What not to submit as Microstock

Anyone who has been submitting to microstock sites for a while knows the usual drill: "We don't want pictures of flowers, walls, rocks, your pet, or your feet." That stands to reason, since this is the low-hanging fruit for most beginning photographers looking to get their feet wet. But that still shouldn't discourage you, as long as you photograph these extremely common subjects in a unique way.

Pictures of flowers are currently ranked #2 and #4, and a picture of a brick wall is ranked #31 on Shutterstock's "top 50 photos."

http://submit.shutterstock.com/top50.mhtml

Hmm. Pretty darn good for "don't submit these"-type photos, wouldn't you say?

Right. That's why I waited for the right lighting and shot this brick wall the other day. It was promptly accepted by a reviewer on July 9, 2008 and has sold 5 times since then.



It's certainly not my top performer, but it brings in steady money and didn't take much time at all to compose and process. Plus, I think it's a nice generic image which will have continual appeal.