What photographers can do during the pandemic

The pandemic because of COVID-19 and the announcement of quarantine around the world has changed the lives of many. We’re so used to shooting and uploading our works to stock on a daily basis, that it’s hard to plan on what to do in confinement. Theoretically, you can do everything you’ve postponed up to this moment like sports, cleaning up the apartment, or polishing up your cooking skills. Or, you can now devote more time to the analysis of your sales on stock photography platforms and try to carry out photoshoots at home.

Not sure where to start? Here are some of our recommendations:

1. Dive into trends

Be in the know about the latest trends in every business sphere around the world. Right now, we have enough time to identify and figure out what clients need. For example, the most relevant trend today is coronavirus, isolation, and work from home. Think about what you can shoot right now in line with these topics and with the resources you already have. Like classic blue.

2. Search for hidden treasures

Your HDD is your best resource right now. Return and review all your shots, you may have now plenty of time to do so. Start with your most popular topics but also turn to popular stock subjects as well and see what content you have. There may be different or unusual angles you have not considered for upload yet. Try these, you never know where your next best seller is.

3. Identify your keywords

Your knowledge of trends can help you find the right keywords that best describe an image and are more frequently used now for the theme you’re working with. Relevant keywords keep changing. Every year, there’s the new professional slang that you should use for your images. Aside from this, you can always add new keywords to published images, which increases their chances of being sold.

4. Shoot relevant content

As we’ve mentioned, one of the recent trends is isolation. With the props you have at home, you can definitely do some still life and interior photography. You can also take this opportunity to add some food photography to your portfolio. Bloggers and journalists are looking for this type of content to illustrate their articles and projects. Super authentic photos are another trend!

5. Get together....online

This will help you socialize and boost earnings. You can recommend the site to other fellow photographers, help them register and give them the opportunity to earn some money, especially now, during the pandemic. You may know even photographers looking for an alternative source of income now that red carpet events, weddings, sports events have been canceled or postponed with no clear return date.

6. Get your close ones to be your models

If you don’t live alone, get your close ones to be the models in your photos. When shooting at home, little details like an old sofa in the background can be fixed later during the post-processing stage. Also, consider that now is the perfect time to better familiarize yourself with tools like Photoshop for quality retouching and new skills. Which brings us to the last tip.

7. Perfect your skills

The last but very important piece of advice is to devote time to learning and perfecting the skills you already have. If you shoot nature but have never tried your hand at still life photography, now is the time to master new skills. Your props can be simple, like the objects on your table.

See how professionals working with this genre are doing things, study their recommendations, and learn from their tips. Then shoot, make mistakes, and continue shooting. Learn to work with programs like Illustrator. Add text to your photos and create postcards. Clients that can’t do these things but need this type of content will be thankful when purchasing your works.

Isolation because of the pandemic is, of course, strange and uncomfortable, but since we can’t do anything to change the situation, we have to adapt to it. Look for new opportunities and never give up. We sincerely wish you the best of luck in all your creative pursuits.

Take care, Stanislav Maspanov - Head of LightField Studios