What to shoot and where?

Now that we have our new cameras, it's time to take the new toys out for a spin. 

The first questions that we asked ourselves was what type of photographs did we want to take that would be suitable for Microstock agencies and what locations could we use to get them.

We've decided to start with flora & fauna photos initially.  This decision was made for the following practical reasons:

• Our skill level (nil) - we require longer to set up a shot then a more experienced photographer, and plants & flowers don't tend to move (much), so we can take several photos of the same subject with the hopes that at least one of them will be of acceptable quality
• Popular searches - the word Flower is the most searched for keyword on all the Microstock agencies.  This means that photos of flowers have a better chance of being sold.  The down side is that everyone is submitting photos of flowers, so there is some stiff competition in this category.  Also, many of the Microstock agencies limit the number of photos of flowers that they accept.  We're lucky that in the area where we live that are many unusual plants and flowers, many of which are still flowering in winter.
• Unusual Animals - Australia is well known for its unique animals, and as such, photos of these animals are popular with the Microstock agencies. There are several wildlife parks and national parks within 1 hours drive of where we live, so getting access to these types of animals is easy. (At least I don't have to go camping in the bush or the outback to get photos of kangaroos and koalas. I'm afraid my idea of camping is a nice motel / hotel room with a hot shower and flush toilet).
• Releases - The Microstock agencies have strict rules around the use of people or properties in stock images.  If you submit photos with either a recognisable person or property, you must get a signed release form from the person or owner of the property giving permission to the photo for stock purposes.  At the current time, this seems to be too much work for us as beginner photographers, especially when we're submitting photos to multiple agencies.  So we have decided not to shoot any of these types of photographs.

Now that we have decided on what type of photographs we want to take, it only becomes a matter of selecting locations for shoots.

As I mentioned above, we're lucky to live in an area that is surrounded by wildlife and national parks within easy driving distance.  These parks give us the opportunity to shoot a wide varity of subjects within a relatively small amount of time, and most of the wildlife parks offer yearly passes, so we can return as many times as we want to within the year for more shooting sessions.

The only restriction on us is time, both my sister and I work long hours during the week at our day jobs and our schedules don't always line up.  So at the moment we're only able to do 1 or 2 shooting sessions a month.  This means that we need to go to locations that offer the most variety of subjects for our photos.

In my next post, I'll detail the shooting locations we selected during May.

Cheers
Fiona