A new Platinum fotoLibra member very sensibly asked the following:

Having just taken advantage of the Platinum upgrade pre-deadline, I now have to really justify the added membership cost. Could you let me know what images or types of images that are more likely to sell, so that I can upload images that ought to have a greater chance of selling. Also, are there any particular gaps in your library that I could feasibly fill? One I have noticed seems to be parascenders, but will it be likely to sell? I don’t want to keep uploading purely speculative stuff that is photographically OK but is not likely to find a market. Any help or advice will be gratefully received!

Excellent question. So we looked at the categories in our famous Taxonomy Matrix, and listed them according to the number of images uploaded on each subject. That seemed the quickest way to spot the gaps in our armory.

These are the subjects we have fewest images of:

• Anthropology
• Genetics
• Topography
• Anatomy
• State
• Maps
• Gay & Lesbian
• Hotels
• DIY
• Typography
• Old Age
• Health
• Entomology
• Disability
• Botany
• Hospitals
• Science
• Gyms
• TV
• Manuscripts
• Olympics

and these are the subjects we have most of:

• Mammals
• Religious
• Countryside
• Sea
• Wildlife
• History
• Flowers
• Holidays
• Motor
• Landscapes
• Buildings
• Birds

So Ornithology is our most popular and Anthropology our least popular subject among our members. No real surprise there: I generally prefer the company of birds to people.

But I hadn’t really realised the lacuna we have in social images. That doesn’t mean we don’t carry pickchers of Slebs (I’m glad we don’t); I mean we are particularly low on Health, Hospitals, Old Age, Disability and Gym images. Obviously when we are asked for a particular subject we don’t already have huge stocks of, Jacqui will send out a Picture Call, but these are images all self-respecting picture libraries should hold as a matter of course.

If you get a chance, please upload some of these images. They may not sell immediately, but they indicate to professional picture buyers they are dealing with a fully rounded agency, not a one trick pony.

And as for the Olympics …