VisualMind.ai is a new, AI keywording tool tailored for microstock artists that automate the process of tagging your images for submission to stock photo sites. 

Developed by industry veterans, this tool promises accurate results in compliance with all major microstock agencies’ metadata and keywording standards and a few nice bonus features. 

If you want to eliminate the tedious task of keywording your images, keep reading to find out how VisualMind.ai works!

VisualMind.ai is a Sophisticated AI Keywording Tool

If you’re contributing to stock photo agencies, we don’t need to tell you how time-consuming and complex this task is, given the constant demand for fresh images and the varying requirements of different agencies – for example, while Shutterstock demands titles comprising a minimum of five words, Adobe Stock insists on the first five keywords being in order of relevance. Additionally, many authors are now producing images with generative AI, increasing the volume of new content to be indexed. 

VisualMind.ai seeks to help contributors overcome these challenges and increase their earning potential through a sophisticated multistep process that combines seven distinct APIs and an in-house logic engine. It starts with a visual analysis akin to human perception, through which the tool initially identifies the main concept and elements in the image and subsequently delves into deeper layers of analysis to discern underlying concepts; this aims at providing precise keywords and metadata that help put your files in front of more buyers at the microstock libraries. To finalize, the output is refined to achieve optimal results, and you obtain fully indexed images that are ready to be submitted to your chosen agencies. From beginning to end, this process takes only three seconds per image. 

Comprehensive Service with Useful Bonus Features

VisualMind.ai’s feature set includes: 

• Generation of titles with at least five words (tailored for Shutterstock) 
• Arrangement of the first five keywords in order of relevance (catering to Adobe Stock's requirements)
• Provision of longer and varied descriptions
• Support for both multi-word and single-word keywords, with the flexibility to toggle between options
• Concept-based modeling ensures the identification of underlying concepts rather than mere scene description
• Simultaneous upload capability for up to 400 images, with provision for generating zip files containing tagged images and CSV files for streamlined organization
• User input option for suggesting difficult concepts via prompts or brief phrases across multiple languages
• Customization of minimum and maximum keyword count
• Integration of file name suggestions if deemed meaningful

Additionally, the tool includes bonus features that can be very helpful for contributors: 

• An image upscaler capable of upscaling images up to 4K or 8MP –particularly useful for AI-generated images
• Seamless conversion of PNG files to JPEG format 

The service has many highlights that set it apart from similar tools in the market. Its processing speed achieved through multithreading and its remarkable capability to index unidentified animals or flora species is just some of them. 

Tailored Pricing for Your Keywording Needs

VisualMind.ai is available for free testing. Upon free signup, you'll receive 25 image processes entirely free of charge.

For a larger volume of images, you can acquire subscription plans or prepaid credit packages, where one credit equals one image processed. The latter never expire, so they’re a suitable choice when your keywording workload varies over time. There are packs from 300 credits for €9.99 and up to 12,000 credits for €139.99. 

The best prices are with subscriptions. These are monthly plans with a set image processes allowance that will expire at the end of each month. Plans start at €8.99 for 400 images a month with several volume options up to €99.99 for 10,000 images monthly. 

If you are willing to invest, this tool has options for every budget. 

A State-of-the-Art Solution in AI Image Keywording

In sum, VisualMind.ai emerges as a great tool that every microstock content creator should consider. It offers the latest level of sophistication in image keywording with credit-based plans and monthly subscriptions tailored to individual author requirements.

If you haven’t yet adopted an AI keywording tool, this is your sign to try VisualMind.ai!

Pixify, a Shopify app for independent e-shop management for stock photographers, has a new AI keywording tool that promises to rid you of 80% of the keywording task while providing accurate metadata for your stock photos, including keywords, titles, and descriptions. 

The tool lets you manually fine-tune the results for optimal metadata input. And it's 100% free.

You can try the AI Keywording Tool here

And read on for more information on how it works!

Pixify AI Keywording Tool: Curated Metadata for your Images

This AI keywording tool has very simple but powerful functionality. 

You upload an image, and the software uses AI-powered image recognition to pull relevant keywords from it and automatically list them. Based on this set of detected keywords, the app generates a title and a description for the image, considering the most relevant terms in the list. 

According to its creators, this automation saves you as much as 80% of the time and effort compared to manual metadata entry. 

While all this is done automatically, the system enables you to go in and manually tailor the results: you can delete irrelevant terms, add missing and relevant keywords, disqualify and/or add the most relevant words, and re-generate titles and descriptions to reflect these changes. 

In the video below, you can see an overview of the tool's functions:

Combining intelligent auto-keywording with manual curation, the idea is to offer you the most accurate metadata possible for your content and help you have your work seen and licensed. 

It's important to note that this application is entirely web-based, 100% free of charge, and does not store any images or generated metadata from them.

A Keywording Tool Specifically for Stock Photographers

That’s what Pixify’s new feature is. There are several good auto-keywording and metadata-completing tools out there, but not all have stock photography submissions as their core goal. 

And there are also stock photo sites offering their own native keywording tools –Shutterstock, for example–but if you contribute to multiple agencies, having an independent app that handles titling, describing, and keywording for all your files at once is a huge plus. 

We think Pixify’s is a feature worth trying, and you can do so right here: 

Try Pixify’s AI Keywording Tool!

Shutterstock has announced a new grant for artists, the Create Fund to finance fresh content in high-demand topics for their catalog while assisting artists in their project and career development. 

Open for submissions right now and until February 2021, this new grant is looking to expand all Shutterstock’s libraries in the themes of diversity, inclusion, social justice, and environmental awareness. 

Read on for details on the program and how to enter.

A Grant to Secure New Content on World-Relevant Topics

The newly launched Create Fund is a $300K fund program that aims at financing and securing the creation of content on current, high-demand topics to fill in the gaps in Shutterstock’s library, as well as assisting creatives that are underrepresented in the artistic community. 

Within the program, there are several grants targeting specific content themes. 

Right now the grants opened are: 

• Create for Climate: Drawing awareness of global climate change by supporting artists who use their talents to depict climate change, environmental protests, and our changing landscape.
• Support Invisible Illness: Promoting artists who create visual stories and representations that break the stigma around mental health, portraying a more inclusive view of mental illness around the world.
• The Senior Creatives: Supporting the community of senior creatives—those over 50 who have had years to hone their craft and want to share their experiences and perspectives through creative means.

Like this, Shutterstock is addressing their need for specific, current content, while trying to impulse contributors in a minority or underperforming segments.

Who Can Participate, How Do I Apply and What Do I Get

All contributors, around the world and across all media supported by Shutterstock, are open and encouraged to apply for the Create Fund: photographers, videographers, illustrators, composers or writers, are all welcome. 

To apply for any of the three open grants, they must submit a project proposal, samples of their work, and a short bio no later than February 8, 2021. A panel of expert judges will review submissions and select the winners. 

Selected contributors will then receive financial and professional support to develop their project and their careers: they’ll be awarded $2,500, and will also be set to license their work through the agency’s multiple channels, which can be Shutterstock, Shutterstock Editorial, PremiumBeat or Offset. 

For more details on the grants and how to apply, see The Create Fund page. 

This raise applies to all sales and all royalty rate levels and hopes to aid artists that have lost other revenue streams during the world pandemic and consequent lockdowns and social distancing practices.

This isn't the only move Dreamstime has made towards helping out during these trying times, but it is the first focused on the creative community rather than customers or the public.

Dreamstime's 10% Royalty Rate Increase – How it Works

As it was recently announced, starting June 1st, 2020, as a Dreamstime contributor, all your royalties will be increased by 10% of their value. So for example, if you were perceiving 50% royalties, you will now perceive 55% after the increase.

This raise applies to all downloads and reaches all of their 620,000+ contributors, independently of exclusive or non-exclusive status. And will be maintained for as long as possible.

However, as the pandemic affected the economy worldwide and all businesses have been impacted by it, the company does not make any promises as to how big or small that time frame might be.

Dreamstime's Community-Aimed Efforts During Coronavirus Times

The agency has said they are doing this small financial increase to try and help out those contributors who have lost other sources of income due to the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic and its effects on their activities –photographers who no longer can do photoshoots or take commissions, for example.

Additionally, they have also put together resources for creatives, such as tutorials and guidelines to help them make the best out of their stock images during these times.

Dreamstime's Actions to Help Everyone

These are the most recent decisions Dreamstime has taken to assist its network of creatives in this challenging moment we are all going through. But the company has also taken action to help everybody else:

• Society as a whole: Since March, Dreamstime donates 5% of their sales profits to the WHO Solidarity Response Fund, to help find treatment and a cure for Covid19 disease.
• Employees: Dreamstime has mentioned they are committed to granting financial stability for their staff.
• Customers: The agency makes it possible for subscribers to pause their plan for up to 2 months and resume it in hopefully better times, at no added charge.
• NGOs: They are also giving away free subscriptions for NGOs and non-profit organizations needing visuals.

What do you think about Dreamstime's efforts to help artists, customers, and everyone during this global pandemic? We'll love to hear it from you!

The new royalties calculation will be based on the number of times your content sells in one year, instead of the current lifetime earnings system. This way, the more times your images are downloaded, the highest your payout will be. The new scheme affects video earnings as well.

This is the first time the agency makes such a significant change to its payout structure —the same that hit $1 Billion in royalties paid at the end of last year— and they expressed it's to align with changes seen in the global, creative content market. They expect this system to encourage the submission of current, in-demand content, and to fairly reward those artists thriving with trendy visuals.

Read on for the full details on the upcoming Shutterstock Earnings Schedule! 

Goodbye Lifetime Earnings – Shutterstock's New Download-Based Royalty Rates

If you're a Shutterstock contributor you already know that until now the Shutterstock royalty rates have been based on the artist's historical performance: they keep track of your sales record since day one, and they have a structure with levels based on earnings' range that give you a fixed rate per download or a percentage of the total sale price, depending on the license type and buying method used by the customer. To date, the fixed royalty rate doesn't surpass the $3 per download mark, and the percentage royalty rate goes up to 30% max which means a max of $120. For footage, the rate is a steady 30% of the sales price.

But from June 1st, 2020, as a Shutterstock contributor you will earn a particular percentage from the total of the sale, according to how many times your content has been licensed in the current year. The new schedule has 6 levels, each with its royalty rate, according to yearly downloads.

How Much Will I Earn from Image Sales?

Instead of fixed royalty rates, the new scheme pays in percentages of the sale price only, The rates go from 15% to 40%, the first level marking up to 100 licenses sold, and the last one for over 25,000 downloads. The total amount depends on how much each license is sold for, according to the buying method used.

You will see the new system reflected on the Shutterstock Contributor Earnings page on June 1st, too.

What About Video Earnings?

The new payout structure affects video sales as well, with an identical scheme but different level parameters. The rates are also from 15% to 40%, but the levels are arranged a bit differently, with the bottom tiers reflecting a reasonable download volume for this type of content.

Like this, level 1 for video applies to up to 10 licenses sold –versus up to 100 for images–, level 2 rewards those with 11 to 50 downloads –while the same level for image applies to 101 to 250 sales–. It gets evened out towards the top, as level 6 is the same as for images, awarding the biggest percentage to those with over 25,000 videos licensed.

How Does This New System Work?

As we mentioned, the agency will keep track of how many times your content is licensed in the current year. Starting June 1st, they'll place you in a level accordingly, and you will escalate them as your sales progress.

However, there are two main points to highlight:

• Images and Video earnings operate alone – Licenses sold for each media type are counted separately, and you graduate through levels independently, according to your number of licenses on each category
• All contributors levels are reset at the beginning of each year – Every year, on January 1st, all contributors will be set back to  Level 1 and the licenses count starts again

This system is designed to offer fairer earning opportunities for all artists as well as greater rewards for best-selling content. They hope it will also enforce fresh, in-demand and trendy submissions to keep the ever-growing media catalogue up to date.

When Will the New Contributor Earnings Schedule Start?

As we said a couple of times already, this new structure will apply automatically on June 1st, 2020. And as we just informed, will be reset every January 1st from now onwards.

What do you think of the new Shutterstock royalty rates schedule? We'll love to hear your thoughts!

The report is broken down regionally and gives a lot of details about sales performance and content in demand. If you sell your images through Shutterstock, you won't want to miss these insights!

And if you aren't yet a contributor to Shutterstock platform, this could very well be the best time to become one, as the agency is celebrating their contributor-side achievement with a special royalty rate increase for customer referrals.

See the Shutterstock Contributor Earnings Report here.

Ready to learn all about it? Read on!

$1 Billion in Royalties, from 300 Million Images, for 1 Million Artists

Those are, in gross terms, the numbers Shutterstock just disclosed. As of now, their platform –that englobes Shutterstock, Shutterstock Editorial, Shutterstock Custom, Bigstock, Offset and PremiumBeat– has around 1 million active contributors around the globe, building up collections of over 300 million images, 16 million videos and 24 million music tracks. 

That explains their titanic offer, but how did they get to such a large sum in earnings paid to artists? The answer is in their insane sales records: cross-platform, they have over 1.9 million registered customers, that download an average of over 6 images per second!

Regional Breakdown: Europe at the Lead

While their sales numbers are oh so big in all continents, the best-earning artists are those based in Europe. With Germany at top of the best-selling countries, the European market has out-earned the other continents by a long shot. Asia follows and interestingly, a hugely dominant market like North America comes closely in third place. South America, Oceania and Africa are at the lower end, in that respective order. Here's the earnings breakdown with numbers:

• Europe: $105.3M
• Asia: $26.6M
• North America: $23.7M
• South America: $1.5M
• Oceania: $1.2M
• Africa: $700K

The Highs and Lows in Being a Shutterstock Contributor Today

The Contributor Earnings Report certainly shows you can sell, and sell very well, at Shutterstock. But is it worth it to become a contributor at this point?

The company hopes so! In recent times they have made progress in the contributor-side functionality, adding in-app registration for mobile, real-time earnings data and multi-language support. They also have an upgraded contributor portfolio page, that along with their constant information about in-demand content, hope to give you resources to have your images discovered and bought.

On the low side of things, even with all those tools at hand, Shutterstock is one very competitive marketplace to sell in. Just imagine, with over 300 million photos available and pushing ginormous amount of new files constantly, being relevant and having your shots showcased in first search results can be a real challenge.

A Chance for an Earnings Boost: Referral Royalty Rate

To mark the celebration of the billionaire milestone, Shutterstock is offering an increased royalty rate for a limited time, for referred customers.

What does this mean? That for a 30-day period, contributors will get a 50% commission on every net new customer they refer to the agency.

If you know Shutterstock's regular royalty rates, you know this is a great deal. So if you have salesmanship skills, or if the marketing and networking bug bites you after learning this, you can definitely take this chance to grow your income from Shutterstock sales. Wanna try? Sign up as a Shutterstock contributor then!

See the full Contributor Earnings Report here for all the juicy details! 

In this post I'll be discussing 5 key reasons why you would be wise to be thinking about making the logical addition from stock photography to stock footage.

Reason Number 5: Your gear can already shoot clips

Making the logical transition is relatively easy since your DSLR most likely already records in at least Full HD (1920 x 1080 resolution), which is an excellent start. To get started, purchasing additional basic equipment isn't prohibitively expensive. It's recommended to have a tripod / gorillapod and Neutral Density (ND) filter, especially if you plan on shooting during the day (more on this later)

In some occasions, you may even get away with shooting hand-held and being able to (hopefully) stabilise later in post-processing using Adobe Premiere, for instance.

My gear

However, I've recently upgraded to a Panasonic Lumix GH7, which is able to shoot 4K clips, and made it my exclusive video recorder:

Reason Number 4: Higher royalties than photos

• Royalties from footage are, on average, generally 25x higher than what you'd expect to receive from images (average of 70cents/download, in my case) in the case of HD sales. If you shoot in 4K and a buyer in fact purchases the 4K version, then royalties can be more than 50x what you would expect to earn on average from sales of your photos. Be warned that you may earn a dreadful <$2 sale from SS and/or Getty, but thankfully these are rare and of limited web-usage. Here's some of my latest 4K clips on Pond5:

However, let's not get carried too away with the potentially large royalties since volumes are generally much lower than you would expect from stills.

Reason Number 3: Footage market is generally less saturated 

Taking a simple comparison, the number of images on Shutterstock today is at just over 260million, while clips are at a relatively few 14million. In other words, for every 5 images accepted, there should be 1 clip accepted.

The reasons for these massive volume discrepancy are mainly down to:

• Newbies generally start out by uploading photos before considering videos. In my case, I was exclusivity a photographer for four years before uploading my first videos only two years ago;
• Investment in equipment: As mentioned earlier, video requires some investment in equipment, such as: ND Filter, tripod at minimum and eventually sliders, gimbal, drone, etc;
• Investment in new software & learning curve: There will be a steep learning on using these programs and thankfully, there are numerous YouTube tutorials. Aperture, Adobe Premiere and Da Vinci Resolve are the recommended footage software.

• New technical skills required, such as understanding frames per second, correct shutter speeds, focus considerations, sound and colour-grading / correcting. See example below of a clip of the April 25 bridge in Lisbon, Portugal, which was colour-graded:

• Footage just takes longer to both capture and to post-process, which creates a barrier for the more casual contributors who, for instance, are on a family holiday and rather shoot stills. Timelapses and hyperlapses for example can be extremely time-consuming to capture and then later to post-process and upload;
• Files sizes are huge (especially 4K) and some contributors with limited upload speeds, especially those based in developing countries, won't have the patience to upload such clips. For instance, a 15-second 4K clip may easily be over 300MB. To process and export such large files you may need a computer with enough processing power to handle this extra file size;
• Videos just take longer to sell: Many contributors starting out can become frustrated at just how long it takes for videos to start selling compared to stills. I can imagine that this is a major reason on why many don't stay the course, which is also evident with stills.

Gaps in the market

The good news is that since high-quality and trending videos are generally much less competitive than the same in stills, there are potentially significant gaps in the market for some niches (niches are beyond the scope of this article). In other words, if you're already successfully exploiting a niche within photography with success, you may have even greater financial success exploiting the same niche in videos. If you add model-released lifestyle type scenes and at 4K resolution, you may be able to ask for much more per sale.

In addition, exploiting these gaps would make it potentially easier to achieve the top rankings of certain keywords, especially if you venture into more advanced types of footage, such as hyperlapse, timelapse and slow-motion.

Search Engine Case Study – Copacabana Beach

Below is a clip I captured a few weeks ago in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. Shutterstock currently boasts 12,838 matches for “Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro” on stills versus just 192 matches for “Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, timelapse”. If you filter even further for 4K, there's only 122 matches! If you look closely within the last link, two of my clips are on the very first row for this result!

Reason Number 2: You're already (generally) familiar with technical settings

• Day-time shutter speeds to capture footage need to be considerably lower than hand-held stills. For instance, if you're used to shooting at 1/200seconds, such speeds will make the clip looks robotic and strange. Aim to shoot at double the frames per second (fps) you select, known as the 180 degree rule. For example if you shoot at 25fps, then aim to shoot at maximum 1/50seconds to ensure a more natural smooth movement, which may mean using the proper gear, such as a slider, a gimbal, or a video tripod.
• Clip duration: Agencies recommend shooting between 10 and 20 seconds, although depends entirely on the story you're communicating;
• As with stills, identifiable people and/property will require releases, with the option to upload as editorials. In the following example, shot myself on a tripod and submitted a model-release so the clip can be licensed commercially:

• Keep in mind that footage is all about movement. Some scenes with little to no movement are better off captured as stills. In fact, some agencies will go as far as reject clips with little movement. Adding movement, both while shooting and digitally, is a complex subject and beyond the scope of this post, although many tutorials are available on YouTube.

Reason Number 1: Storytelling!

Clips present much more flexibility when it comes to storytelling than photos. Clips should have a beginning, middle and end and each part should work together to create an interesting story. This is particularly relevant if you work with models and helps if you create a storyboard beforehand.

Creating clips is time-consuming which means shooting for minutes at a time, which may be trimmed down to most interesting 10-20 seconds to be used.

Consider the differences between the following clip vs the photo of the same scene:

Analysis of the clip

Within the above editorial clip, there's much more information available to tell the story than on the still, including the emotion from the tall woman with a cigarette. She notices the young man lying in the middle of the sidewalk, shakes her, gives a negative expression and walks away. Towards the end of the clip, another woman nearly literally steps on the homeless person while busy texting on her phone (gives away no expression). There's a general mood of apathy and helplessness that is more common in the developing world.

The still, on the other hand, gives away a similar mood of indifference but since the pedestrians are turned away, they give away no expressions, which leaves much more room for subjective interpretation / fine art.

Another example of storytelling

Here's another example of storytelling when I captured the camaraderie between the bracelet “sellers” at Piazza del Duomo in Milan, Italy on a cold November day. I added a small digital zoom in to focus on the interaction between these two friends.

Working with clients

Adding footage to your repertoire may prove valuable if you plan to work directly with clients as a photographer / videographer. Capturing footage is a skill that I have pitched to clients, on top of my bread and butter photography, when offering my services. My latest gig was at a poker tournament in Rio and previously one in Portugal:

At another gig, for a NGO, I captured some ladies busy at work in a laboratory with a timelapse:

As you've probably gathered by now, I really enjoy capturing timelapses and it's sort of become my niche within videos. Since timelapses are in fact combined still images, I take advantage to grab the best stills to upload as stock – see a tutorial on the Brutally Honest Microstock blog.

Which Agencies would I recommend to upload clips

I would recommend to upload your clips to the following agencies:

• Shutterstock
• Pond5
• Storyblocks
• Videohive
• Dissolve
• Blackbox

Action time!

Speaking practically, the best way to get started is simply to start shooting clips and learn from your mistakes, which are common with photographers making the transition. Trust me I've made tons and continue to make them!

If you're already a photographer, in my opinion, you're halfway there, since it's a natural step since the basic rules of light and composition are the same. The rest of the technical skills, at a basic level, can be picked up in a few weeks. The 25x+ you'd earn in royalties, plus the challenge of learning a new skill-set, should be enough motivation.

Please let me know how you get on and look forward to responding to your comments below.

As of now, you can be one of Shutterstock's over 650,000 contributors by simply downloading the app to your phone, signing up and submitting your images on the go. A very useful feature for the next generation of mobile-first contributors they hope helps to improve their submitting experience.

The company also revamped its customer-oriented app, including an easy search for similar images, one of the most loved recent features in their desktop platform.

Download Shutterstock Contributor App right here. And keep reading for more deets on this update!

Register as Shutterstock Contributor from your Phone

So far the Shutterstock Contributor app allowed you to receive push notifications of the kind of photos being in high demand in your region, as well as tracking your approved photos, sales and commissions in real time.

But now you can administrate your contributor work from beginning to end on mobile, as the new app update includes in-app registration. If you're not a Shutterstock Contributor yet but you have great photos sitting on your phone you think could make you some bucks, all you have to do is download the Shutterstock Contributor app, launch it and sign up for free as a contributor.

Once approved on board, you'll be able to submit photos to the Shutterstock marketplace straight away, directly from your phone. And just like before, track your approvals and earnings as well as trending content you can submit to maximise your sales. It's as easy as it sounds.

Ready to give it a try? Download Shutterstock Contributor App.

The Next Gen of Mobile Contributors

Shutterstock explained this update was almost a given after experiencing a fast-paced growth in files submitted from their mobile app on both iOS and Android platforms. As more people submit their photos from the app, it only made sense to ensure anyone could give it a go.

As mobile cameras are every day more advanced and are capable of producing DSLR and above quality images, the agency says, there is now a whole generation of mobile-first stock contributors producing beautiful photos with their phones. For them, the in-app signup is the perfect chance to start monetising their images right on their device of choice.

In-App Similar Search for Customers

There is another Shutterstock app that was updated today, and that is the Customer-oriented app. Which now includes the easy search for similar images –powered by AI technology– that the agency popularized on their desktop version.

This enhancement may appear minimal, but it's certainly relevant for buyers who will now have it a lot easier to find exactly the perfect photos for their projects, on the fly. And as a contributor, this gives your photos more chances to be discovered and purchased.

Go Mobile with Shutterstock Apps

Today it was made very clear that Shutterstock is very eager on making their whole creative platform and service not only mobile-friendly but also mobile-first.

If you're already living the mobile life and shooting great photos with your phone, this must be music to your ears. But if you're still hesitant on making the switch, this news is also a good opportunity for you to give it a test. It's fast, it's easy, and it's Shutterstock. Well worth it, we think.

Get the Shutterstock Contributor App here and let us know how it works for you!

This is a Part II blog post on the subject where I'll be diving even deeper into the subject, with a particularly dystopian twist. For Part I, check out the post at the Brutally Honest Blog.

Google Trends Recap

Here's a brief recap of how the Google Trends tool works:

“Using Google Trends, you can research the popularity for a particular keyword and filter the results by location, time frame and category.

As a stock photographer/videographer, the results may be tremendously useful in order to gauge present and potentially future trends. Or alternatively, to identify trends that may be running / have run their course and as a result, not waste your time capturing such concepts.”

In other words, we're bypassing all the creativity needed and going straight down the hard-facts route of BIG-DATA. Then it's up to you to convert the data into strong visual concepts that should hopefully sell regularly.

Google Searches vs Stock Content Searches

The main assumption, which makes logical sense, is that what the average laypersons' searches on google (from billions of searches) should be mirrored by what stock content buyers' searches. In other words, the stock searches are a reflection of what's going on in the wider world…with some kool-aid for a slightly happier tone, since there's an incentive to entice buyers to purchase goods and/or services (commercial images).

Enough introductions, I'll move right along to using it.

What's Trending? Let's Brainstorm!

Last time 'round, I brainstormed 12 keywords/concepts to analyse whether they were trending or may have already passed their trending shelf-life, with surprising results.

That format in Part I proved quite popular and in late-November 2018, I've brainstormed a further eight keywords/concepts, which I'll do some in-depth analysis. Considering the general state of the planet, from a sociological point of view, I'm in a particularly dystopian mood – let's see if the trends tool agree with me.

Comparing between keywords/concepts

Then towards the end of this post, still using the tool, I'll compare five similar keywords/concepts and analyse whether there's merit, from a business perspective, in focusing on one or the other keyword/phrase. Throughout this exercise, I would encourage you to feel free to play around using your own words and concepts surrounding your niches, which I discussed on a previous post: tips to make $500/month in stock photography.

Well, here's the result of my brainstorming session in alphabetical order:

1. Biological Warfare

Context

Kicking off the list with a bang (pun intended), the threat from biological warfare/terrorism, is one that keeps most policy-makers awake at night. According to Wikipedia, “Biological warfare —also known as germ warfare—is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with the intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war.” Scary shit.

Big Data Analysis

Conclusion

With each coming day, this type of threat becomes more real, reflected by the Doomsday Clock which currently stands at “two minutes to midnight”. Stock content isn't always about happy people in bright scenarios, as in my opinion, it needs to accurate reflect the wider world (especially editorials). If you're uncomfortable working with such themes, fair enough…stick with your happier niches.

From looking at the above “interest over time” graph, considering the real and ever-present threat, I believe there's huge upward potential! God-forbid something terrible happens and then we'll see a spike…if you do decide to create such images, take the royalties and purchase yourself and your family a one-way ticket to Fernando de Noronha before it's too late…

A quick look at some of the results for this phrase on Keyword.io suggests that this a potentially profitable concept to develop content at an average of $1.60 per sale for “biological warfare”.

2. Botox

Context

Less frightening but perhaps equally scary, we'll now be looking at the niche of cosmetic surgery and in more detail, Botox. If you're unfamiliar with Botox, it is actually the trade name for a substance injected into the skin which is known to inhibit muscle movement and that can prevent wrinkles from developing or worsening.

Big Data Analysis

Conclusion

There's clearly an up-trend for interest related to “Botox”, even though the wider “cosmetic surgery” indicates a dead/dying trend. Nevertheless, focusing on model-released images of pretty much any medical procedures (minus anything gruesome) should be highly profitable (assuming technically excellent), since few contributors have access to such scenarios. Add a few clips into the mix and you may just be onto some winners.

As for Botox, keyword.io is indicating this search term yields a whopping $8.10 average sale per file.

3. Freddie Mercury

Context

Now onto popular culture, I've recently watched the excellent film, Bohemian Rhapsody about the iconic band, Queen, leading to the climatic reenactment of their Live Aid performance at Wembley Stadium in 1985. I'm curious to see how the anticipation and launch of this film has impacted for the search term of the band's lead singer, Freddie Mercury.

Big Data Analysis

Conclusion

Wow, didn't expect such a spike! The major conclusion I can draw from this is to anticipate which popular culture films will be launched and plan your concepts around those. Which concepts? Well, it's beyond the scope of this post but how do you think you would look dressed up as Freddie Mercury?

Seriously though, if you know something is being filmed NOW and will launch in a year or two then start creating now so when it is launched you'll be ranked highly. Otherwise, here's a a link to a list of films to be launched in 2019, which includes fresh versions of Aladdin and the Lion King. Time to work on your magic carpet vectors!

I'm writing here very generally but hope it gives you some good points when you're doing your own research.

4. Gilet Jaunes (yellow vests)

Context

I won't blame you if you never heard of the Yellow Vests movement or just don't care (just skip this part), but in France this is huge news, and the rest of Europe is keeping tuned since these are rarely country-isolated incidents.

The Gilet Jaunes are a protest movement in France that began on Saturday, 17 November 2018. The “yellow vests” blocked roads and caused traffic chaos. The demonstration arose from anger towards Macron's administration over rising fuel prices and taxes. The latest incident on the weekend of Nov 25 at Champs-Elysées in Paris were reminiscent of “battle scenes”.

Big Data Analysis

Conclusion

Protests in France are nothing new, but this one seems different since the protesters have so far rejected all political affiliation and have won widespread public support. This is one trend to stay tuned and if you do happen to be travelling to France in the near future, something to keep an eye on. Forget the Eiffel Tower and focus on content that has potential to sell!

These types of protests can easily spread to other parts of Europe as during the past 20 years populism has emerged as an electoral force in Europe [See Link to Guardian Article].

5. Mars Mission

Context

In a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, then-U.S. President Barack Obama predicted a crewed Mars mission to orbit the planet by the mid-2030s, followed by a landing. So that's about 10+ more years of worth of mars-themed stock photos that you can produce ahead of the anticipation of launch – journey – landing. Play around with those 3D graphics and composites and they should have a long Martian shelf-life.

Big Data Analysis

Conclusion

Not much happening lately on the Mars-front, except for that huge spike in Oct 2015. Digging deeper, that's when the film featuring Matt Damon, The Martian, was launched. Go figure. So, another example when popular culture is a predominant driver of trends which is likely to influence buyers' habits over in the stock world.

6. No Deal Brexit

Context

Following the 2016 EU Referendum, Britain is set to leave the European Union Trading Bloc after March 29, 2019. As the deadline approaches, UK Members of Parliament will vote in mid-December on whether to approve a highly-contentious draft deal recently negotiated by Theresa's May government and the EU. There's a strong chance that MPs will reject this deal leading to what is known as a “no-deal-brexit”, leading to further political and economic uncertainty. This topic should be trending!

Big Data Analysis

Conclusion

Certainly trending and the algos are even indicating that it should increase, so be quick! The breakout search results are also interesting to brainstorm concepts:

7. School Shooting

Context

With the prevalence of school shootings in the US, this is obviously an important and highly emotive topic.

Big Data Analysis

Conclusion

Unsurprisingly, three big spikes in the last year following three major school-shooting in 2018:

• February: Parkland, Florida
• March: Lexington Park, Maryland
• May: Santa Fe, Texas

“Bad stock” and “dark humour” aside, this topic has huge potential which I'll leave up to your imagination if you choose to go down this route. Just don't expect these to stop anytime soon while Trump buries his head in the sand sending his “thoughts and prayers”.

8. Climate Change Denial

Context

According to Wikipedia, “Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is part of the global warming controversy. It involves denial, dismissal, or unwarranted doubt that contradicts the scientific opinion on climate change, including the extent to which it is caused by humans, its impacts on nature and human society, or the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions.”

Big Data Analysis

Conclusion

Appears to be a steady trend and the world is your oyster on which concepts you may wish to create surrounding this movement, which appears to have inside interests from some multinational companies.

Comparing Keywords – Which one to Focus on?

Another handy feature of this tool is the option to compare different keywords/phrases over time to analyse which may be potentially more “trendy”. When in doubt between focusing on one concept or another, this may help to make up your mind.

Let's look at some examples.

Berlin or Paris?

Supposing that you're considering traveling to Europe to capture stock concepts but you're not sure whether to visit Paris or Berlin (you only have the choice of one). Without going into specifics about various landmarks…which city has a higher search-engine results, according to Google Trends? Play around and insert various cities/countries, including your own.

Keto or Atkins Diet?

Remember how 10+ years ago so many people were advocating the Atkins Diet…whatever happened to that trend? More recently, many of my friends were endorsing the Keto(genic) Diet. So let's look at how these two fads compare over time.

Wow, the above is quite interesting since prior to Mid-2016, few people were searching for the Keto diet (or any of those in fact). Notice how popular the Atkins Diet was in early 2004.

Cats or dogs?

Judo vs (Brazilian) Jiu Jitsu?

Now, getting very specific. Let's see the popularity between these two similar martial-arts in Brazil.

Comparing the major stock agencies

Another interesting feature is comparing 2+ searches. Let's finish off this piece by comparing how often Google users are searching for specific agencies and see if we can draw any meaningful conclusions, such as which agencies are on the up and up and which ones may die off, such as in the case of ImageBrief.

Conclusion

We can see that something huge happened at Dreamstime in August 2015, but other than that the only major trend is a small but steady rise of Adobe Stock in the search engines. Interesting.

Your turn to Brainstorm

I trust you've found the above suggestive trends useful (I can't give you away all my secrets). Now it's your turn to come up with your own and while I'm at it, I would suggest you check out another cool tool is the Wikipedia Analytics, which works in a similar style to Google Trends.

Some Homework for you – Read the Tipping Point

This brings me to some ideas highlighted in the book, “Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Difference” [link on Amazon] by Malcolm Gladwell. Here's a small summary from LitCharts of this fantastic book which will help you to think about trends that may be emerging in order to create profitable and long-lasting stock concepts:

“In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell tries to explain why certain ideas, products, behaviors, and messages become popular while others do not. Although this is an extremely broad topic, the book argues that all successful trends must reach a “tipping point”: in other words, a point at which they move rapidly from being almost unheard of to being very popular. A successful trend reaches its tipping point; an unsuccessful trend does not. As the phrase “tipping point” would suggest, trends don’t necessarily become successful because of large, conspicuous changes. Instead, a trend will often catch on because of a very small change in the content of the trend, the people who spread the trend, or the environment in which the trend is being spread. On the simplest level, then, The Tipping Point is about how small changes have enormous effects.”

Conclusion

Hope you've enjoyed this piece and found it useful. Although I don't have a crystal ball, this is the next best thing! I trust you'll have success playing around with it when brainstorming your own concepts. Make sure to also check out the competition before investing time on concepts which may already be saturated.

Please comment below if you've had some success using this tool or anything else about trends that you would like to share. Also if you have any questions I'll be happy to try to answer them!

Such survey closed at the end of October, and now the results are out! While they align with the assumptions and predictions Pickerell and other insiders –and stock photo contributors– could have made, it’s still interesting to have the cold numbers to back them up.

Read ahead for a quick roundup on how much photographers are earning from their stock photo business! If you want to start selling your photos as stock, do check out our guide to make $500 a month with stock photography!

The Final Sample: Not a Full Spectrum

Before we dive into the results, we have to note that the final number of responses to the survey –to which we invited you to take part back in September– was of only 270.

While the photographers' community surely appreciates those who took the few minutes to complete the questionary, it can’t be denied that the number of participants was too low as for it to fully represent the arch of artists selling photos in the stock media industry, which ascends to tens of thousands. So the conclusions drawn albeit useful, are not as in-depth as they could be.

Photogs Income Survey: Quick Results Roundup

Here’s a very brief overview at the stats Jim elaborated on the results to his survey. For detailed statistics, that include graphics and analysis, please read Jim Pickerell’s Photographer Income Survey Results post.

The study focused on the editorial photography market but accepted participants from all segments, even those who do little to none editorial work, so we’ll begin with the activity breakdown and walk through:

• Editorial photography: 31% of participants declared editorial makes up for 70% or more of their income. Another 31% said that less than 20% of their earnings come from editorial work
• Other photography segments: 66% of photogs said they are involved in other commercial photography activities (wedding, portraits, PR, general stock, etc.)
• Other incomes: 76% of responders have other sources of income aside of photography, be it by themselves or through someone else like their spouse for example
• Age: Only 94% of all survey responses indicated their age. Of those, 64% were over 50 years old and only 5% was under 30. Males were also a majority.
• Region: The sample is made of 39% North America based photogs, 49% from the EU, and 12% from Asia and the rest of the world.
• Earnings: Only 5% of all photographers submitting earn more than $100K a year from stock photography. A 14% of them earned over $60K. 65% of the total makes less than $60K.
• Earnings by region: 54% of North American participants make less than $20K annually, and 11.2% of them have incomes of over $100K – For EU members it’s a 75% making $20K or less and only 2.5% earning more than $100K – In Asia and Eastern Europe, those earning $20K max represent 72% and again just 2.5% of them make more than $100K a year

So How Much Photographers Earn? Quick Conclusions

From this limited sample and Pickerell’s analysis, a few conclusions can be drawn right away:

Part-Time Business: It’s clear stock photography is no longer seen as a career path, but a secondary revenue stream

Occidental-dominated Market: North America and the EU have not only more contributors but also overall higher incomes than the rest of the world

Pool of Mid to Low Earners: In all regions, the majority of contributors declare to be making fairly little money from this activity, and a considerable amount make just enough

Middle-Age Players Ruling: Those making the most out of their stock photography contributions and seeing important incomes are in their 50s or older

Use Photogs Income Stats to your Favour

As the author of the survey and further analysis states in his Photographers Income Survey report, this ends up not being as precise conclusions as one would desire given the low number of participants in relation with the estimated size of the contributor community.

But are certainly interesting stats to compare to your own experience and consider when it comes to planning your stock photo business strategy ahead of the new year! If you feel like giving the stock photo industry a shot, then our tips to make $500/month with stock photography is a must read!

What do you think of these results? Do you have other conclusions to add? Let us know!