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By Steve, July 1, 2010

Digital Casinos

The popularity of casinos across the country offers a parallel to what is happening for photographers on-line stock. There are some big winners. Whenever we hear about them. We rarely hear about unless the losers online chat group members about their unsuccesses. However, few artists or photographers to assume their lack of sales.

The other side is related to how the casinos seem to be multiplying around the country, not only in places, but also in physical size. If you've ever re-visited a casino, they are surprised to see how the facility has been expanded.

On-line viewing websites photo-have proliferated in the same way on the Internet. Not only the sites are increasing, but also the number of images available are growing. Some sites boast of receiving 1,000 photographs a day. My arithmetic tells me that the 30,000 images per month, or nearly 11 million a year.

Something Gotta Give.

Of course not all places in line receives 1,000 photographs a day, but let's say you get 100 photos per day. That s 3,000 per month, or 36,000 per year. And we do not forget all personal web sites that provide a free mini-on-line photobuyers.

Now if there were 350 on-line stock photography websites (Which exist at the time of writing), contributing 36 000 images per year DigitalCasinos, plus all the personal sites, we would have an image total count of … well, my pocket calculator can not calculate that high.

Can the world of storage servers now handle this type number of images? If they can not today, we know that somehow, some way, they find a way tomorrow to meet the expanding nature of DigitalCasinos.

Why say "Digital Casinos? Because values for a skilled photographer, is a big gamble to put the talent and work in a company where the law of probability is on their side.

Digital cameras and high-level scanners are driving up the number of available images. Anyone with a digital camera quality and sensitive eye for images and the desire to find out the technical details to upload images an online website (s), you can get on board and are doing so en masse. With this proliferation of images online, the Internet has become a casino big game.

Why a game of chance? As with any lottery, the chances are diminished by the increasing number of entries. Always makes headlines when a person wins a lottery. The rest of us dig into his pocket for the next attempt. If this is to discourage you?

No, if we look at this phenomenon as a purely artistic endeavor. More than ever, specialization becomes a key factor to escape the lottery and get their published images. The issue of specialization is that I have preached for thirty years, "specialize and you will succeed." Those who heard For thirty years we have built a huge collection of images, all focused on a selected topic – those who love photography, and build equity each Once they are out shooting.

If you're just starting out as a photographer, forget about being all things to all people. Find out what area of specialization you enjoy the most (education, medicine, auto racing, reptiles, parachuting, etc.) and are concentrated in that area. Become a mini-expert. Become a monopoly with few competitors.

Why is this important? As the Internet expands and online sites enlarge image along with it, photobuyers find it more difficult to find that picture just right. They do not want to browse through hundreds of photos of nature when looking for a picture, and I will use a key phrase here, "Tapping rubber trees island of Rügen. Are there many online galleries that you may tell the source of that photo? Only those who have required their suppliers to use key phrases to describe your images.

In the last century, locating hard to find the image was a luxury. Most researchers settled for "good enough for government work" – and books and magazines of the time reflect this. Today These days, for photo researchers, Google and other search engines have become a magic wand to believe that the difficulty in finding the image. With text search function on your computer, you are able to sift through hundreds, even thousands of keywords to locate the exact source of the photo – in a matter seconds. The laborious process of finding the last century is over. Search engines tell us that finding the exact location of a specialized form picture Quick and easy is just a matter of learning to do.

If this new era of stock photography has become photographers pre-press specialists, has also become research scientists photographic library.

The photographs are unique in style and content of the image. Specializing in your area or areas of photographic interest, you can escape the great digital-casino-in-the-sky-and become an important resource for specific photobuyers that be discovered by search engines.

About the Author

Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of “Sell & ReSell Your Photos” and “sellphotos.com,” has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. To receive this free report: “8 Steps to Publishing Photos,” visit his website at PhotoSource International or call 800 624-0266.

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