I have always wanted to go to the Tulip Time Festival in Holland, MI, where those with Dutch ancestry are kind enough to share their heritage with the public, and what better excuse than taking stock photos for going this year? Also great to finally have some more time to devote to stock photos…
I checked out their website and figured out that the mother-daughter dance would make for good photos, so I based my schedule on that. Many stock photo websites want names of any children in even editorial photos so I planned to skip that one. I got to Holland and found out that it was graduation day at Hope College, so I hung around and got some good photos of people taking post graduation shots:
Then some photos of the Art Fair, thinking of shots that might be of demand by people writing about the event in future years, so wanted to make sure I got the logo in there. I hung out there for 15-20 minutes taking shots of people walking in and out of the fair until I got this shot of some photogenic people:
The funny thing is that Michiganders are a generally considerate people, so many of them on seeing that I’m taking photos stop to not get in the shot, when I’m trying to get photos with people IN the shot… Fun..
I got a good seat in front of a church so I’d have a nice background, and waited half an hour for the mother-daughter dance. Wish I’d had the ISO a bit lower than the 1000 I had it set at, but the photos were acceptable to Shutterstock much to my delight:
Afterwards some of the dancers were posing for photos. I was feeling a little shy at first, but then, inspired by Ron Scubadiver, one of the photographers I follow, I asked them to pose and they were so nice about it:
Then I went to Windmill Island hoping for a great shot of the windmill with tulips in front of it, but the tulips weren’t quite cooperating, poo… So, decided to try for another tourist shot and hung out for quite a while until I got a cute couple taking a selfie with the windmill, to add a personal element to the photos:
Had to wait quite a while to makes sure I had a cute couple, and no unflattering views of other people in the background bending over or anything, so another 15-20 minutes here too. You can see all the photos Shutterstock accepted here.
It’s great to be back to taking stock photos, and having time to process them – tons of logo photos to get to this week…
Best wishes to you on your photography adventures…
Susan
Susan Montgomery Photos 