I’ve been super fortunate lately to have access to a premium location to capture commercial airplanes landing at Lisbon’s international airport. In this blog post I’ll discuss my workflow and strategy to be able to maximise my effort and time for greatest return. As always, I’ll track the number of hours invested and will estimate the return after a reasonable time. Let’s get started!

Love shooting airplanes, since 2013

Shooting airplanes to upload to multiple stock agencies is something that I’ve been doing since around 2013 when I lived in the Netherlands. At the time, I would often go to Schiphol and stand around in the cold/wind/rain waiting for huge planes to pass by. Often times I got pretty damn close to the runway!

Then moved to Milan and was fortunate to be super close to Linate Airport where I captured some strong-sellers, such as this one:

Tedious work but it has to be done

Even though I’m going through a huge creative time now and rather be shooting more fun stuff, shooting airplanes is low-hanging fruit and has to be done. I recall one blog post a long time ago where I discussed shooting shop-front windows on the high street/main street, which would sell (especially if the business goes bust)… and I suppose that this is a similar exercise. Here’s a link to the blog post.

My airplane-capturing workflow

Lisbon is a super busy airport even if the city isn’t huge. Due to its location on the south-west edge of Europe it often acts as a connecting spot for flights to both South America (mainly Brazil) and its ex-colonies in Africa (mainly Angola and Mozambique). Therefore, there are some quite large planes landing, particularly in the early-morning.

Just shoot then correct focus with Topaz!

My first step was just shooting because it was a novelty. I just pretty much shot all the planes for a good hour. Was a lot of misses at first as wasn’t able to capture the best angles and shutter-speeds but eventually they were quite sharp. As they’re quite close and obviously moving in fast even shooting at 1000/1 seconds in bright sunlight will produce a little blur, which after running on Topaz SharpenAi fixes it nicely – see below.

Creating a database

Next, to save time (which is really $), I created a database of all the planes I shot and avoided repeating similar aircrafts and in particular companies, which is easy to do when 70% of the flights are either Tap, Easyjet, Ryanair.

Here’s a snapshot of the database I created on excel, including keywords (make of airplane is important to include):

Checking arrival schedules

Next, I needed (still need to) fill in gaps of companies to have a full database. This is work in progress. To do this I’ll need to go back to the spot and consult the arrivals website at Lisbon Airport and highlight the airplanes I want to shoot. For instance, I really wanted to capture an Emirates super-jet which only lands twice a day and needed to check the schedules.

As well as the huge transatlantic flights from Brazil:

Pending airliners to capture

Perhaps the lesser known the airliner the better? Only time will tell…

What about video?

Yes, I also plan to replicate all these with video to upload to SS and Pond5 as editorials. I’ve already started but video will take longer. Here’s already one that I’ve captured that has been accepted:

How much will I likely earn?

So the most important question of all, how many hours have I invested and (roughly) much will I earn let’s say in the next three years.

For 33 images and 6 clips, so far I’ve invested 2 hours shooting and 3 hours post-processing/keywording/uploading, for a total of 5 hours.

It’s very difficult to estimate how much these should earn in the next three years…I would estimate that they’re worth $1/per image/year and clips will be $3/clip/year. So for this small initial batch for the next three years, I should earn about $100 in images and $18 in clips for $24/hour.

Happy shooting and until next time!

About Alex

I’m an eccentric guy, currently based in Lisbon, Portugal, on a quest to visit all corners of the world and capture stock images & footage. I’ve devoted eight years to making it as a travel photographer / videographer and freelance writer. I hope to inspire others by showing an unique insight into a fascinating business model.

Most recently I’ve gone all in on submitting book cover images to Arcangel Images. Oh and also recently purchased a DJI Mavic 2s drone and taking full advantage and perhaps a Mavic 3 soon.

I’m proud to have written a book about my adventures which includes tips on making it as a stock travel photographer – Brutally Honest Guide to Microstock Photography