The approvals keep pouring in

License this picture at PhotoShelter.

I just got five more pictures up at PhotoShelter. It actually counts as a total of three since they count stacks as a single photo and this submission included two stacks. That brings my total up to 9 whopping pictures! I'll keep on submitting and maybe some day end up with a sale.

From all accounts there are three areas to focus on, quality, quantity and niche. No matter your quantity, you're not going to sell without quality as well. Niche is where things can really happen. If you can find a corner of the market that is underrepresented, you can make yourself and your clients very happy. Unfortunately, I doubt my 9 pictures are going to be diverse enough to help me find that niche, so, (you've heard it before) I'll keep submitting.

Now for a brief bit on stacks, I love 'em. In case you don't know what they're for, stacks are for when you have multiple, related angles of a similar subject. We all know utter junk and our bad photos when we see them, but maybe you have a shot narrowed down to 2-3 frames and you're not sure which is best. You might like shot 1 but shot 2 might give the designer who buys your picture more room to work. So you can take your best couple shots and drop them in a stack which indicates multiple related views. This keeps from browsing stock and seeing 50 related shots by one photographer with little variation while still allowing an interested designer access to angles that might work better for them. PhotoShelter allows these but appears to want them used within reason, i.e. not every photo you submit should be a stack. We'll see how things go.