Furthering My Photographic Career

Sometime this past Saturday I found out I was accepted into the PhotoShelter Collection. The PhotoShelter collection is a new stock photo service that opened to photographers in early October. I’d been meaning to sign up for a while and finally did so last week.  Basically you submit anywhere from 3 to 10 images, and if their photo editors like your work, you’re in.

In all, it’s a big experiment to me.  I knew I didn’t want to go the microstock route (iStockPhoto et al.) I know plenty of people make a nice chunk of change with it, but it felt like selling short. Right now Photoshelter is just collecting images. They are not open to buyers yet, but from what I can tell plan on opening the doors in mid-November.  At their town hall meeting in Chicago, they mentioned they are planning a million dollar ad campaign aimed at art buyers next year.

The biggest thing I’m struggling with is the major piece to the stock photo puzzle - keywording.  Of the nine photos I submitted with my application, eight were accepted.  I keyworded those as best as possible.  I uploaded another 30 or so images last night, and once accepted will need to keyword those as well.  I know I need to move that step up in my workflow, and if I actually start selling something, maybe it will be the kick in the pants to do so.