Shutterstock Contributor Tip – What photos sell best on Shutterstock?

Featured Image by Sarah Richter from Pixabay

I previously wrote about joining the shutterstck contributor program, thinking about uploading photos that I take anyway onto the platform, and if anyone likes it and buys it for use, I can get some money essentially for free, doing things I would have done anyway. Well, I uploaded less than 10 photos in the end, and obviously haven’t done much with it since. I did, however, come across some tips that I would like to share, if you have also signed up and struggled to get any traction in getting photography sales, or even knowing what photos sell best on the Shutterstock platform.

If you are actively a contributor and getting regular sales, please share in the comments section as well, cos I would love to know what photography you do, and if you have any insights that might be useful!

The shot list

So, on the shutterstock site, there’s a section called The Shot List, where they release a monthly guide to the most requested photos of the month. A lot of it is actually rather intuitive, if you think about it.

Looking at the shot list for June, we see a lot of request for photos depicting life at home, learning and self development at home, mental wellbeing as well as people engaging with the news.

Given the global pandemic resulting in most people having to work from home, or worse, being layed off and potentially looking for a job, or looking to upskill, these requests make total sense.

For the month of July, I’m gathering based on current demand, and upcoming gradual re-opening of economies, the shots requested are of social distancing and solo activities.

They also have an archive section, where you can look through data from previous months and perhaps spot a trend or two there.

Seasonality

Something that never grows old, and keeps cycling around, would be photos to do with seasonality, or occasions. Christmas, new year’s, cherry blossom, these are retail heavy occasions that are widely celebrated. The demand for these photos will only increase each year. The question is, will you be able to provide interesting angles and photos to be noticed?

Always Popular

Some of the always popular searches for images will be families, woman, child and flower. I reckon architecture and naturalistic images like mountains, rivers will always be popular too. Not forgetting dogs and cats. So again, these beg the question of how would you do it differently to be noticeable among the millions of similar images?

Google Trends

If you’re looking to provide photography of a more current and newsy nature, you can always look for trending topics within Google Trends, that can give you a global view by country of what’s on people’s minds right at this moment.

If I were to really try to game this, I think I will try to milk the popular searches of the month so the photos will have more of a recency and relevance to them.

Are you looking to be a Shutterstock contributor? If so, you can sign up below

Have a look at my very sparse photo list. I’ll be sure to add on to this list, once I’m free to go out again! Looking forward to my first digital photo sale!