If you’re not getting the sales you feel you ought to be getting, consider the following: get back to the basics in your stock photography S.O.P. (standard operating procedure). Maybe there’s something here that’ll be food for thought, and eventually turn your sales picture spiraling upwards.

The following questions reflect three basic reasons photographs are rejected. If you qualify in any of them –you should reassess your marketing methods. Learn more –not only about ‘taking pictures’ –but about ‘marketing’ them:

1. ] TECHNICAL QUALITY. This means not only as applied to the content of your pictures, but also as to the scanning quality of your images. Are you sending photobuyers scanned images that are scratched, have dust spots, etc.? And are you sending images in the format required by that particular buyer? Always do your homework and comply with what each buyer prefers.

2. ] ON-THE-MARK. Is the material you’ve submitted to the editor TARGETED? That is, does it stick to the point of the request of the photo editor? Do your pictures hit the mark? Or has the editor asked for pictures of waterfalls, and you’ve submitted pictures of brooks and streams -”just in case” the editor might want to see them?

3. ] CONSISTENCY. Are your pictures cohesive in STYLE? Do your pictures themselves have a consistent professional-looking style to them? That is, do they all look like they came from the same photographer? Or, are some excellent, some superior, and some –poor? A good way to test the cohesiveness of your pictures –and their professionality!– is to gather tear sheets of published pictures from the magazines and periodicals you read, lay them on the living room floor (about twenty of them) and place selections of your pictures beside them. Do your groups of pictures fit in? If so, you are on target. If not, re-take the same pictures and consciously develop a consistency in style. This doesnt mean make everything the same; more the idea of developing your own flair, your own approach, your own voice, with your images.

Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. Telephone: 1 800 624 0266 Fax: 1 715 248 7394. Web site: http://www.photosource.com/products