A reader asked if anyone produces a list of the stock photography subjects that are in greatest demand. As far as I know such a list does not exist. In very general terms the subjects in greatest demand are model released people in business and family situations, but to be useful it is necessary to get much more specific.
Probably the best way for a photographer to get a sense of the demand for the subjects he/she is interested in shooting is to go to iStock.com and search for those subjects. Organize the search returns based on "Most Popular." If you’re a still photographer be sure to only search for photos, not illustrations and video.
Next, look at the first most popular image and see how many times it has been downloaded. Then I go to the 200th most popular and see how many times it has been downloaded. While the number of downloads for that first image may be very high, the number for the 200th will give you a better sense of the general demand for the category. The more you can focus your search by narrowing the category the more useful the information is likely to be. Keep in mind that this is total downloads since the image has been on the site and some of them have been there since 2004 or earlier.
Also, keep track of how many total images were returned with the search. In many cases this will be in the tens of thousands. Recognize that all the rest of the images in the collection will have been downloaded fewer than the number of downloads for the 200th.
Sometimes the number of downloads on an image, particularly the first one, can be deceptive because it may have been found using keywords that varied greatly from the ones you used. When I searched for “flower” the first picture to come up is a beautiful shot of a child blowing petals off a dandelion. This shot has been downloaded more than 22,000 times but that is probably more because of the child’s interaction and the keyword “child” than because the user was looking for flowers or dandelions.
If you find a subject that looks promising like “elementary school (education)” below it might help to check the 600th most popular image. In this case it has only been downloaded 8 times. Most customers won’t look at more than 600 images before they change their search parameters or go somewhere else. While it might appear that there is lots of demand for this subject 3,614 of the 7,622 in the collection have never been downloaded. In the “banking” category 34,500 of the 75,275 have never been downloaded.
It may be useful to do the same type of search on Shutterstock to see what images are there. You can organize the search returns by “Popular,” but unfortunately they don’t tell the user how many times each image has been downloaded so the information is not nearly as useful. We also don’t know if “Popular” is based entirely on the number of downloads or if other factors are considered in the algorithm.
If you find a subject you want to shoot it may also be worthwhile to look at the number of downloads for the same subject matter on Fotolia.com and Dreamstime.com. You may be surprised by how many fewer downloads they have compared to iStock.
Below is a list of a few random iStock searches that compare different subjects.
| |
1st |
200th |
Total Images |
| woman office |
>16,000 |
>1,400 |
133,880 |
| woman office computer |
>14,000 |
>500 |
33,517 |
| couple on beach |
>6,700 |
>200 |
25,319 |
| banking |
>10,000 |
>600 |
75,267 |
| New York Stock Exchange |
>3,400 |
>10 |
870 |
| tiger |
>1,500 |
>30 |
11692 |
| owl |
>600 |
>20 |
9,340 |
| butterfly |
>3,900 |
>100 |
45,433 |
| flower |
>22,000 |
>900 |
907,338 |
| daisy |
>10,000 |
>300 |
69,967 |
| rose |
>2,600 |
>300 |
118,591 |
| NY skyline |
>3,100 |
>100 |
15,806 |
| London skyline |
>2,600 |
>60 |
7,414 |
| Paris skyline |
>1,300 |
>10 |
3,591 |
| Berlin skyline |
>200 |
6 |
1,270 |
| Tokyo skyline |
>500 |
>10 |
2,545 |
| Hong Kong skyline |
>1,800 |
>20 |
7,066 |
| fashion industry |
>1,300 |
>80 |
10,069 |
| education |
>15,000 |
>1,600 |
325,915 |
| elementary school (education) |
>6,600 |
>30 |
7,622 |
| pizza |
>1,700 |
>100 |
27,543 |
| birthday cake |
>2,400 |
>100 |
7,715 |
| Christmas |
>7,400 |
>1,000 |
419,641 |
| buddhism |
>7,900 |
>100 |
112,834 |
| handicapped |
>5,000 |
>200 |
15,704 |
| cancer |
>3,700 |
>200 |
10,314 |
| warehouse |
>5,000 |
>200 |
37,488 |
| kitchen |
>4,200 |
>400 |
132,521 |
| soccer |
>6,000 |
>300 |
37,883 |
| children playing soccer |
>2,300 |
>80 |
4,659 |
| basketball |
>2,600 |
>200 |
13,255 |
| swimming |
>4,300 |
>300 |
85,334 |
| trains |
>6,300 |
>100 |
43,367 |
| traffic |
>4,300 |
>400 |
118,885 |
| traffic cellphone |
>500 |
3 |
704 |