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Stock Photography Trends 2021-2022

My recent best-selling images

By Armchair DetectivePublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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https://submit.shutterstock.com?rid=2892667

I have been selling stock photographs for almost 15 years now. Trends come and go, but you can often gage what to upload depending on the time of year. For example, Christmas, Easter and Halloween. If you are a graphic designer, or product photographer then this is easy, setting up scenes or creating images from scratch and uploading them at the right time will hopefully rack up a few sales.

I am not really a product photographer, or graphic designer, although I have done a little of both in the past. As photography is more of a hobby, I tend to focus on subjects that I enjoy photographing.

In the past, most of the photographs that I have uploaded to stock sites have been travel related. I love taking pictures of new places, but I have not travelled since 2019, so I needed to come up with some content to keep the algorithms working in my favour.

I decided to start walking around my home city, documenting the pandemic mostly, closed stores, empty streets, etc. Surprisingly, these images have been very popular and are slowly becoming some of my best-selling images.

Some photographers work exclusively on one platform, or on a just a couple of sites. I choose to spread my images across multiple sites, mainly because different images sell on different sites. I currently sell my images on Shutterstock, iStock, Adobe Stock, Dreamstime, Big Stock and I have a few images on 123RF and Pond 5.

Earnings vary across the platforms. However, I make most money on iStock and Shutterstock, with most of my earnings coming from editorial content, but this is probably because I mostly upload editorial content.

I have the least amount of images on 123RF and Pond 5 and the most on Dreamstime and Shutterstock.

My top-selling images over the last 12 months:

  • Images related to the NHS and healthcare
  • I uploaded some images of the Royal Hallamshire Hospital last year, which have sold multiple times across several platforms. Due to the pandemic, images related to the NHS and medical content has been trending across all the sites for over a year now. Some sites are no longer accepting COVID related content, but others are, so if your content gets refused on one site, do not be afraid to try another.

  • Images related to universities
  • Whilst walking around the city Centre, I took some images of the Sheffield University and Sheffield Hallam University buildings and signs, which have also sold across multiple platforms. In addition, back to school related content is always a good seller.

  • General Images of around my home city (shops, businesses, etc.)
  • Other images that have been popular sellers for me over the last 12 months are general images from around Sheffield. For example, images from the Kelham Island area have been very good sellers. The area has been renovated over the last few years and its popularity has increased. Property developers and estate agents often use stock images in their sales material, so any area that is currently under renovation would be a good subject to photograph.

    Another great seller has been a picture of the Women of Steel Statue at Barkers Pool. This image has also sold across several platforms.

    The pandemic saw many popular retail establishments going out of business, or closing stores. The John Lewis Store in Sheffield town centre is one store that has not reopened. This caused a local uproar and images relating to the store have sold multiple times, because it has been in the local news.

    Understandably, it is difficult to predict what will be in the news, but keeping up to date with what is going on locally, and documenting it with your camera is a good place to start.

    I have also started to upload more stock videos. This is an area that is fairly new to me, but I want to improve my videography skills and upload more video in the future. Video content does tend to sell for more than photographs, and its popularity is on the increase.

    I recently received $18 for one video that I shot on my iPhone, and then $5 for a video of my cat’s paws kneading a blanket, that I quickly shot at home. My only video sales have come from Pond5 and iStock.

    As well as selling stock, I also offer free images on Pexels and Pixaby. I understand that for students and writers, stock photography is not always an option, so I try and offer some images for free as I use these free sites myself.

    If you are new to selling stock, I recommend starting in Dreamstime. Sales are slower than on some other platforms, but they are less picky with what they will accept. Once you have got the hang of what sells for you and the different sorts of images and licences that you need, then you can move on to some other platforms.

    Thaks for reading.

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    About the Creator

    Armchair Detective

    Amateur writer, I mostly write about true crime.

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