Do you place enough importance on your keywords? If you do your own key wording do you spend enough time on the task? If your agency handles it do you check on them? I recently had an image go up on Getty’s site; An image of an impossible golfing green. In the picture is a small grassy area perched atop a steep rock formation on the jagged California coastline. It is hard to spot in the image at a thumbnail size, but as with any golfing green, a flag hangs from the pole that protrudes up from the hole.

Searching for golf, Chakras, and the Internet

If you do a search for golf on Getty’s site, you won’t find the image. Not yet, anyway, because that keyword was omitted. This is hardly the first time an important keyword has been omitted by an agency, and I am certainly not the only one it happens to. Another example of an egregious keyword omission happened with an image of Chakras. I even submitted the file with the name of jl_Chakra_001. But it took me weeks to get them to finally add that keyword! In yet another example, an image I created to symbolize communication and the Internet does not include either of those keywords, and Getty maintains that neither keyword is appropriate for the image. Oh well, I guess you can’t win every battle.

Mistakes are going to happen

If you made the most perfect stock photo ever, and it nobody ever saw it because of missing or inappropriate keywords, it would not sell as well as a mediocre image that was will key worded. In a sense, the keywords are more important than the image. People perform key wording; mistakes are going to happen. But its extremely important for all of us photographers to make sure that our keywords are done as well as possible whether we do them ourselves, or whether it is a matter of checking on the key wording of our agencies.

My strategy, the best and most appropriate keywords

As I write this I have just finished spending hours key wording the images on my own website. I still have hundreds to go, too. My strategy is not to load as many key words as possible with any given image, but rather to do as clear and concise a job as possible. I want people who search my site to find just what they are looking for and have as good an experience as possible. I don’t want them to have to wade through a lot of images that are not what they are looking for. Further, we have all heard it said that it isn’t nice to fool Mother Nature…and it isn’t nice to try and fool Google either! So when you do your key wording, think about the person who might be looking to find that image, and help them find it by providing the best and most appropriate key words you can.

Now and the future

I firmly believe that one of the best things you or any of us can do to help our stock photography businesses, both now and for the future, is to make sure the images are thoroughly and properly key worded. It might even be more important than the making of the images themselves.

I arranged to go with two friends of mine, Dew Kelly and Sam Diephuis. Both are excellent shooters and often work with me to produce stock photos for Blend Images. This was a ten day trip to produce stock photography and produce it in a way that we could also really enjoy the experience.

After committing to the shoot the first thing we did was to look for some locations for our shoot. We settled on three primary locations knowing that once we were there we could fill in other locations and shoots as needed. The first of our locations was found via the Internet. We found a luxury Apartment on one of the top floors of the second highest building in Buenos Aires. It has 360 degree views of the city and a clean, modern look. The apartment easily accommodated the three of us, and we were able to stay there as well as shoot there. Even at $600.00 per night it was a bargain. What we saved over the location fee of a comparable place in the U.S. more than paid for our travel expenses! We shot stills and video. Sam shot a panorama video from the roof of the building and that footage, while only having sold twice so far, pretty much paid for the cost of renting the location.

The apartment provided for both upscale lifestyle shots and business shots (the dining room also passed for a corporate boardroom). We shot party scenes, people with their dogs, romantic couples, domestic chores, home exercise and much more. I was able to wake up in the morning to breath taking views and to begin shooting without schlepping equipment. We could dine out or cook our own meals. Actually, we had so much “shoot” food that we couldn’t eat all of it. But hey, we had a refrigerator and freezer to store it in. We had a washer and dryer, rooftop access and grounds to enjoy. Not a bad way to conduct a stock shoot!

We rented a smaller, but still nice apartment, for the remainder of the shoot. Our shoots (put together with the help of our Argentinian producer Paula Zacharias) included a gym (shooting a gymnast doing his routine in a business suit), a theater (where we staged a rock concert, a bodybuilding contest, a political debate and also shot audience reactions), and a soccer shoot in which we hired a local semi-pro team. We had an awesome time and came back with tons of great content including ethnically diverse lifestyle, Business, and concept images.

An important thing to remember for these kinds of shoots, is to get property and model releases upfront. This trip went smoothly in that regard, but I have had some unpleasant surprises when I have failed to take the “upfront” precautions. Another important thing is to look closely at every model release before the model leaves. On the whole, models do a terrible job of filling out releases (they also do a terrible job of bringing their own wardrobe…but that is another story). When shooting in situations like these I also tend to hire extra models. The expense of one or two models is small compared to having everything set up and ready to roll, and then not having enough models. It is always a good idea to allow for the “model flake factor” (no offense to the many models who are professional, prompt and thorough).

Also, when in foreign countries it is important to understand the cultural differences around time and commitment. I have shot in Argentina many times and have finally gotten use to my producer calling up models at 1:00 in the morning for a shoot that day! Come to think of it, maybe the most important thing to remember when shooting in far off places is to bring you best attitude. I always try to keep in mind that if a shoot just isn’t working, for whatever reason, it won’t be the end of the world, and every minute I spend in unhappiness over it is a minute I will never get back.