Have you ever noticed when reading a magazine or flicking through a brochure, how many of the images are ‘lifestyle’ images? Photographs of people doing things, talking to each other, sitting in the gardens, exercising, eating and reading together etc. These kinds of photographs may seem contrived and a bit corny, but they have an important use in stock photography because they add something to the story.
For example, if a magazine is writing about exercising, they can search the stock libraries and find an image of someone of which their demographic can relate to doing some exercise. If it’s a specific kind of exercise, say yoga, it can be an image of that to demonstrate what it looks like.
It happens to every photographer. There may be one day where you are ready with a camera in hand but you are unable to choose something to photograph. You don’t know how to photograph it. There’s nothing to inspire you. You can’t get an interesting image together. Maybe you have photographer’s block – if so, here are some ideas on how to remedy it.
Even you are ready to shoot, that doesn’t mean the weather is ready for you! Whenever you tackle photography outdoors, you need to consider the possibility that the conditions will not be suitable– it could rain horrendously, there could be storm, it could be so hot that it is uncomfortable to work, there could even be snow. There are a lot of maybes there, because we can usually check weather predictions to prepare accordingly, but when it comes down to it, you just never really know what you may get. 
