It’s always fun finding my images in use One of the delights of the stock business. It never gets old.  Back when I was mainly doing graphic design work, laying out ads and editorial spreads, I had a little bit of control over which images I used.  Now, I’m on the other end of the spectrum.  I sell hundreds of microstock images daily, and never know if they are simply laying around on a designer’s hard drive, or actually being used in marketing materials.  Once in a blue moon you will get a nice person that emails you and says, “hey check this out, I used your image in this ____”.  That rarely happens, though.  This advertisement, below, was spotted on the Metro North train by the model herself. Thanks to her, I got to see this cell phone pic.  Model Ellisse was used here in a montage of surprised faces for this poster by Mohegan Sun Casino located in Uncasville, Connecticut. I also noticed another photo belonging to my buddy Jason Stitt (keeweeboy) in the top row, fourth image.

The original photo is found here:

See how shooting a variety of different expressions and poses during a photoshoot can be useful in marketing?  Whenever I work with new models I always explain to them that because we are shooting for stock, their images will be in use and in action in a variety of different places, if they are in fact sold.  The thing is, you never know where they might appear.  We just have to keep our eyes open, and eventually they will show up somewhere.  I’m not sure how doubtful or sure they are that this will happen, but so far the majority of the models that I’ve worked with have been pleasantly surprised to find their photos in use for some incredible tear sheets to add to their modeling portfolios.

Over 150,000 images licensed in a little over 4 years in microstock.  Holy crap…

I was definitely taken by surprise with this statistic.  I only wish each one of those images sold for $30 each instead of 30 cents – Haha! I don’t even know what the total size of my portfolio is right now, so that’s the next thing I’ll have to figure out.

Want to know how many images I’ve found in use?  Ha, probably only around 100.

Alright; you got me.  Let me be totally honest with you.  As of today, I’ve only sold 149,110 images.  But close enough… I know I must have missed a bunch somewhere, on some random site I’m forgetting to record.  In another week or so it should be there It’s fun running business related stats once in a while, and you’re going to be surprised with the results, almost always.  Give it a shot with your own accounts, if you sell stock.  I think you just might be pleasantly surprised!