here.

Well, the summer is almost over and I’m almost back to work.  September represents the next-to-last month of me not able to focus on microstock.  That being said I’m always happy if I make a few dollars anyways.

Specific results that are important:

Shutterstock finished +$74 from last month.  I would expect something more in the middle like $160 for October.

Dreamstime was way down but Fotolia was up.  I can’t wait to see what happens with Bigstock since the SS acquisition.

NO BMEs for the first time since I started tracking stats – that’s a little disappointing but gives me some new goals and motivations.  I’d like to have one month set EVERY BME just so I had a guideline to improve from.

Others reporting microstock income:

Microstock Diaries

jrtb

CJ Photography

Driftless Ramblings

PDTNC

MelastMohican

Pixels Away

Bankizdjec

Microstock Experiment

MyStockPhoto

Stock Illustrator

This won’t be a huge surprise for anyone that follows my numbers at all anymore but March is going to be *huge* for me.  I  have done the work in February – not as much as possible but a decent amount of work.  I think I will be rewarded for it.  So many people want to doomsday and naysay on how stock is going but next month we’ll see if that’s true for me.

Why do I predict such a huge month?

• February is going to finish as my best month since July (BME).  I’m back to my max levels from before.
• According to 123RF, I submitted 450 new images in February (that would be 450 to all sites).
• My Shutterstock gallery is nearly 2000 now with 550 new since Dec 31st.  They are selling very well.
• BMEs on at least 4, maybe 5 stocks tomorrow.
• As summer comes, sales pick up naturally.  Add in the work from this month and the work I’ve done in Jan. and will do in March.  It’s coming together.
• Finally – I’m doing Powerweek v3 from March 8 through March 14th.  I will be posting about that more around the 3rd or so.

So overall March is looking like the month to beat for me.

I’ve felt challenged lately – many people have found the site.  A lot of them question my “insane” $1,000,000 goal.  I understand that.  I disagree with where I’ll end up, but I understand.  I think it’s doable or I wouldn’t bother trying.  Of COURSE it’s not doable from where I am today.  I get what needs to be done.  Keep watching!

Most bloggers in microstock are very polite, respectful and friendly to everyone.   I try to be the same but there are some times and some issues that push my buttons and I think it’s appropriate to respond to issues that come up.  I would like to say that I will talk to, help and work with any agency that wants to listen.  On the other hand, I don’t feel bad for the agencies that get upset by criticism and don’t change.

(Short version: I’m going to bust some chops.  Don’t like it, fix it.)

• Categories – I would love to know the stats on images bought through categories vs. keywords.  Are these seriously necessary?
• Shutterstock refusing to update the photographer side of the site (views, easy image management, etc).
• Banning & removing contributors for having differing opinions on how things should work.
• Fotolia flat out changing the rules mid-stream without telling anyone ALL THE TIME.
• Flat sales in a down economy – this is when we should be picking up new business partners for life.
• 123RF’s negative review wording “bad this” “poor that” “Snapshot” – ack!
• Editorial captioning rules that are ridiculous – and this includes almost every site that allows editorial images.
• Some sites show off work on their main page that has blown highlights, poor lighting, and looks awful.  It wouldn’t be accepted if you submitted it today – don’t show it off!
• Submission processes that take too long: IStock, Fotolia and several smaller sites – I’m talking to you.  This is a time-oriented business.  Make it FAST for us.
• Small sites that promise to do things different and get no sales.  Ever.  That’s not different.  That’s the same if you’re a small site.  Here’s a hint: photographers + images + sales = more of all of the above.  Thousands of images with no buyers, thousands of buyers with few images – neither works.  Stop trying to do it overnight and BUILD your site.
• Inconsistency.  I subbed 50 to a site and 45 were rejected.  I resubmitted in anger the same exact 45 with *no* changes and 43 were accepted.  Please. Fix. This.
• Make things easy – how many times do I have to repeat this on the list for stock sites to get it?  Not just submissions – make getting our money easy, make resubbing for missing model releases easy, make updating an image data easy. (thank you Bigstock for nailing this!)
• If I submitted an image 3 years ago and I have better PS skills now, allow me to replace the image with a better upload without losing all my stats, views, etc.
• Sites without FTP annoy me.
• Great looking/usable sites without views/sales/revenue – what IS that?  You have the site right.  Just sell.  If you can’t sell, close the business.  This business is ALL sales.
• Get rid of images 4+ years old with no sales.

Okay I’m done for now.  Please feel free to comment, wish me luck in my next career…(laughing), etc.  Someone has to say it.

That’s right, they nailed this guy for taking photos of trains – I feel safer at night! I will never take a stock photo for a photography contest on an Amtrak train. I think that’s the lesson I learned. Maybe? Check out this video from the Colbert Report:

Is it me or is this both hilarious AND ridiculous?  I’m sure a lot of people heard about this but I hadn’t seen all the details and Colbert is hilarious!

But seriously – isn’t this part of what’s wrong with us today?  I’m not sure what these “amtrak cops” were thinking but here’s the gist:

1) Amtrak starts a photo contest.
2) Photographer takes photos of trains for Amtrak’s contest.
3) Photographer arrested.

WHAT?  So ludicrous!