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Garry Black Photography

Question:

Hi Garry. I wrote to you last spring when I first started seriously thinking about pursuing photography as a career. I appreciated your quick reply, and now that I see my original letter and similar ones on your web site, I guess there are others like me trying to figure out how to break into the world of selling photos.

Anyway, I've been doing lots of reading and exploring on the internet since I wrote you last. I've also edited my slides to the point where I'm ready to send them to an agency. While I was editing them I noticed how my habits have changed - when I started taking photos I would just dash all over the place taking pictures of anything I happened to find. I was wondering if I should include these shots in a submission? Does including the only frame you have of an area imply to the agency that you have taken more than just one shot there? For example, I have a couple handful of decent shots that I took in New Zealand and Australia - I would like to include them, but I don't want to give the agency the impression that I specialize in photos from that area.

Was also curious about why so few photographers use medium format for stock. It would seem to me like medium format would give a person an advantage, something that would make them stand out from the crowd so to speak. I realize stock is mostly a volume business, but wouldn't medium format bring higher prices which would offset the lower volume?

Answer:

Stock agencies today are looking for top quality images - ones that will sell. The high numbers of images in a stock agency is now a thing of the past. Maybe with Royalty Free, a high number of images is still important.

Typically the average AD or graphic designer claim that they always check out 3-4 agencies when searching for images. With the ease of comparison shopping for pictures on the internet and the large number of stock agency catalogues that exist, the competition that you face out there is extremely strong, as it is for every other photographer selling stock today.

As result what stock agencies are now looking for in your portfolio is not the large varied material that they once looked for. Now if you have a few images that will sell in today's market they will be interested in you. So if you only have one knockout image from New Zealand or from where ever and it is going to sell, that's all you need. Most of the stock agencies don't want to see 200 -300 images in a portfolio anymore. Here is a quote from a major stock agency "The photog should send us a dozen low res images and tell us about the kind of work they are doing. This often is the quickest way to determine if it is worth it for either of us to proceed". Here is a link to Masterfile's (agency which represents me) portfolio submission guidelines. They do want to see 200 images if you are submitting slides, but I know that you can also submit much fewer that. But they are only looking for 10 images if you e-mail them, in fact that's about all they need in order to determine whether they would be interested in you.

So getting back to directly answering your question about including the only frame of an area, the answer is, Yes - send in only that one shot! They are not looking to see what you have in your files. What they want to know when looking at your portfolio is, what is your technical and artist ability, and more importantly can you produce and create images that will sell.

As for shooting medium format, I don't bother. The clients rarely see the original transparency when choosing an image. They are either on-line, or if they are looking at a transparency, it is usually a 70 mm dupe.

Hope this gives you some insight into stock agencies today.