Class Introduction: What is Stock?
Lesson 1 from: Utilizing Adobe Stock: From Shoot to SaleMat Hayward
Class Introduction: What is Stock?
Lesson 1 from: Utilizing Adobe Stock: From Shoot to SaleMat Hayward
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Lesson Info
Class Introduction: What is Stock?
I do wear a few different hats as a photographer and I'll show some of my work and at Adobe in particular, I work for Adobe. I'm part of the contributor success team. So, my job is to help you, as a contributor to succeed in selling your photos, videos, illustrators, whatever type of content you have available to sell. If you send an email into Adobe Stock, asking a question about contribution, there's a solid chance that I'm on the other end of that email that's gonna be answering that question. So, that's my main hat at Adobe Stock, and then, also, I'm a contributor to Adobe Stock. I've been shooting stock for well over 10 years. I was a contributor to Fotolia.com and for those of you that don't know, Fotolia is the agency that Adobe acquired a few years back and so, they purchased an existing agency that collection came online and has become what is known as Adobe Stock, today. So, I've got over 12,000 images in my portfolio and I'm passionate about photography and passionate about ...
stock and so, would like to know here, in the studio how many of you guys are stock photographers? Do you have any stock content in any agencies? You've got a little bit but generally a blank slate. So, that's good. So, this will be some new information. Now, a lot of people have a preconceived notion of what stock is and so, when I ask people about it, I'm like yeah, that's two white guys shaking hands in front of a seamless white background or the happy mature couple giving a piggy back ride at the beach and I've grown up, I've literally been on the west coast my entire life, the Oregon coast, Washington coast, I think are the most beautiful in the world. I go as often as I can. Thousands of times I've been at the beach, I've never actually encountered a mature couple giving a piggy back ride and laughing and so, this is stock. These are nice images that I'm sure they've had tremendous success over the years but this is kind of what stock was and what stock is now, is something different one of the big questions that I get asked on a regular basis is what is Adobe Stock looking for? A lot of times people want me to be real specific, like, we need pictures of cats wearing mittens and in a snowball fight or whatever and I don't have that information like specific details to give you but two things that consistently are requested from customers, what they're looking for is authenticity and diversity and so, that's cultural diversity, gender diversity, whatever you think of, so diversity and authenticity are real people doing real things in real situations, and so, while these are nice images, they don't scream authenticity to me and so, you'll have to excuse the pun but there are many, many faces to stock. It's not any one thing and so, whatever you're good at shooting, is what you should be focused on while you're getting your stock portfolio established and so, stock could be pictures of cute babies, pictures of expressive people, can be pictures of happy families, it can be shots that are staged to tell a story, aesthetically pleasing, authentic content showing people from all around the world. Right now, the visual trend at Adobe is multi localism or looking for people to take pictures of what's local to your world, like if you live in Seattle, you don't need to go out and take pictures of the Space Needle everyday, but what's going on at your local bar or at your work or your house or whatever, what's it mean to be local where you are at and so, that can be professional portraits of models, it can be dramatic lighting, artistic composition. I'm sure the questions are just flying is, is that Matt, no, that is not me, I'm just gonna tell you right now. (laughter) it can be pictures of moody landscapes, I love this picture. I think this could be on the cover of a mystery novel or it could be a retirement home or any number of uses. There's tons of things. This picture tells a story to me. Gorgeous food shots, I love taking pictures of food, that's something that is constantly in need of fresh new content because the trends are changing, like, the meatloaf that Alice from the Brady Bunch made back in the day is a lot different than what we're seeing in the Paleo diet or whatever, so shoot with the trends and then you get to eat when you're done. It's always super fun shooting food. Wildlife and nature, there's a big market for that. I will throw a disclaimer out there. There's a lot of really good content out there already and a penguin 10 years ago, looks the same as a penguin today and so, you have a higher threshold of competition so, it's much more difficult to establish yourself as a wildlife photographer but there is tremendous potential there and then, a really big subject, is dog selfies, everyone needs a dog selfie and I have been told this actually is a thing and since I've been showing the side, we've been getting an influx of dog selfies in the moderation team has emailed me and asked me to ask you to not send. This is just for fun. So, please we don't need it. So I'll show you some examples of stock in use. So, this is my dog, Hudson and I'll show you some pictures of him later on but we're in Target and walking down the book aisle and the whole top shelf of books was Boomer's Bucket List and so, there he is on the cover and a friend of mine in Las Vegas had a car magazine and there was an ad for him. So, he's published all the time, which is great. All these animals are illustrations from Adobe Stock on this marker package. This sign for an advertisement was spotted in Berlin as an Adobe Stock image and then, some people are like, is it really going out there and so, this picture is hard evidence that Adobe stock is used and it's sometimes not used correctly and the way we know that is when we designed this package, they used a comp image and then they went to production with that and forgot to remove the watermark. So, it's hard evidence that Adobe Stock is in use on a regular basis. Types of media that we sell at Adobe Stock and so, we sell pictures of people eating ice cream, we sell vectors and illustrations featuring ice cream, we sell videos of ice cream and so, if you crave video content, we're looking for clips. There's a big demand for it and the supply really doesn't meet the demand. Five second to 60 second clips of pretty much anything, with no audio, it's pretty straightforward and they sell for $200 for a 4K video and $80 for an HD video. So, there's really good money to be made with videos, so, something to think about. We do sell 3D assets, including those of ice cream, sell templates for photoshop, illustrator, InDesign. You can put your pictures of ice cream. Can you tell? I'm kind of craving some ice cream, right now. There is no ice cream in this picture but we sell MOGRT's, Motion Graphic Templates. So, that's a big thing. So, the Motion Graphic Templates, the 3D assets in templates, you need to sign up to submit that and so, there's a learn and support page that'll show you where that's at and where you can apply to contribute that. Photos, videos, vectors, anybody can contribute at any time and so, who should contribute? I mean, that's a good question. There's really very little restriction on it. We are reviewing and moderating based on the image not the photographer and so, it's pretty basic criteria. You need to be at least 18 years old, you need to own the rights to the photograph that you're submitting. You can't just go to Google and copy an image and sell it as your own. That is a crime. You need to have an Adobe ID and so, if you're a Creative Cloud member, you can use that same Adobe ID to create your contributor account and you can upload your content from Lightroom or Adobe Bridge you do not need to be a Creative Cloud member to contribute. You can create an Adobe ID. It's free, it's just your email address and that's free and very easy to do and I'll show you where that's at on the contributor portal but that's basically it and then you submit your content, we're gonna review it, image by image, video by video and make sure it meets our criteria and then put it online.
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Ratings and Reviews
TS Gallant
I have been blindly trying to contribute to Adobe Stock and, honestly, floundering. This was eye-opening (and hopefully game-changing). Before, I was rarely submitting because I thought "well, they won't want this" or "this is too generic" or didn't even submit because I had wasn't inspired in any way. After watching this I was FLOODED with ideas and have filled several pages in a tablet with ideas to photograph. It's almost 2am right now and I don't even want to wait until I sleep! THANK YOU FOR THIS CLASS!
a Creativelive Student
It was really great having someone who works in the Adobe Stock department, at Adobe, teaching the class. Mat knows his stuff! Thanks for making a seemingly overwhelming subject simple.
user-b8b94d
Excellent class... informative and entertaining.