Leo Kowal » iStockphoto http://leokowal.com Leo Kowal's Photography and Photography Tutorials Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:48:18 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 iStock in Action http://leokowal.com/2009/07/istock-in-action/ http://leokowal.com/2009/07/istock-in-action/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:07:07 +0000 Leo Kowal http://leokowal.com/?p=108 It’s impossible to know how ALL of my images have been used. After all, as of January 2010, I’ve sold almost 17,000 images on iStock. It may sound impressive and I’m quite happy about the accomplishment, but its nothing compared to the top 10 iStock contributors who have sold over 200,000+ images, and that may be a low estimate. I have had a few health concerns that have prevented me from being 100%, but I still managed to build my portfolio significantly over the last year. Come to think of it, I’ve actually shot more great stock since my health issues started. I have promised myself that I will continue to grow my portfolio and make my images stand out more. Recently, I thought about getting into iStock Video and did a bunch of research and got a Canon HV40 and after a few days, I realized that I need to get back into photography and focus on making that better before I leap into the world of motion pictures. I’m tired of being the “Jack of all trades, master of none”.

Anyways, I wanted to create this post to showcase some of my stock “in action”. The images below are snapshots or screenshots of my images used on various print and websites! This gallery will be constantly updated as I am starting to see more and more of my work used all around the world!

]]> http://leokowal.com/2009/07/istock-in-action/feed/ 0 Winter Shopping Shoot for iStock http://leokowal.com/2009/04/winter-shopping-shoot-for-istock/ http://leokowal.com/2009/04/winter-shopping-shoot-for-istock/#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:19:57 +0000 Leo Kowal http://leokowal.com/?p=62 The last two years we did shopping related shoots for iStock as Christmas seems to be one of the most popular times for stock photography. I always approach my shoots from a customer’s and designer’s perspective. Its safe to say that designers love photos on white backgrounds just as much as photos on single colored or themed backgrounds. It just depends on what that designer is looking for at any given moment. A good designer can take a subject on a pure white background and place it on anything, hence the argument that white background images are better sellers. I would recommend shooting on all sorts of backgrounds and see which ones sell better.

As far as this shoot goes, I wanted to give a Christmas / Winter feeling, so we worked with the classic colors of the season, red, white and green. Mary (the model) and I wrapped a bunch of presents to use as props, and in some of the shots we stuffed a shopping bag with money to use as a prop. The winter cap and the scarf are great additions to these images as they really make the images pop. We tried without the hat and scarf and it just didn’t look the same. Accessories can be a huge!

As far as the shoot went, I used a standard lighting setup for the white background shots. Two Alien Bee 800′s on the left and right to blow out the background and a medium softbox for the key light. For the images of the red background, I simply used a medium softbox. It was more then enough to illuminate the red seamless paper. It also create a natural vignette look. All images were manually whitebalanced using a WhiBal at first and then setting the actual temperture on the camera.

]]> http://leokowal.com/2009/04/winter-shopping-shoot-for-istock/feed/ 0