Environmental photos and pollution photos are popular

In a previous posting I talked about what photos sell. Actually I asked the question "what photo themes sell and how do we find out"? No-one really seemed to know if this kind of information was in the public domain and I have not yet figured out where to find it. In the absence of this kind of "big picture" information (believe me I haven't stop digging), I have used Google analytics to better understand what people are looking for on my site.

If you haven't used Google analytics you should. It is free, extremely simple to setup, and provides you with more information about what is happening on your website than you will likely need. Couple this with Google webmaster tools - another freebie that provides you insights into your indexing and ranking on Google - and you are well on your way to understanding how both Google and your customers see and use your site.

In reviewing my traffic and most popular pages I have noticed that most of my traffic is coming from folks looking for environmental and pollution related photography. Granted that I have a lot of this material. But I also have quite a bit of other stuff and the extent to which the traffic to the environmental and pollution photos outranks the traffic to other photos is quite significant. Some of my more popular photos are garbage polluted stream and smog in Vancouver, BC. These are not the prettiest photos by far, but yet they are getting a large part of the traffic. I am also now finding a lot of folks are looking at the Science Photos on the site.

I suspect that some of the newer iceberg shots that will be going up shortly will also become very popular (the photographer (Dave) has recently returned from a iceberg photo shoot). Given the trend I'm seeing with respect to environmental related shots, I think anything to do with global warming and other environmental issues will likely attract attention. I expect icebergs, glaciers, air pollution pictures, water pollution pictures and other similar themes will do well.

Why purchase from one of the smaller stock photo sites?

Are there any benefits to customers (buyers of rights-managed stock photography) in frequenting some of the smaller, photographer or family-run stock photo sites? Well, in my opinion there is. The larger sites certainly have the advantage of very large numbers of photos and, as a result, typically a wide range of themes. However, if you know what kind of material you are after there are some distinct advantages to accessing some of the more “personal” stock photo sites.

The ability to contact the photographer direct...
For example, if you wish to speak directly to the photographer to clarify anything related to the photo, try doing this with an agency. You likely will not be able to, and if they act as the middleman in your correspondence it may not be handled in an expedient manner – you are probably on a deadline and getting “we can’t do it” or a “we will send a message for you but have no idea when we can get back to you” will not be good. With a stock photo site that is run and operated by the photographer for instance, you have the option to interact with them directly. If they are on the ball they will answer your question promptly – either by email or even over the telephone.

Small sites often have the freshest content...
Probably the greatest reason to use smaller, often niche, stock photo sites is the freshness of content. When a photographer sends his material to a stock photo agency it can take up to three months for them to get this material on-line. However the photographer will often have his latest material up on his own site within days of taking the shots. If he has managed to capture some great material then it will be exclusively on his site for several months before making into the mainstream stock photo agency sites.

Higher quality photo editing...
Something else to consider is the touch up work done on the photographs you are purchasing (all photos are touched up in one way or another). Are you getting quality work here? The key is who is doing the work – is it being done by the photographer or the agency? An interesting question. I would argue that the best work will be done by the photographer. He is the artist and he takes pride in his work and also has a keen eye for exactly what the shot should look like. If the photo is on his site then you can be pretty sure that he has done this work himself. With large agencies I believe some ask the photographer to do the “photo tuning”, but with others I’m pretty sure they have this done in-house by someone paid by the hour to change the lighting, colour, etc. Give me the photographer’s version any day.