Another year, another million – I wish

Heating my hands. - Is this a good photo for stock sales? Who would be interested in buying it? It’s probably somewhere in the conceptual department... And do I really need that big copyright mark?

© Morten Svenningsen

New year is approaching and it’s cold here in Kathmandu. Nice in the daytime, but when the sun sets, the temperature drops 15 degrees in 15 minutes or so. Too quick for my body to adjust So I’m always shaking cold for an hour between 5 and 6. After that, no problem. We do have a little heater here, but it’s only good for warming the hands. Can’t heat up all the rooms which aren’t really isolated. So I’m generally dressing like I was stationed in an Arctic research station.

Anyway, the year is nearly over and it’s time for some re-evaluation, looking back and ahead. Think I’ll keep this one on the topic of my photo business. So excuse me for thinking out loud here, bit of rambling. But maybe some of you will actually find some answers to your own speculations. And as always, comments are welcome!

It’s pretty clear to me what I’m doing as a photojournalist, how I’m working, where my focus is and so on. As a stock shooter, hmm...

I haven’t had a single sale yet, so do I need to change anything?

Don’t think so. I’ve only had stock photos online for 3-4 months, about 3-400 of them. And only with one agency, Alamy. That amount, on average, would only make one or two sales in a year, as I read the numbers. So it’s not time to worry quite yet. But it’s always good to think about if there’s something that can be improved. But first I need to figure out, what’s my focus area? ‘Cause it’s good to know the market you’re in, what the customers need and so on.

And the answer: Nepal photos.

But that’s not really specific, is it? In my attempt to narrow it down, I came up with this list of possibilities:

• Travel, tourism, adventure, sightseeing, backpacking, luxury travel etc.
• Architecture, temples, statues, interiors, landmarks, monuments etc.
• Culture, festivals, artifacts, symbols etc.
• Religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, co-existence etc.
• Nature, landscapes, mountains etc.
• Animals, wildlife, insects, birds, butterflies, pets etc.
• People, children, teenagers, seniors, studio portraits, famous people, pretty people etc.
• Fashion, lifestyle, haircuts, costumes, ornaments etc.
• Food, dishes, fruits, vegetables, eating etc.
• Health, yoga, meditation etc.
• Business, small shops, global trading, hard labour etc.
• Product photos, cut-outs etc.
• Conceptuals, moods, emotions etc.
• “Traditional micro stock photos” (*), family/social/business situations, face expression with a very simple set-up and composition and on a white background, tra-la-la...

(*) Disclaimer: I don’t do micro-stock or royalty free photos, but I can still do some of their traditional motifs, can’t I?

That’s still a pretty long list. There’s other categories as well, but this is the ones I consider relevant to my photography work here in Nepal. Plus all the documentary stuff, of course. I can see some of the topics are more interesting than others, also from a business perspective. But honestly, I haven’t been able to pick one or two topics out. So I think I’ll just continue to be a generalist in the stock arena for now.

Even though I know, now is not a good time to be (or enter as) a stock photographer. The market is over-saturated with amateurs, some of them really good, by the way. The problem is that they are happy to give their photos away for next to nothing – hell, sometimes even less than that – since they don’t have to make a living of it. And that makes it really difficult for us who just want to get a fair price. But so far I’m having fun doing it – not all the time, but once in a while. Nice break from the serious documentary stuff. And I hope that in the new year, the market will work it out so that prices will better reflect the cost of doing photography.

Some of the other little things I’ve realized this year, when it comes to stock photos: Gotta get 100 variations. Commercial tend to pay higher per image, but requires model releases. Editorial probably makes up for it in numbers. Travel might be popular, but the ordinary stuff have already been done a thousand times over. Always be creative. Happy pics of beautiful people seem to do about a billion times better than sad ones. And it’s a lot of work. If you wanna be serious about it, it’s a full time job. You have to get up early, go out on location, shoot, walk, shoot, meet people, shoot, make arrangements and shoot some more. Then there’s all the post-processing. Very time-consuming. Editing, cropping, resizing, checking and cleaning up the details, captioning, keywording, archiving, submitting and managing all the photos. A full time job.

My conclusion: Honestly, it’s hardly worth it as a pro photographer. Customers must be laughing all the way to the bank, thinking about how much work+talent+gear they get access to for a few hundred dollars. But I’ll keep it up between assignments and my other documentary work. With time, it could still turn more profitable. And I still enjoy the hunt for that perfect shot. I just have to avoid thinking of it as pure work for now. ‘cause if I do the math and calculate the hourly rate, it becomes ridiculous.

What the neighbors are up to

Hazardous work.
© Morten Svenningsen

Sometimes I see construction workers walk around on small ledges without safety ropes. I see them throwing tools to each other, sometimes they catch them, sometimes they don’t. If somebody passes by underneath and gets a screwdriver in the head, it’ll break their skull. So just look out when walking around. And just don’t fall down when you’re up there on the ledge. Then everything is fine. Fair enough.

But this thing that the neighbors are doing today takes the prize as the most stupid thing that I’ve seen in a while. These 3 guys they hired to paint their house are walking around on a 45 degree slope with a 20 foot drop below. Sometimes there’s something they can hold on to. Sometimes not. They also carry paint buckets and paint brushes. Down below is a metal fence with 3 inch spikes pointing straight up!

I was just starring (and shooting some photos) for 5 minutes, one guy lost balance but grabbed the other-one’s arm. Regained balance, phew... He would probably have survived the fall. Probably.

That’s the way it works here. I think the ILO would call it exploitation or something. I call it stupid. The Nepalese call it work.

Without a safety net.
© Morten Svenningsen

Nobody really celebrates Christmas around here, but anyway: Merry Christmas everybody!

How we live

Oh yeah, I know that some of you are curious to see how we live. My dad posted some shots of their visit here earlier this year. Check it out if you want:

http://picasaweb.google.dk/Flemmingsv/Nepal

One photo a week

No posts here for a month and a half now. Sorry about that, I’ll try to post more often from now on. Even during the dry periods where nothing much apparently happens. But there’s always things happening inside my head. Well, maybe not this week, since I’ve been down with the flu. But my brain is now back on 90% power. One entry per week here should provide a more continuous feel for the local situation, I think. Often, it’s the little things that gives the best understanding, isn’t it?

Climate change on the horizon. This man in Nepalganj is using a more sustainable form of transport than us photographers, journalists and all the experts attending conferences in Bali and Hawaii.

© Morten Svenningsen

So, last week I was a few days in Nepalganj (a small town in the flatlands of Nepal, if you aren’t familiar with the local geography) doing a reportage for Save the Children. It was about the annual flooding and how it affects the local people there. This year it affected 336.534 people, according to some statistics the client brought. Man, where do they come up with those exact numbers?

Well, it’s a lot of people and it’ll probably just get worse over the years with the continuing population boom, global warming and all that. Of course, we’re now in the middle of the dry season here, so all I could do was to go around and take some photos of people showing how high the water was half a year ago. Damn! But, well, the client was happy...

But I’ve just been thinking about this climate change thing and what UN and all the other NGO’s are doing about it. Of course, we flew in from Kathmandu. Some of us from Europe. Meanwhile in Bali, thousands of delegates have been flying in to that big conference and next month they’ll all fly to Hawaii. That’s a lot of jet fuel burned straight into our atmosphere. Not to mention all the heated offices and 4WD vehicles they utilize here in Nepal. And what are they accomplishing? Here in Nepal, they do provide some relief, tents and rice and such, but more long-term improvements are happening really really slow. And with all their traveling around to meetings, their office generators and so on, I’ve got a feeling that the NGO’s are actually contributing more to the problem here than they’re mitigating it. Let’s at least say that one UN-staffer contributes about as much to the problem as a couple of typical Nepalese villages. That can’t be too far off!

I hope I’m wrong, God I do, but...

It wouldn’t be fair to publish the Nepalganj photos here yet, since the client hasn’t had a chance to run the story yet. So you’re just gonna have to make do with the one at the top of this entry. I don’t think they’ll use it.