Minnesota Musing: How to Create a Stock Photo That Will Attract Downloading

My daughter has had some success with Zazzle, and I have been attempting to join Shutterstock for years.

Success! I finally have my pictures accepted. Whew!

The first thing that I have learned is that when you snap that photo, that the object that you are shooting should be in the center of the photo. There should be some sort of focal point and it should be a sharp, clear photo.

Never mind cleverly posed photos. Never mind art. The purpose of a stock photo is to provide good content photos to a someone who needs one. Perhaps they don't have the luxury of finding a dandelion that is just popping out of the ground. Perhaps they are looking for a picture of Devils Tower in Wyoming. Or a picture of onion rings that are fresh out of the deep fryer.

Whatever it is, it needs to be a clear, concise picture.

I delight in finding unusual things to photograph. I have photo's of earthworms foraging for food and eating leaves. I have pictures of baby birds in nests. Birds pecking at suet on a feeder. Squirrels chewing on corn.

Squirrels backed out on a branch by another squirrel.

A close up of a bug on a flower. There is nothing more exciting than finding something ordinary and getting real close. One time, I took a photo of a moth at super close range. It had the cutest look on its face. Almost comical.

Sometimes I have to be careful. I had a photo of somethings glued together and it was supposed to look like a butterfly, but it ended up looking more like genitals. Gotta be a little careful about that.

Have fun with your photos.

The worst thing is when you have a great photo opportunity and you take the photo through a window and all the camera sees is the screen in the window.

How disappointing! But, on the other hand:

Now that I think about it, if you were planning on making a counted cross stitch picture, taking that picture through a screen would be ideal. The cross marks would exactly map out your design. That might work great for someone like that.

I had a photo of a frog stuck to the glass on my window. It's super hard to take a picture from inside. The picture looked really interesting with the frog belly stuck close to the glass and the underside of the feet were stuck to the glass and you could see the frog pads.

Gotta work on that one. Perhaps some day it will fly. That day will be so thrilling!