Stock photography is akin to financial investing in that you’re betting on the market to move in your favor.  In this three hour intensive, we’ll analyze an actual stock photography image sale made by the instructor in 2014 and break down the components that were involved in its creation: from portfolio building, to industry research, to contract acquisition, to creative planning, to lighting, exposure, and composition, to keywording and final image submission and distribution strategy.  We’ll take what is a highly risk-oriented process and slice the investment components of creativity and business into themes that will provide attendees interested in earning money from commercial media, a taste of what it takes to “get the shot” and get paid. What we’ll cover:

• Description of the history of selling licenses in photography vs. selling hourly or per-day rates.
• Building a portfolio to acquire a stock photography contract and assignment work in commercial art.
• Researching industry sales trends, creative trends, and planning for future trends.
• Negotiating a photography/commercial art contract.
• Producing a small scale shoot, including plans for who will model, where to shoot, and props/wardrobe that might be needed.
• Technical “how to” for high-end commercial photography use; i.e., proper exposure, file size, lighting considerations to guarantee image acceptance by clients long-term.
• Management of the file storage process.
• Planning for and implementing keyword descriptors to an image in order to enable its high level search ability online, and subsequent sale.
• Orchestration of the complicated process of image submission, both to stock agents and professional clientele for assignment purposes.
• Thinking about a distribution strategy; i.e. Getting your images into the right channels around the world for visibility and sales exposure.
• Collecting payments and considerations for how and where to invest one’s time and production budget in the future.

Location: The Hutong

Date: Saturday February 7th, 12:00 – 15:00

Price: 300 RMB, 250 for members.