Myerson Photo Blog

iStockphoto.com has become one of the largest Royalty-Free photo libraries out there. Contributors to iStock have a great opportunity to reach a global marketplace for their images. That opportunity is only great, of course, if the images can actually be found. As an image inspector for iStockphoto, I get to see thousands of images each month as they move through the inspection queue and into the collection. So how do you go about getting your image noticed in the vast sea of 2 million+ images (nearly 3 million as of this writing)?

There are no guarantees, of course, but here is the first part of a two-part series on things to consider for your images. It may not come as a great surprise to find that much of the most important work you can do to get your images found actually takes place before you click the shutter.

Don’t push into the crowded bus
You aren’t really jockeying for position against the other nearly 3 million images. You’re only up against the images that share primary keywords with your images. You may have just shot the world’s best image of an apple, perfectly isolated on an infinite white sweep. Congrats! It’s now one of over 5,000 images that comes up in a search for “Isolated Apple” on iStock. Designers will often search well beyond the first page of results to find the image they need, but even the hardiest of image researchers will hesitate to comb through over 5000 images.

Let’s say instead of “Apple” and “Isolated”, your image was “Apple” and “Fire”. Now it’s one of 19 images. That’s a much greater ratio. The downside? As of today’s writing, those 19 images have a combined download total of about 75. Not a whole lot of demand for Flaming Apples.

Your job, then, is to find that sweet spot. Look for the underserved image markets on iStock. Often all it takes is adding a key element to your image (”Fire”, in our example above). Rather than shooting an attractive model in a business suit isolated on white (and, yes, I know I’m guilty of that as well), shoot her doing something that isn’t overdone in the library. Not talking on the phone. That is overdone. Have her balancing the books. Or balancing on a tightrope. Or balancing another businessperson on her head. This, of course, has to be thought out in advance of actually creating the shot.

Keyword Thoroughly and Accurately

Each keyword you add to an image is another search under which your image will be found. It’s absolutely in your best interest to be thorough about your keywords. This image has the following terms
applied to it:

• Single Object
• Small
• White
• Toned Image
• Horizontal
• Scarcity
• Place Setting
• Plate
• Nobody
• Empty
• Dishware
• Sparse
• Green Pea
• Food
• Silverware
• Poverty
• Famine
• Hungry

You can basically break the list up into three categories: the literal, the conceptual, and the compositional.

Literal
The literal contents of the image (plate, silverware, green pea) are the easiest keywords to add. Just look in the picture and name the key elements that are in there. An important note, however, is to avoid “laundry lists”. As an inspector, I often have to reject images for keywords when they rattle off every minute detail on the image. An image of a person, for instance, probably does contain a Human Face, Human Lips, Nose, Human Eyes, etc., but if these aren’t what the image is about – if they’re not key elements of the image – don’t bother adding them.

Another point about literal keywords – consider using parent terms if they still make sense. For example, in the image above, I have “Green Pea”, and its ancestor term “Food”. What I didn’t include, however, were the parent terms between Food and Green Pea; The actual taxonomy is Food > Vegetable > Legume > Pea Family > Green Pea. “Food” makes sense for this image, as does the specific food “Green Pea”. Arguably, “Vegetable” makes sense, but I get the sense that someone searching for “Legume” or “Pea Family” is more interested in a shot more devoted to those keywords.

Conceptual
Conceptual keywords are harder to define, harder to use, and harder to inspect. This is a muddy and slippery region of the keywording landscape. I feel the image above portrays concepts such as “Hunger” and “Scarcity” pretty well. It doesn’t at all represent “Business” or “Friendship”. What about the gray areas? Agribusiness? Competition? One could probably make an argument for those words, but my feeling is that if one has to make an argument for them, they’re probably not the best candidates. Stick to the ones that you had in mind when you made the shot.

Compositional
These are the metadata of the metadata world. These terms represent the photographic details of the image more than the contents. Horizontal, vertical, diagonal, above, below, close up, wide angle, worms eye view, monochrome, cross-processed. Again, this should be a pretty easy set of terms to define and use.

Don’t Spam
Spamming is including terms that are outright incorrect, or are so stretched so thin they’ll snap. Spamming on iStock also includes incorrectly disambiguating your terms. Spammers will be drawn and quartered on sight, so don’t do it.

Be About Something
The way to achieve both of the points above is to have your image be about something. That is, before you take the shot, decide what the shot is about. Start with the concept. Be intentional about the photograph. Don’t just set out to take a picture of a tree. Decide what it is you want the picture of the tree to portray. In essence, this means preselecting a literal keyword and a conceptual keyword to describe what you’ll be shooting. Consider the following combinations of “Tree” and conceptual terms:

• “Tree” + “Childhood”
• “Tree” + “Despair”
• “Tree” + “History”
• “Tree” + “Satisfaction”
• “Tree” + “Frustration”

Could you envision an image that could be accurately keyworded with any of those combinations?
By being more intentional about your stock photography, you gain several advantages. The first is that you can actively choose to put your image in an underserved market niche. Let’s say your research shows that there are over 220,000 images of trees, but fewer than 100 also include a given conceptual keyword. If you feel as I do that that’s an available market niche, you could plan your tree shot to portray that concept. Now it’s not just a tree image, it’s a tree image about something, and what’s more, it’s one of only 100 images about that something.

Being about something also helps in the keywording phase. The conceptual keywords – that category that is often so difficult to do – is basically handled ahead of time. You have alreay decided that your tree image would portray a given concept. The keywording is guaranteed to be easy and accurate.

Finally, by deciding ahead of time what your image is about, you give yourself the ability to remove distractions and make a better image. Does that mailbox in the background really help your tree image portray “desolation”? Is that garbage at the base of the tree really the best way to show “Stately Elegance”? Stock photography is all about iconic images that read quickly. Your job (ok, one of your many jobs) is to eliminate those elements that prevent the image from being iconic.

Join us for part II of the series, which will explore those things you can (and those things you cannot) control within iStockphoto’s environment to help boost your image’s exposure.