Saturday, November 04, 2006

 

photo blog - 1st post - books

Selling Photography by Roger Antrobus, 2003, Amphoto Books, ISBN 0-8174-5839-5

Unlike most other business related photography books, this one is light on the business aspects, and focuses on stock photography practical issues. The author gives several examples of his own works, and tells how much his top ten or so stock photos have earned to date, highest sale price, # of sales, # of years on the market, total income to date, etc.

I'm not aware of any other stock photography book where the author covers these details. Since this book was authored prior to 2003, the author uses film to capture his images, though acknowledges that digital is getting very close, and he does cover post production and digital image manipulation techniques with photoshop, as well as digital file submission requirements to stock photo libraries.

At the time of this writing, the book only covers rights protected exclusive, non-exclusive, and royalty free models in a couple of pages, along with references to the main stock photo libraries available at the time of writing, so in this area, the book could use updating.

Antrobus used mainly Fuji Velvia film for his example photos though mentions negative film such as Fuji Sensia may be used when refrigeration is not available. Antrobus mentions that he uses two main zoom lenses, a Canon IS 28-135mm, and a Canon IS 100-400mm lens.

Some of his examples show hand-held shots down to 1/4 second with his 28-135mm lens, and down to 1/30th of a second with his 100-400mm lens. Antrobus claims he gains 4-5 stops in reduced shutter speeds for effect and low light performance due to the IS lens.

Although in just 3 years, this book is outdated with regards to digital photo technology, licensing, and I'm sure would say his whole overview on the market may have been turned upside down in the last 3 years, I still think this is a must have book for anyone considering submitting photos to stock photography libraries. The practical advice on travel, planning, and working with libraries is good solid information. I hope that this book is updated. Highly recommended. This book can be found on amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Selling-Photography-Roger-Antrobus/dp/0817458395/sr=11-1/qid=1162784590/ref=sr_11_1/102-3383975-1942531

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