Three random photographs I sold online - What are customers looking for? / Twenty20 follow-up

In a previous post I already told you where I sell the majority of my photos, in this new feature I'm going to take 3 random photos that I've sold once or maybe many times. Also I'll tell you why these photos were likely picked out by customers. Having done this for a while now, gives me a decent idea of what sells and why.

If you missed my posts on selling photos, you can check out part 1 and part 2 by clicking on them.

In no particular order, here are three examples of photos that I've sold:

Oak Creek Vista

The first photo was taken at Oak Creek Vista, Arizona. This is the viewpoint you reach when you drive from Sedona (famous for it's Red Rocks) to Flagstaff through the Oak Creek Canyon. It's a very beautiful and scenic route, although not perfect if you're driving a big RV :) This is also the reason We didn't visit the Red Rock Canyon State Park...there was simply no place to park an RV with all the people staying in Sedona going there. It was still a great drive and I definitely recommend it!

So what makes this a desired photo? It features no less than 3 elements that are very popular.
1. A human. Yes that's right, photos with people in it have 60% higher chance of selling (according to Twenty20).
2. A mobile phone. Customers are always looking for authentic photos with a modern twist. Like people using a mobile phone or a laptop for example.
3. Beautiful scenery. Do you really need an explanation? I didn't think so...

Homemade pizza

Need I say more? I love cooking and although I'm not as big of a pizza fan as some people, I do enjoy it from time to time. 9 out of 10 times I'll just order one. But this time I made it myself with bread dough and all of my favorite toppings...delicious!

It shouldn't be a surprise that this is a popular photo. Featured with the hashtags 'Homemade' and 'Food', and last but not least 'Pizza', make it an instant classic. Again, taking a photo of someone photographing this gives it a nice bonus feature.

Music producer at work

I made this photo years ago back when I studied photojournalism. One of my assignments was to photograph...drug use. Okay I know it's not really visible from this one photo, but this is my friend who used to smoke a lot of weed back in the days. He is a drummer and music producer and the angle here was that he used to 'lift his spirits' in order to give his inspiration a boost. This is just one of an entire series but this is the only one I put up for sale.

The reason this is a popular photo because I didn't brand it as 'drug abuse'... I labeled it as 'student', 'studying' and 'producing'. Photos of people working from home are very popular, photos of (college) students even more so. The true meaning of this photo is open for interpretation and that makes it very usable. 

I hope you enjoyed looking at these and hopefully you learned something too! 

Thanks for reading and if you liked it be sure to follow me for more to come :)