Stock Photo Ideas

In the previous posts I’ve only shared my experience about microstock photography and my success with the agencies. Now it’s time to share ideas about shooting. A couple of posts ago I mentioned that whenever you have no ideas on what to shoot you can shoot backgrounds. Shooting backgrounds is quite easy and actually does not require any big investments, it’s also a great training subject, as you can experiment with light - direct light, reflected light, etc. A couple of weeks ago I joined a photography course and one of the first homeworks was shooting backgrounds. Here’s a picture how I did it:

The picture was taken with my cell phone, so the quality is quite poor, but you still can get the idea. Here’s the way to do it. Take a table where to put the background you want to take picture of. I set up my tripod and use a mirror to reflect part of the light. The mirror is needed to distribute the light evenly and hilight the shadows as the light comes from one side and the other side of the objects is dark. As about the light - this time I didn’t use any special light source other than daylight coming from window. In order to be successful, you have to set a correct white ballance. As it was couldy on the day I shot the backgrounds I chose “cloudy” white balance on my camera and it worked fine. If you use other light source it would be wise to set custom white ballance (I’ll explain this in one of the next posts) or just choose a more appropriate automatic setting. As about the things you can shoot as backgrounds I used a bunch of half-dried roses and various teas I had in kitchen. And here are the results:

As about the results - the course teacher chose the last one as the best background, I like the first one the most. The most important thing is to practice and see what happens with the results by manipulating the light. If you don’t have a big mirror like I do, you can use let’s say aluminum foil that’s glued on top of A4 sized sheet of paper or any other reflective surface. Actually the more reflective surfaces you try the better results you might get. Be creative!