CONTENT TRENDS

There are a plenty of new content providers popping up online on a regular basis, but most of them have little or no experience in shooting adult content.CONTENT TRENDS

There are a plenty of new content providers popping up online on a regular basis, but most of them have little or no experience in shooting adult content. The content on your site will determine most how much money you make – traffic, design, navigability and speed are all important, but the surfer with money to spend is looking for the right content. Chances are he’ll know what is quality and what isn’t in a niche that he has been into probably since puberty.

When buying content you should always ask yourself, “Will this fill a void or make an impact?” Webmasters often don’t completely understand what category their content falls into or whom they should be targeting. With my extensive experience of shooting porn (25 years), here’s a guide to amateurs, readers’ wives and the girl next door style pictures.

Amateur is a relatively new niche. While living in England, I gave seminars at camera clubs to amateur photographers. During the week they worked in factories, banks and shops, and on the weekends they lived to take pictures. They owned Hassleblads, Bronicas, etc., knew how to use them and took beautiful pictures.

The Internet “amateur” is usually a photographer and a model both doing their respective jobs for money. The model is often more experienced than the photographer. Strippers, hookers and lap dancers usually make poor amateur models. Also, a professional model has little or no respect for someone she feels does not know what he’s doing. All of this will show in the pictures.

Where the content is shot is irrelevant because it’s meant to be “amateur,” and from what I see, it also does not matter how it is shot, so long as the model is naked and the sets are cheap. But unfortunately, so many amateurs use the same “Colorama” backdrop, in turn making “amateur photos” often synonymous with BAD photos.

Readers’ Wives. This niche is the art of trying to reproduce a husband or boyfriend shooting his wife or girlfriend. This is a niche I greatly understand, as we sell these types of pictures to magazines. Did you really think they rely on readers to send in all of the photos?

We try to catch the fun and liveliness of the model — shoot it “fast and crazy” is always our motto. Remember why the guy and girl are doing this – it’s not to get their picture in a magazine. They have another agenda for when the photography is finished. You should buy sets that capture that very thought. It’s difficult when you have a model who’s last thought is actually about sex. The photographer has probably spent an hour telling her how safe she is and that he is not into this kind of thing at all. And that is exactly how she looks – cold and distant. A content provider recently posted a “Hot Babe” photo on a message board, and I had to tell him that she appeared to be cold and thinking about nothing. He replied, “So now I have to worry about what she is thinking?” The answer there is obviously, “Yes, she’s more than just a piece of meat.”

If the content provider is not worried about what the model is thinking, then the webmaster has to be, because his surfer or member will notice. They look at more than what she’s doing and what’s between her legs. They will look at her face to decide if she’s pretty, then into her eyes to see if she’s ready. And for “Readers’ Wives,” that’s the secret. He has to think these girls are so horny, that even if he were there they would fuck him. We buy a lot of this style of content from a professional photographer who also happens to be a wife swapper. He shoots the people he meets at parties, and it works very well, indeed. They do have sex after the shoot and it shows.

And lastly, is the “Girl Next Door.” This can be both the hardest and the easiest type of content to shoot depending on the photographer and the model. What it’s trying to capture, is this girl could live close to the surfer and maybe it’s a girl he’s even likely to have met before or even know – the kind of girl he sees every day. She does not have to be beautiful, just attractive. She doesn’t have to be too good at the poses either, which can be shot in her home, his home or a studio, and it can be her first and only time doing a nude photo shoot. The makeup can be good, bad or even non-existent, but be very careful of the glare from the lights coming off her forehead. Too much makeup and the model looks “false,” too little and you’ll either get a glare coming off the lights or you will see her spots.

She should be young but does not have to fall into the “Teen” niche. The difficulty here is in finding a continual supply of girls. Unless she’s exceptional, no one wants to see 50 sets of her all over the Internet. A set may be “custom,” but keep in mind that the sofa is often in more sets than the girl, and unless she brought her own clothing, so is what she’s wearing.

The whole thing has to capture the fantasy that this girl is here to enjoy herself and not doing it for money (even though WE know otherwise.) The girl does not have to necessarily look as if she wants to fuck someone, but she has to look as if she MIGHT do it. Remember, this girl is hot and ready enough to take her clothes off in front of a camera for the fun of it. It has to look spontaneous and fluid. When it starts to look staged and wooden you lose the flow and the girl looks awkward. A smile showing a row of teeth is not enough.

You cannot get away with bad photography. Your lighting and posing has to be correct – too “good” or too “bad,” and it’ll be wrong. The photographer has to know his stuff – lighting, settings, equipment and poses, but most of all, he has to understand the girl. He has to make her look natural, easy and as if she’s enjoying this. This is difficult, as two distinct personalities are creating the pictures.

Then there are a few more things to consider. Backdrops and settings – how many times has this photographer used this setting? We have a studio with ten settings which are constantly being repainted, and we are always moving the furniture around. At least three times a year we rebuild the settings. We also shoot in locations, apartments and hotels. We’ve had perfectly good sets rejected by magazines because we have used that setting or prop too often.

Watch how often you see the same piece of lingerie or clothing in a content provider’s portfolio when making a purchase decision. Look for the number of different poses, in relation to the number of images. There are 25 standard poses. A set should include a minimum of 15, with the ideal number around 20. The set should have a minimum of 60 different shots. We typically aim for 100. For a professional photographer, that is not difficult. Yet, how many times do we see the exact same shot repeated again and again in a set just to build the numbers? If you see this, chances are the content provider or the photographer may not know what they’re doing.

The content you put up will determine how much money you will get back. It does not need to cost you a fortune. A magazine editor knows that he must get the best ten sets into his thirteen magazines every year, or circulation will fall and he’ll lose his job. A lot of webmasters feel that their content is there simply to fill a hole for the traffic to look at. Some will tell you it’s all about the design, while others will say it’s about the traffic or even the navigability. Ask the surfer, because he’s the guy with your money in his pocket. No one said this was easy! If they did they would be lying.

Not making enough money? Then get out there and start looking for better content, because it’s there and at a price you can afford!

Paul has been a professional photographer for over 20 years, first published in 1978.

Paul Markham Content Store is a registered Czech company, Banapro, owned and run by Paul and Eva Markham. They have been working in the Czech Republic for four years and employ six people.

Producing “teeny” style photos, you can see their sets in the top “teeny” magazines. Look out for the name Banapro, Charlie Pollack Eva Gazdova, Paula or Paul Markham. Sales have now been expanded to the Internet, so now you can have good “teeny” images from top producers, on your site. Paul also ran the video company ASTRAL BLUE from the UK so they have many video titles too. Paul can be reached via email at paul_eva@paulmarkham.com.