There is a business tool that I apply to stock photography where I can analyze how effective I'm using my time per category I'm shooting. What I've done is called a cost/benefit analysis. I determine how many shots I've sold in each category and put these on a bar chart to visually determine where I'm selling most and least. I then consider how much time and effort each category has taken and then conclude if shooting some categories is a waste of time or whether shooting that subject is worth while. In other words, is the benefit of shooting a certain category worth the cost to shoot it. Sometimes the least efficient categories are the ones I like shooting the most. But, photography is more than just business and should be fun as well. So I usually don't give up completely on my low return categories but shoot them mostly for fun. If you have a business like what I've described, doing a cost/benefit analysis can be a help to determine your most efficient categories of stock.

-- Steve Rasmussen (srasmuss@flash.net), September 09, 2001