hey everybody this isn't a cold glass
and I am back with another video on your
favorite topic shutterstock and in
today's unscripted video I'm just going
to pull up a few different photos from
my Shutterstock portfolio and show you
an example of what sells next to
something that doesn't sell and I'm
gonna give you a couple of my thoughts
on why this might be now what sells and
what doesn't sell this could be
different for you it could be different
for everybody obviously I am only
speaking from my own experience I don't
work for shutterstock and I don't have
any sort of secret insider knowledge all
I have are my own observations but I
thought it would be interesting to put
two photos side by side and talk a
little bit about why I think one of them
gets downloaded and why the other one
does not so let's get right into it so
the first two photos are both photos of
the Washington Monument in Washington DC
they're both kind of nice right which
one do you think sells one of them has
never been downloaded whereas the other
one is constantly being downloaded so
the one that has never been downloaded
is photo a which is the photo of the
Washington Monument at sunset the one
that is always being downloaded is the
photo of the Washington Monument with
the frozen reflecting pool in front of
it even though the sunset photo is quite
beautiful in my opinion the photo with
the frozen reflecting pool is probably a
lot more valuable to buyers because it's
very very rare that the reflecting pool
freezes like this and that people just
walk all over it this usually only
happens if there's like record-breaking
cold temperatures and it's all over the
news when this happens and when we do
have these kind of really cold
record-breaking days my photo of the
frozen reflecting pool is downloaded
quite often so that that's kind of like
my opinion on why one sells and one does
not the next set of photos are both
photos of the White House but totally
different perspectives one is a pretty
photo of the White House taken from
inside the White House grounds so
gives a really nice angle of the white
house and I think it's kind of pretty
but that one doesn't really get
downloaded the one that gets downloaded
is the photo of the protestors in front
of the White House and it's not hard to
know why
obviously there's hundreds of thousands
of beautiful photos of the White House
on Shutterstock already so most likely
if someone means a photo of the White
House they're gonna pick something from
the first page of the search results but
if a news agency or like a website or
whatever somebody needs a photo of that
specific protest that happened on that
specific day they can find my photo so
this has a lot of like news value and I
think that's why that photo gets
downloaded so often the next two photos
are photos of two animals now which one
do you think gets downloaded more well
the cat has never been downloaded sorry
kitty I know it's a cute cat but nope
the one that gets downloaded more often
is the picture of the great hornbill
bird and that's because there are fewer
photos of great hornbills on
Shutterstock than there are of cats when
you type in great hornbill bird there
are 44 pages of search results when you
type in cat there are 19,000 647 pages
of results and keep in mind there's
about a hundred images per page now
great hornbill birds are still
relatively saturated on Shutterstock but
far less so than cats
so obviously this great hornbill bird
has not been downloaded like tons of
times but just a few times and
definitely more than the cat so if you
are taking photos of wildlife the more
unique the Wildlife is the more likely
that wildlife photo is going to be
downloaded cats and dogs forget about it
unless you have some sort of like unique
perspective to your cat photo so the
next set of photos are both taken in
Germany not too far away from each other
and one is a photo of the iconic
neuschwanstein castle which every
traveler wants to see when they go to
bavaria and the second photo is a photo
of a parade that took
in a small town in Germany a town called
ganush provocation where people were
wearing traditional German outfits so
which one gets downloaded well the
answer is simple you're probably already
catching on to the patterns here the
castle photo doesn't get downloaded to
saturated the photo of the people in the
parade does get downloaded because I was
probably the only person that put photos
of that parade on shutterstock and you
know it's just probably more useful if
people want photos of traditional German
outfits in that town there is far less
of those photos up on Shutterstock than
there are of the neuschwanstein castle
less competition so the next two photos
are both some drone shots that I took
one is a drone shot taken above a
beautiful lake in the fall and the
second is a photo of downtown Annapolis
in the fall which one sells if you
guessed the lake you guessed wrong the
lake photo does not sell very often I
mean it's it's been downloaded a few
times but not enough to make it a top
selling photo the like is simply a lake
there's nothing particularly special
about it and there's I mean countless
lakes in the world like I don't even
know how many there would be millions I
don't know and I can't compete with all
of the other drone photos of beautiful
lakes in the world it's just impossible
the only way that particular photo will
probably be that be discovered and
downloaded is if someone is searching
for the name of that particular Lake
which is probably not going to happen
very often now the photo of downtown
Annapolis in the fall gets downloaded
quite often it's actually quite
interesting because there are not that
many drone shots of downtown Annapolis
on shutterstock like there's like maybe
a couple pages but nothing like the
drone shots you would see of you know
some of the other cities in the area for
some reason so my drone photo of
Annapolis has actually ended up in the
first page of the search results for
aerial photos of Annapolis so that one
is one of my top-selling photos in my
entire shutterstock portfolio the next
set of photos were both taken in
Washington DC
one sells if you guess the capital
building you are wrong
well the capital building at sunset is
quite beautiful
it is also in a saturated niche there
are so many photos of the capital
sunrise at sunset in winter in summer
with people without people like you name
it
there are so many photos of it already
so that photo doesn't get discovered
however this very boring photo of the
Department of Labor and trans sign gets
downloaded like constantly several times
a week actually and that's because last
I checked this was the only Department
of Labor photo on Shutterstock that had
you know the actual name Department of
Labor in it so I guess it gives it that
unique perspective like if someone is
writing an article about the Department
of Labor or you know just talking about
some things and legislation or whatever
and they just need a simple photo that
documents what they're talking about
like they'll often download that now the
next two photos actually really love
this example are both photos of soda
bottles exhibit a photos of coke bottles
Exhibit B photos of Mountain Dew bottles
which sells more well if you look
closely exhibit a shows coke bottles as
they look today an exhibit B is antique
Mountain Dew bottles from like I don't
know what year like maybe the 50s or the
60s and I actually found these bottles
in a little tiny antique museum in town
in the middle of nowhere and I took a
couple photos of them so the modern
looking coke bottles photo doesn't ever
really sell but the antique mountain Dew
bottles sell all the time and you can
probably guess why the antique bottles
are so unique there is not really a lot
of competition for that and it
someone is looking for specifically
photos of bottles the way they looked
many decades ago they're gonna find my
photo whereas coca-cola bottles the way
they look today there's tons of that on
shutterstock already and the last two
photos were both taken at Starbucks
which one sells well one shows the
Starbucks name you know as it was on the
outside of the store and the other photo
has the Starbucks straws and a couple of
other little things that were inside
this door and the one that sells quite
often are the straws in fact the straws
are a top-selling photo of mine you
might have seen them in another video of
mine before in many videos I do say that
photos of storefronts usually do well
but that's only if those photos are not
like super saturated on Shutterstock
already Starbucks is very popular and
there's tons of photos of Starbucks
signs on shutterstock already so that
kind of photo is probably not going to
do that well but if you're photographing
like a little tiny detail in Starbucks
or like something that is not too
saturated on the platform already you'll
probably have a little bit of better
luck with that
so those are just a few examples of
photos that sell for me versus photos
that don't sell for me and my thoughts
on why this might be again these are
just my thoughts this is not you know
scientific evidence or anything like
that but hopefully this gives you a
little bit of perspective on how you can
gain a unique perspective on something
and make your photos a little bit more
valuable to a buyer anyways thank you so
much for watching this video subscribe
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give this video a thumbs up and let me
know in the comments below which of
these photos surprised you the most were
you surprised that they sold or were you
surprised that they didn't sell I'm
curious to know your own thoughts on
this till next time enjoy the rest of
your day