Shooting beauty and lifestyle for stock has given me great pleasure. So far I resisted to start shooting business. I don’t know, it reminds me too much of corporate business life I know so well. And I certainly did not want to shoot the stereotype business images you see so often in microstock libraries. In corporate business it’s about top line and bottom line and all these “team work” images….yeah, keep on dreaming

But Moodboard – my stock agency – convinced me it can also be done in a more real life way. We discussed that small businesses, especially the business of creative professionals could be of interest. Concepts like entrepreneurship, creativity, craftsmanship, independence have still real value there. And when shot in a documentary way … showing real life, that would be fun to shoot. So we decided to work at a series on creative professionals starting with an interior design firm.

Interior Design Agency

An Interior Design Agency has all the qualities we were looking for. Especially when led by a woman designer. So I was very happy to receive a positive reply of Doret Schulkes , senior designer and owner of “Doret Schulkes Interior Design“. She liked the concept of our shoot and when visiting her office I was quickly convinced that this design office was a great location for our shoot. Together we worked on a shooting brief – she explained me the work flow in a design agency and required that this could be recognized in our reportage

Prepared to be the “fly on the wall” I arrived at the office …. to find that this day was one of those typical days in Holland with low light and a nice grey sky Shooting with a couple of  prime lenses – and daylight gradually improving during the day – saved the day for me.  It certainly was a pleasure to share a day of the life of a design team led by a strong leader with a clear vision on her profession and the way she wanted to service her customers. Really professional !!

Colleagues work in reference library of design agency

Senior colleague sits with trainees in design consultancy

Senior designer drawing at desk

Designers work at laptop in office

Design partnership in reference library with asssistants

These images are part of a series ( part I, part II ) that I have submitted to the Moodboard collection. All images on the Moodboard site (a royalty free stock collection) are for sale.

I started shooting stock with shooting beauty images in my studio. After that I tried shooting beauty outdoors …. and when shooting outdoors it was a small step to my first outdoors lifestyle shoot !! And I really love lifestyle photography now.

In the Netherlands we have many months we live mostly indoors, our domestic life in winter is in our warm houses. So when shooting lifestyle sooner or later you have to shoot indoors. This is my first lifestyle shoot indoors.

Shooting domestic life is about trying to find the beauty in daily life. Since I love shooting the beauty of women this appeared not to be a big step for me. Expecially because I chose to shoot the domestic life of a young woman

Facebook helped me to reconnect with Ilse de Vis – a model I had worked with years ago – and I am so happy to have found her again She has developed to a real pro model and shooting with her is just going with the flow. She quickly grasped the concepts of this shoot and made daily life come real in front of my lens. And happily she still is beautiful as always

Selects of this shoot

Here some selects of this shoot. If you want to see the whole series of about 25 lifestyle images you can find those here at the Moodboard site.

Light and composition are key for this kind of shoots. Not really pleasant to find very hard light in the sitting room most of the afternoon….But I think I have managed to find the nice light in other rooms and at the end of the afternoon the light was more forgiving. Thanks to Tom van der Plas for letting us use his appartment (he certainly knows how to design and build beautiful appartments – have a look at his site A+ Projects)

Woman sits with laptop in bed

Woman lies with laptop on bed

Woman sits with knees pulled up

Woman sits with knees pulled up

Rear view, woman working with files

Woman sits with a cup at kitchen table

Woman sits curled up on sofa watching TV

Woman reading files at study desk

Woman lies on sofa reading a book

Woman sits cross-legged on sofa with paperwork

These images are part of a series that I have submitted to the Moodboard collection. All images on the Moodboard site (a royalty free stock collection) are for sale.

Some women have a natural beauty, some women also have a natural energy glow. It is these women I like so much for beauty photography. If you are a beautiful women with a natural energy glow and would like to be my model for a beauty shoot, please contact me !!

For this shoot I was happy to work with Roxanne – a dutch model. I think you will agree that Roxanne has both of those qualities. I guess that’s why my stock agency Moodboard selected these close-up images out of this shoot. They show her beauty and energy glow.

For make-up I chose the mineralize products of MAC Cosmetics – mineralize satinfinish foundation, mineralize powders, mineralize blush. These products reinforce the energy glow of the model.

This is one of a series of beauty shoots I did for Moodboard. After this shoot I will focus on lifestyle and business shoots when shooting for Moodboard. Because I love beauty photography I am looking for another agency that is interested in my beauty work.

Some more images

Here some more close-up beauty shots of this shoot.

Young woman smiling with nude makeup

Young woman with eyes closed and chin up

Young woman with head back and eyes closed

Young woman wearing blusher

These images are part of a series that I have submitted to the Moodboard collection. All images on the Moodboard site (a royalty free stock collection) are for sale.

A couple of weeks ago I did a portrait shoot with lovely Laura. I gave her a nice natural and flattering make-up. Some shoots with her lovely thick and curly hair and some very classic shoots with short hair. She also had taken a nice hat to the studio, I like these “summer style” shots. Always a pleasure to shoot with Laura, with her very special beauty.

I am a photographer. I am a make-up artist. And I like to do simple shoots where I can do the make-up and also shoot the pics.

Two years ago I decided to do a professional make-up training. After that it took me some while before I had the courage to do the make-up for my own models. It helped me very much that another photographer asked me to do the make-up for his personal work. We did some 10 shoots together – you can see the results at my site –  and after this period I started doing the make-up for my own shoots.

Originally I did the training to improve my retouche work as a beauty photographer and have a better communication with make-up artists when shooting beauties. But now I have to admit … that I really like doing the make-up.

Nowadays I do the make-up for “one model” shoots – natural beauty work and lifestyle – but I still like to work together with ‘other’ make-up artist when doing more complex shoots. But I have become rather picky

Shiny skin

The stock photos I show you in this post are from a ‘natural beauty’ shoot I did a few months ago. Wonderful Norine – with this strong and beautiful face – was my model. Although in her late twenties she has the skin of an eighteen year old girl. With my make-up I have chosen for a glowing complexion to show these qualities of hers. I hope you like it. Here are some more pics.

Young woman looks sad, copyspace

Naked woman stands tying her hair back

Young woman smiles at camera

Young woman smiles with eyes closed

Young woman portrait, smiling at camera

Woman holds hair to the side

Portrait of young woman with copyspace

These images are part of a series that I have submitted to the Moodboard collection. All images on the Moodboard site (a royalty free stock collection) are for sale.

Shot this young chinese woman last November. Love her beautiful long black hair. I think this first shot shows her beauty quite well. In Holland you see a lot of girls with an Indonesian background. Not so many chinese women. Would love to shoot more chinese women, especially when they have this nice long black hair. So girls….mail me

This shoot was one of the first studio shoots I did in 2009 after a long period of working outdoors. Shooting in a studio is really different – working with flash – and shooting beauty requires enormous attention to the details (as they say ‘the devil is in the details’). I had a few good shots, but far less than usually. This learned me that I should keep on shooting in the studio – also in periods I do a lot of outdoors shooting – because you have to practice your “studio skills” and your eye for details needs the regular practice.

More pics of this beautiful chinese women

My agency also accepted these pics of this young chinese women  - who was willing to travel 3 hours in order to work with me – for their premium collection. My Huong, I thank you !!

These images are part of a series that I have submitted to the Moodboard collection. All images on the Moodboard site (a royalty free stock collection) are for sale.

The other day Moodboard agency asked me to shoot beauties of a mature woman. The model should be beautiful and the model should be OK that the signs of ageing would not be covered with makeup or retouched away. Not that easy. I mean we all are so used to have our images fully retouched these days, some models even haven’t seen their images not retouched. So I was very happy to find this beautiful blond woman who said ‘yes’ when I asked her for my shoot.

Mature woman with head back laughing, eyes closed

Beauty of real people

Nowadays when people speak of “beauty images” they most of the time think of beauty makeup images (of young models) and images heavily retouched. So strange we don’t think anymore of images showing the beauty of real people. Real beauty is in the person, not in makeup or in Photoshop !! This model is showing confidently her real beauty, beauty of face and body and beautiful she is !!

Mature blonde in underwear looks confidently at camera

Mature woman stands self-consciously in white underwear

These images are part of a series that I have submitted to the Moodboard collection. All images on the Moodboard site (a royalty free stock collection) are for sale.

This week both Getty and Corbis launched their Photography Supermarkets. Thinkstock (Getty) and Veer (Corbis) will sell both RF and microstock. Thinkstock will have a subscription model. Veer will simply integrate their RF and microstock images into one website, but it is expected that soon the price difference will disappear.

Since most stock shooters (and agencies) have been pumping commodity images in high volume into the RF libraries it is not that weird to integrate RF and micro into one big library. Let’s be fair, the quality difference between most RF and some of the micro images is not that big. Soon we will have photography megastores filled with millions of images, partly consumer generated micro and partly professional RF imagery.

Who will win, who will lose ?

It looks like that the stock game is over for most professional stock shooters. Only those willing and able to shoot high volume against low cost will survive. But most professional shooters will probably call it a day.

Some think the stock industry will keep going and also think it will be the companies who will win out in the long term. In this new business model most contributors will make only pocket money, it will be the photography supermarkets who will take the profits. Like in normal supermarkets the margins are very thin but the profit is made by selling in high volume. That’s why only the professional shooters capable of shooting high volume against low cost have a chance to take a serious profit in these photography supermarkets.

So it appears that the professional photographers are the losers and the companies the winners. I don’t think so.

Also most companies will lose

Most general stock agencies are relatively small. And we all know what happened with the small “general” supermarkets when the megastores came….they all have gone out of business. It is not only the professional that will lose, most stock agencies will also have to stop their business. It is only the hubs, the megastores who have the sheer volume in internet traffic and sales that will make a profit. Margins on the new RF/micro will be too small for the low volume business of the small general stock agencies.

This is visible already in micro. When you are not the hub, where buyers and sellers meet, you are not a player. Istock, Shutterstock, Fotolia and Dreamstime are the players. The rest is fighting for the leftovers. When Getty, Corbis create these RF/micro megastores they will have the traffic, they will have the best shooters, they will have volume, they can make the profit. Small supermarkets will have a lousy collection, bad traffic and will not make a profit (with these very very small margins on an individual sale).

A common interest

I think small stock agencies and good professional stock shooters have a common interest. Neither professional shooters nor most stock agencies have anything to win by continuing the current business. Eventually the megastores will kill them.

In normal retail we have seen that the small general stores have all closed their business. But a little later new small stores have arisen. Butchers, bakers, cheese shops, etc. But all very specialized. High quality. Unique products. High prices. People most of the times do their daily shopping in the megastores, but for this nice piece of cheese they go these specialty store.

It is probably true that for many many purposes the cheap images from the photography supermarkets will suffice, but some clients will have the need for these unique, high-quality images. Sometimes it will be the same clients shopping in the megastores as well in the speciality shops, all depending on their needs.

Re-invent your business

Serious stock shooters and most small agencies have one common interest: to re-invent their business (or else leave the business). The answer may be in highly specialized RM collections, but not necessarily. But stop the commodity business !! You cannot win it – not the photographer and not the agency. The megastores and some shooters that are capable of running a highly industrialized production company will win. The amateurs (and other professional shooters) will at best take some nice pocket money.

Small stock agencies need the professionals. The professionals need the agencies. But there is only one road …leave the commodity business and invent new businesses. Back to a photographer/quality led business. Craftsmanship, creativity and independence. The agency serving the creative professionals.

This will require strong brands. Known for quality, service, art directed imagery, unique and fresh imagery, innovative. This will not be the place for those stock shooters who depended on shooting commodity in volume. Maybe these agencies will not be stock agencies. Maybe these agencies will be partly assignment partly stock business. May be it is not simply selling your RF business and focusing on one or two RM collections. Maybe it is seriously re-inventing the business. But I think there is a common interest for agencies and their photographers to do this together.

Or else the agencies will die and the photographers will go direct selling or start up some collectives. This will happen anyways. But the agencies have no chance without photographers !!

One of the great advantages of shooting stock is that you can define your own projects. One of my discoveries in 2009 has been that I love shooting outdoors with natural light. It is not always easy to find the right models and location. But when you can find the location and are happy to shoot with good models you only need one thing…great light !!

Windy Beach Shoot in November

If you would have asked me a year if I would consider a beach shoot in November then I probably would have said you are f-ing mad. But last November I did haha. And it was great fun .

Together with Wilma Bolwerk and her beautiful daughter I had a nice drive to the beach of Zeeland (NL). After lunch in Domburg - famous ‘Vlaamse frieten’ – we had a hills up walk to the nearby beaches. The weather was just lovely, a little cold but a beautiful sun !! Not too many other people, lots of shooting space, and Wilma’s daughter appeared to be a natural model. See for you yourselves !!

Mother and daughter collect shells at the beach

Mother carries daughter with arms around her neck

Mother and daughter eskimo kiss

Mother and daughter sit in sand dune

Mother and daughter on beach

Shooting outdoors lifestyle is really fun to do. If you are a good looking woman living in Holland or Belgium – and would like to model for these kind of shoots – then maybe you should have a look at my Model Info page. I am always looking for models of all ages interested in lifestyle shoots, indoors or outdoors.

These images are part of a series that I have submitted to the Moodboard collection. All images on the Moodboard site (a royalty free stock collection) are for sale.

Late 2008 I have started my stock photo business. At that time I decided I wanted to explore all options, microstock and macro stock, but also direct selling next to shooting for stock agencies. And I started with (only) shooting beauty images in the studio. I have learned a lot this year and now it is time to make some decisions on the way forward. This post is about my experiences in direct selling stock photos and the decisions I have made in going forward.

Photoshelter

In 2008 I was thinking of going into stock photography. When I approached stock agencies, like AGE or Jupiter, their first question was how many images I had available (model released). Uhhh…none. So I looked for agencies where I could submit without that kind of requirements. I started submitting to Alamy, IStock and Photoshelter.

At that time Photoshelter was running a stock agency and they promised us stock shooters that we could submit fresh imagery and we would get 70 percent of sales. I guess thousands of photographers ran into that “trap” and some submitted even thousands of pics. But this new initiative was stopped soon – no sales. Currently the promise of Photoshelter is

The most powerful website solution for photographers. Attract more visitors with our marketing and sales tools. Let them search your full archive, make purchases, and download hi-res images instantly online. Create a standalone website in minutes, or integrate our tools with your current site!

Used by over 50,000 photographers, from aspiring amateurs to full-time pros, who demand pro-strength tools to build a following, display, sell, and deliver images to clients fast. Commercial and editorial pros, to specialists in travel, nature, sports, wedding and stock photography rely on PhotoShelter.

Pretty convincing ha ? Although their stock agency adventure was a big failure I was still interested in the idea of direct selling your images. Or at least some part of your collection.

Direct selling what ?

In 2009 I came to a better understanding of this stock photo business. I decided I had to get a contract with an agency that did more than just selling your pics. That I needed an agency with a creative team. Enabling me to work on promising projects developed together with the creatives of your agency. So when I had the opportunity to start shooting for Moodboard agency I was very glad.

But shooting RF/RM for stock agencies means that all these images are exclusive. You cannot sell these images at other places. I did not intend to start shooting a RF/RM collection on my own. Especially in this bad business climate it comes to down to shooting salable images and getting these images in distributing networks with a high selling power. This means getting your images at the best selling agencies – Getty – or at aggregators that have their collection licensed by many many stock agencies.

I don’t think it is a good idea to start direct selling RF/RM imagery when you don’t have a good understanding of what sells and what does not sell. And putting your collection online at Photoshelter will only work when you are able to get a high volume of traffic and visitors that buy !!

I still shot some microstock images. And I wanted to get some experience with direct selling. What it takes to be successful with direct selling. And if that is a realistic scenario. So I decided to not only submit my microstock images to microstock sites but also upload these images to my Photoshelter site.

Direct selling of microstock imagery

So I have this (small) collection of microstock images online now. Photoshelter does help you with making your site Search Engine Optimized. I must say I learned a lot about SEO and what it takes to get traffic to your site. One of these ideas is that you must start a blog and when everybody reads your blog they will also go to your personal archive.

Now I realize that to make this personal archive a profitable business I have to succeed in pulling a massive audience to my personal archive and these visitors must buy your images !! But only a very small percentages of your visitors will really buy – even at micro pricing. Remember I decided to only put my microstock images online at Photoshelter.

Now I also have experience with selling at microsites and I have seen that most sites not even come close to the selling performance of iStock. In my analysis it all comes down to branding. Istock has a massive appeal to both sellers and buyers. Some people even think that iStock is a synonym for stock.

Anyway – having seen the performance of the other microsites – I realized I will not come even close to these sites when it comes down to branding and pulling traffic to my personal archive. And visitors are not buyers !!

Time to quit

I guess I was bloody naive when I started with this personal archive. I will never succeed in pulling the volume of traffic required to make the direct selling of microstock images profitable. I am not intending to put RF/RM online for direct selling. Maybe I will focus more on  RM but I don’t think I should try to sell RM imagery myself.

Micostock is selling in high volume with low cost. Low cost in pre-production, production, post-production but also in distribution !! The effort required to establish high volume traffic cannot be justified when running a personal archive.

Post Mortem

Is direct selling a bad idea for everybody ? I guess not. Whenever you are a brand yourselves – like some famous wildlife shooters – and you have a good understanding of the stock business and you have a large RF/RM collection then I think it can be a valid option. But it will still require investing some serious time in setting up a Search Engine Optimized site and getting those buyers to your website.

In my analysis direct selling is no option for microstock. And when you are not that experienced stock shooter and don’t have a “big name”…I think you are far better of by getting your imagery online at Getty or work together with agencies that have good distributing networks.

Early January my personal archive will disappear. Still I am happy to have done this. It has learned me many many things that are important for running a stock business. And now I know that I can concentrate on shooting for good agencies.