The One That Got Away
Microstock Subjects
Choosing which subject to focus on, (literally) can determine the course of a given microstock image generation effort. These efforts should be planned, ongoing, and part of a general program to develop both picture taking and editing talent but groom the photographer to germinate towards more profitable photography in the field. But keeping batteries charged and ready s another high tech skill microstock photographers need to cultivate.
Training your eye to identify unusual or strange ideas and concepts may see unnecessary. But what strikes your eye as unusual and worth a second look is also compelling as a stock image. This may position you as an individual who has an “inquiring mindâ€. They don’t call them intrepid inquiring photographers for nothing. Jackie Kennedy Onassis was just a photographer before her marriage.
As an example, I can share that the other night I was walking down one of the more crowded streets in my city. A car accident had just taken place, and a car had jumped the divider and smashed into the sign that, ironically, marked the divider and directed drivers to notice the extended road lane and space orientation. The driver was disoriented and surrounded by medical personnel on the grassy curbside.
Of course, I was out of batteries. Who knew I would get that great shot when the night air had cooled my last battery juju out of time? The crumpled, twisted, battered sign showing the road dividing in a typically stylized manner, and the dented  white car flung over the island behind it, munched bumper, airbag deployed, would have been a wholly amazing shot.
The lost shot haunted me. I knew it was not good form to approach the accident site police officers and ask if they had a spare set of AA batteries I could borrow. The symbol and the reality together in one image would have been priceless. The sign was obviously not doing its job. But how could it do the job when the car driver was the active decision maker?
My kingdom for a battery! My kingdom for a battery! And so the refrain goes. I am not one to bemoan the “one that got awayâ€, but this would have been the redeeming time for my little Kodak to shoot from the hip. A little voice niggled at me that if the Kodak Easyshare I was using didn’t have twelve megapixels, and  not been set to use them all, I might have had some remaining battery life during that walkabout. Oh, the way of the camera can be cruel.
