Travel photography is maybe one of the most misunderstood fields of professional photography. For most photographers, the sole criteria for shooting travel photos is for them to be travelling, but the truth of the matter is totally different. The advantage to you is, this mass misconception means there's real opportunity for the photographers who do get it right.
Travel photography is as commercial as it gets. Travel photography buyers desire images that actively sell the destination or the experience. They need the kind of photography that engage the reader and leave them needing to do it all themselves. Usually, that may mean using images of people enjoying the destination or experience.
The difficulty they are facing is most photographers are only going to be shooting holiday snaps, rather than commercial travel images. Most photographers think about travel photography simply as images taken on their own travels, and little thought is given to the end use. They shoot whatever they see, as they see it, and focus on the physical features alone.
As a consequence they are simply recording their travels, making a literal record, with little thought of sharing and selling the experience itself.
Don't get me wrong here: the physical record type shots can and do sell: the classic landmarks, the famous vistas, the local wildlife, the buildings, bridges and skylines. There is a definite demand for all of them, but when you start researching what travel buyers actually use you'll soon see that these only make up a fraction of the photos used. The majority of photos utilized in travel guides and leaflets fall into the travel-lifestyle category: people experiencing the destination.
This supply-and-demand problem is exacerbated by the indisputable fact that everyone captures the classic shots, and they've been shooting them since cameras were invented. It's also reasonable to say that most travel photography publishers are also going to have their own in-house collection of the classic shots they use most often. So if that's all you ever shoot, you're going to face intense competition for a small part of the potential sales.
So when you start shooting travel stock images that focus on the visitor-experience, you are targeting a gap in the market with much lower competition and noticeably higher demand. If you can then create the types of images that engage the viewer and fire their imagination ... making them want to experience it for themselves then you're shooting commercial travel photography.
The additional bonus of focussing on the visitor experience is that as soon as 'people ' are included, travel buyers are likely to need current photos showing up to date hairstyles & fashions. So these are the shots that are always in demand and can't always be sourced from the in-house catalogue. The background might be a 2000 years old landmark, but the people viewing it will need to be contemporary.
As often happens, almost all of this is old-fashioned common-sense, when you take a Client-centric approach and begin to plan & shoot for your end-user rather than yourself. Research your destinations, identify the landmarks and icons, but take a little more time to totally understand the total experience of the destination.
The advantage for you is, most photographers won't bother, so any time you create the type of travel photography the viewer wants to be a part of, that they would like to experience for themselves, you'll be shooting the kind of travel photos that sells itself.
Travel photography is as commercial as it gets. Travel photography buyers desire images that actively sell the destination or the experience. They need the kind of photography that engage the reader and leave them needing to do it all themselves. Usually, that may mean using images of people enjoying the destination or experience.
The difficulty they are facing is most photographers are only going to be shooting holiday snaps, rather than commercial travel images. Most photographers think about travel photography simply as images taken on their own travels, and little thought is given to the end use. They shoot whatever they see, as they see it, and focus on the physical features alone.
As a consequence they are simply recording their travels, making a literal record, with little thought of sharing and selling the experience itself.
Don't get me wrong here: the physical record type shots can and do sell: the classic landmarks, the famous vistas, the local wildlife, the buildings, bridges and skylines. There is a definite demand for all of them, but when you start researching what travel buyers actually use you'll soon see that these only make up a fraction of the photos used. The majority of photos utilized in travel guides and leaflets fall into the travel-lifestyle category: people experiencing the destination.
This supply-and-demand problem is exacerbated by the indisputable fact that everyone captures the classic shots, and they've been shooting them since cameras were invented. It's also reasonable to say that most travel photography publishers are also going to have their own in-house collection of the classic shots they use most often. So if that's all you ever shoot, you're going to face intense competition for a small part of the potential sales.
So when you start shooting travel stock images that focus on the visitor-experience, you are targeting a gap in the market with much lower competition and noticeably higher demand. If you can then create the types of images that engage the viewer and fire their imagination ... making them want to experience it for themselves then you're shooting commercial travel photography.
The additional bonus of focussing on the visitor experience is that as soon as 'people ' are included, travel buyers are likely to need current photos showing up to date hairstyles & fashions. So these are the shots that are always in demand and can't always be sourced from the in-house catalogue. The background might be a 2000 years old landmark, but the people viewing it will need to be contemporary.
As often happens, almost all of this is old-fashioned common-sense, when you take a Client-centric approach and begin to plan & shoot for your end-user rather than yourself. Research your destinations, identify the landmarks and icons, but take a little more time to totally understand the total experience of the destination.
The advantage for you is, most photographers won't bother, so any time you create the type of travel photography the viewer wants to be a part of, that they would like to experience for themselves, you'll be shooting the kind of travel photos that sells itself.
About the Author:
Matt Brading contributes photography and articles to GlobalEye Photo Stock Agency, which represents many top travel photographers. If you'd like to know more about selling photographs online with GlobalEye, you can download a free stock photography business kit in our photographers area.
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