What’s Selling RIGHT NOW

What’s selling RIGHT NOW

Here’s the thing about wildlife and nature photography, it’s just like any other creative market. At any given time, certain styles, certain looks, certain types of photographs are all the rage.

Sometimes this is completely predictable. For instance, in the spring and summertime my Alaska photographs begin to sell like hotcakes on the stock photography market. Why? Because summer is the Alaskan tourist season. Outside of Alaska though, things are often selling on a 3-to-6-month lead time for the season. This means that by August, I start to see an uptick in winter photographs being sold. Why? Because content calendars for everyone from magazines to marketing agencies are planned out in advance with these sort of lead times.

But then there are those types of photographs that are not predictable.

Each month I take time to sit down and look over spread sheets of my sales to get an idea of what is making the most money at any given time. Doing so let’s me make concrete business decisions about how I am investing my time – specifically in the office.

Personally, I am not a big proponent of “shooting for the market.” That is to say, I don’t let the current market dictate the art I create. Don’t get me wrong here, though. If I am being paid for an assignment, then I am absolutely going to be following whatever guidelines are laid out for me by a creative director. But when I am out photographing on my own time, I follow my heart and my passion and my own personal interests. Hard stop.

However, sometimes, like with what is going on right now in the market, what is trending also happens to be something I really enjoy.

Looking over April’s numbers, a very clear picture unfolded for me in this regard.

Hands down, the biggest sales and the most money that came in was not my wildlife photographs. Instead, it was drone and aerial photography (I do both).

I should probably take a moment to clarify this part about the “biggest sales and most money.” I am a wildlife photographer. I made 63 wildlife photography sales on Getty alone in April. But it was the handful of drone photographs that made the most money.

Understand that when people buy your work, both size and usage matter. This applies to selling prints and stock photography, of course. A 16x24 fine art print (the smallest size I sell) is naturally going to go for much less than a 60x40 inch print. Likewise, a double page spread in a magazine is going to sell for much more than a ¼ page photograph or a generic photograph used to accompany the Discovery Channel’s blog post for the day. Make sense?

So, although my wildlife photography overwhelmingly outsold anything else I have in stock photography agencies in April, the drone photographs still made more money because of the dollar amount the photo buyers paid for them.

On Getty, for instance, the highest amount a wildlife or nature photograph will sell for in 2022 is $500. Most sell for significantly less than this, as in $25 or less, which is why making money with stock photography agencies is a numbers game.

But when I look at my sales, every drone photograph that was purchased in April sold for the maximum $500. And each of these were purchased by different companies.

What does this mean?

It means that drone photographs are HOT right now. And looking over the last 6 months, I can see a slow but steady uptick in drone photography sales. Therefore, this type of photography isn’t just hot right now, there is an obvious trend that is emerging at the moment that will likely hold for the rest of the year.

And now that you know this, you too can cash in on this trend.

Me, I love drone photography.

Make no mistake though, I do not use drones for photographing wildlife. Occasionally this might be acceptable when capturing a vast herd of animals from the sky. But as a general rule of thumb, the sound of drones terrorizes most animals – likely because it sounds like a swarm of attacking bees.

So, when I talk about selling drone photographs, I’m talking about landscapes and not wildlife photography.

I recognize that this is the Business of WILDLIFE Photography, not landscape or drone photography. But being somewhat versatile with your photography when you are in nature is not only the best way to keep your work and creativity fresh, it’s also a very solid business decision as well.

This means that over the next few months I am going to prioritize drone photography when I’m in the field. It also means that when I’m in the office, I am going to prioritize getting additional drone photographs already sitting in my library of images uploaded to stock agencies.

I always have a drone with me. Personally, I really like the DJI Mavic Pro 2 for just about everything I do. It’s 24mp. It’s small. It folds up. I can charge 4 batteries at once. And I love the new smart controller.

In the past, my preferred drone was the DJI Phantom 4 Pro. The Phantom was once the gold standard for drone photography. However, traveling with this meant a large pelican case, a stack of heavy brick like batteries, and a bunch of accessories like polarizing and ND filters.

Likewise, I have worked extensively with DJI’s Inspire drones as well. These are significantly larger than the Phantom series. And they create beautiful work. However, these drones are better suited for high end professional VIDEO work rather than still photography. With this said, however, one of the nice things about the Inspire is that you can upgrade the camera to one where you can change the lenses out for the type of work you are doing.

But at the end of the day, the Mavic Pro 2 wins out for me. Sure, there is a Mavic 3 now. But the only real benefit to this for me would be the ability to zoom vs a fixed lens like the Mavic 2 Pro. Since drone work is ancillary to what I do for a living, the benefits of upgrading didn’t match to cost for me on this one.

The Mavic Pro 2 ultimately folds up to be about the size of a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. This means that I can always have one slipped down inside of my F-stop bag along with whatever big telephotos I am carrying with me.

Not all my time in the field is spent with wildlife directly in front of my lens, of course. There are significant amounts of time spent driving through extraordinarily beautiful places, hiking, scouting, glassing distant hillsides, etc. And then there are those days when every animal on the planet seems to have been abducted by aliens and are simply nowhere to be found.

It’s situations like these where drone photography comes into play for me personally.

There are many laws governing the use of drones commercially today. And if you are a photographer with any online ties to selling your work, you are using a drone commercially. So, if you want to take advantage of this trend right now, make sure you do the right thing and know the rules before you fly – such as the fact you can’t use drones in National Parks.

One such rule is that you need to get your FAA Part 107 Drone Pilot’s License. This makes you legal. And it allows you more opportunities to fly. I highly recommend you getting this if you wish to make money with a drone – even a small one like the Mavic 2 Pro.

One very popular option for getting your license is to take a course through a company like the Pilot Institute - https://pilotinstitute.com/courses/drones/

The idea here is that they walk you through and teach you everything you need to know about passing the Part 107 Drone Pilot’s test. They boast that their students have a 99.8% success rate at passing the FAA’s test and offer you a full money back guarantee if you don’t (a whopping $149).

And for the record, I have no affiliation with DJI or the Pilot Institute. So, my recommendations here are just based upon my personal experience and not some sort of kickback I’m going to get by suggesting this stuff.

A large part of being successful as a working wildlife or nature photography is understanding these types of trends in the market and having the skill sets to fill these types of industry demands. While you continue to grow your business, you can count on us to let you in on trends that are emerging in the market!