Help needed in choosing best photos.

[evilzard]

Hello Everyone,

I’m Jack or evilzard on TF.

For some reason, I’ve never been on here before, so I figured that needs to change so I can see what my fellow Tfer photographers are up to!

Anyway, I’m in the process of submitting my photos to stock agencies and some of them ask that I submit 10 of my best shots and I was thinking that maybe if you guys are really really bored you could help me choose them. If not, that’s cool too.

I shoot wildlife and outdoor stuff almost exclusively and specialize in photos of amphibians and reptiles, but I do shoot other stuff as well.
I have a a page on Flickr that has about 3000 or so shots and I’ve organized them somewhat into sets. Some sets are of what I consider my favorite shots of a specific group such as lizards or turtles.

The link is : http://www.zardbite.com (Flickr)

Well, I just thought that some people may be really bored and want to peruse some photos of creepy crawly stuff. 🙂

Well, I hope you’re all doing well!

Take Care,

Jack (evilzard)

[millera9]

I don’t have time to look through them or make comments right this minute (at work) but I looked through the first few pages and you have some fantastic stuff on there! Anything in particular that you’re looking to submit to an agency, or do you just want top ten out of everything that’s on there?

[monkeybort]

hiya jack! long time no see – sorry i don’t play in the t or d any more. 🙁

i’ve just looked at the first page and so far my only comment is that the shots of just the heads of snakes seem to work a lot better. if you’re shooting head + body it all seems to blend into one big ball of snake without much contrast between the head and body etc (specifically the blacktail tongue shots).

good stuff – who are you submitting to if you don’t mind me asking?

[evilzard]

Well, thank you – I really appreciate it. 🙂

Yeah, there are tons of photos on there – about 3000 I think, so I realize people wouldn’t be able to view them all – sorry about that.

I guess the best thing that would help would be to look at the sets that I call “My Favorite” such as “My Favorite Reptile Photos” or any other set that interests you. I’m just trying to see which photos people like the best.
I would say that if you want to choose one set, it would be any of the sets that have snake shots, since they’re the photos that I haven’t seen many other people take – especially the venomous snakes. Since I take only photos of animals in the wild, except for pets, I don’t think many other people like to get that close to dangerous animals. Those photos might sell more for the stock agency.

Any feedback at all would be appreciated, so really anything you would like to do would be great!

Thanks again,

Jack

[evilzard]

Hi monkeybort!

It’s been a while. I don’t do TorD anymore either since I’ve been busy and I think it’s slowed down anyway.

Yeah, I agree about the head shots. Some of the animals I shoot can be really camouflaged and not very contrasty and I also try to shoot the animals where I find them so you can see the soil type and habitat – many of the blacktail shots are crops too so the quality was reduced. I guess I also take photos from a scientific perspective and not just artistic. I should probably move more into the artistic side, since that’s what the stock agencies will care about the most. There are a lot of sub-par shots on my flickr page – I just kinda put most things on there and experiment with things and see if anyone likes them, so that’s another reason why there are a zillion blacktail shots…..well that and I think they’re pretty and cool….

I’ve talked to some photo profs here at Texas Tech and they reviewed my stuff and said I can readily get on with an agency, especially since I have a bit of a niche in that there aren’t many people who take photos of the stuff I shoot. Some of my shots were picked up by the Natural History Museum in NYC and the Philly Zoo among others, so that was cool. I dunno, I seem to only see all the faults in my photos and have a hard time saying something is really good, so I thought maybe other people could try.

As far as agencies, I’m going to first submit some to the big one – Getty Images, but there were a whole bunch of others that are more wildlife oriented – I can’t remember the names right now, but I’ll check on that.

I apologize – I ramble on emails and forums.

Thanks again!

Jack

[monkeybort]

damn, getty? you rollin’ wit da big dogs, yo.

whoa. sorry. 😛

i haven’t looked through all of them, like i said, but you’ve really got some nice stuff up there; i really really like the frog shot you’ve got as the representative for the amphibian set. very bright colors, great contrast against the background – just a good all around shot.

[evilzard]

Haha! Yeah, well we’ll see if that happens. The photo profs here say it should, but I dunno. There are lots of others anyway, so we’ll see what happens. As long as I end up making at least $500,000 a year from my photos, I’ll be happy…..hehe. 😛

Oh yeah, everyone really likes the frog photo – that was taken on film in Costa Rica.

[anneb]

Wow- there’s a LOTTA buncha awesome stuff there! The problem in ‘chosing best’ from this set is that there’s too much you don’t want to leave out! I’d say see what you can find as the best, balanced sequence of 10, and not worry about which single 10 shots are the best, that would be very hard for most people to do, and you don’t want to insult the ‘kids’ by favoring some over others…

I really like your choice of subjects, too. You do them very well.

[evilzard]

Thanks anneb,

Yeah, I’ll guess I’ll have do something like that. It’s a bit more difficult for me since I’m not just attracted to the shot but also the subject. What I mean is that no one sees the weeks it sometimes takes just to find a certain animal. The New Mexico Milk snake took 2 years to find, so when i see those photos, they have a special meaning that other people don’t see. Actually the hardest part of taking photos of some of my subjects is actually finding them.
When my sister came down here to Texas to help out, she was a little surprised to see that animals aren’t just everywhere, since it looks that way from my photos.

Well, anyway, you probably didn’t need to know that, but it just makes it harder for me to choose the best photos or the ones that are more likely to sell. I dunno.

I’m rambling again.

Thanks for your help!

Jack

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