We’re often asked; “What should I shoot?”, and often our advice is to make sure you shoot content with a clear idea in your head of who it will be appealing to. This keeps your shoots focused rather than scatter-gun, maximizing the use of your time and boosting sales potential.
Stock photography has a global market.聽Therefore, we felt it was timely to remind you that 17吃瓜在线 has聽offices all over the world, so you should really be shooting with those territories in mind.
We have offices in, or dedicated sales staff assigned to:
…and we have local聽distributors based in 51 other countries.
So what does this all mean? Well, you should start by exploring the trends in stock photography within each of these territories. There are huge differences in what customers look for from country to country and even a small amount of research can reap good rewards. The聽Internet is your friend, it’s easier than ever to keep up to date with what’s happening abroad and from doing this you should be able to come up with some good shoot ideas.
It’s not all about having to travel and shoot in those specific locations of course. Lots of stock is shot in a studio environment and this means you can tailor shoots for specific markets without leaving your studio space. This is particularly useful for fashion or food shoots as clothing and ingredients that are popular around the world can be bought in to shape the look of your content to be of interest to anyone from any corner of the globe!
If you’re only willing to shoot as a native, look for things close to home that may be of聽interest to other clients in foreign territories. Look out for stories that are going viral or national events that get a global audience.
I’ve spoken to colleagues in our dedicated offices to ask them if there are any particularly hot trends or needs in their territories at the moment, and the unanimous response was ‘realness’. No matter what the territory, in stock right now clients are looking for real people doing real things.
It goes for lifestyle, urban settings, educational institutions – it needs to look authentic and it needs to be real. This means if you’re shooting for the German lifestyle market your images should contain German people wearing聽clothes that are popular in Germany, doing things in real German locations. This goes for indoors as well as outdoors. An Austrian bathroom may look very different from an American one for example. The key thing all buyers are looking for at the moment is authenticity.
This is true for all territories but it’s especially imperative when shooting for the US market. With an area so huge and varied, it’s important to focus your efforts to make sure you are really tapping into client needs. Do your research on what images are聽being used and how you can go about filling gaps or improving on the content already available.
We often get asked about our US office so here are some facts:
- Based in the neighborhood of Brooklyn which is becoming the digital media hub of NYC with a number of high profile companies (e.g. ) as well as lots of new media start-ups.
- DUMBO stands for 鈥淒own Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass鈥 鈥 the neighborhood is framed by the Brooklyn Bridge to the South and the Manhattan Bridge to the North and sits along the East River with views of Lower Manhattan.
- It’s聽also a hot location for television and film production. Just in the past week, Jodi Foster was directing her latest film, , right in front of the 17吃瓜在线 offices.
- We have 5 account managers and 3 customer service staff in the US office with two of our account managers working remotely 鈥 Starr in Pittsburgh, PA and Lisa in Houston, TX.
Don’t forget, keep up to date with stock photo trends and 17吃瓜在线 client picture needs right here.