It is demonstrated that the photoluminescence spectra of single self-assembled quantum dots are very sensitive to the experimental conditions, such as excitation energy and crystal temperature. A qualitative explanation is given in terms of the effective diffusion of the photogenerated carriers, determined by the experimental conditions, which influence the capture probability and hence also the charge state of the quantum dots. This is proposed as a new tool to populate quantum dots with extra electrons in order to study phenomena involving charged excitons.