Stock photo agencies

Valentia

I did make a little enquiry on another thread but nobody bit.

I was surprised to see a few regulars here had micro stock accounts. I have always thought that these guys were not really worth the effort and that they gained way more in the arrangement. I also felt that you would need to sell a colossal amount to get any kind of worthwhile returns. I have done a small bit of research but honestly haven't seen anything to convince me yet. Comments like "I have earned over $50 in three months" don't fill me with anticipation......

Have I got it wrong?

What are your experiences and, if you have them, recommendations?

coylemj

I don't profess to be an expert in this area but my understanding of stock photography is that if you're in that business then you put together a huge collection of photographs showing all conceivable situations of people going about (lawful and decent) activities and you sell the collection to advertising agencies and the like to use copyright-free but the value of each individual photo is tiny.

It follows therefore that contributing photos to stock photo companies is not going to be a crock of gold. If you want your photos to make decent money then you need to be selling them as exceptional one-offs to magazines or news agencies.

PaulieC

I think it's all really down to personal preference. There are some people on here who are quite obviously anti-stock and som who are pro. I sell stock myself, mainly as a hobby. I would advise you to try it our for yourself, it's the only way you can decide really. Most stock sites are free to join so there's no loss to you there. The two main sites i use are

www.shutterstock.com and www.istockphoto.com

The main sales models for these are quite different so make sure to read the blurbs on each site to see what they are about. Both sites have some way for you to see what is selling most. I would suggest searching both sites for the kind of pictures you are interested in taking e.g rockerfeller centre would give you a list of pix with those keywords. From this you can see what people want to buy (that was an example as it is the first pic on your Flickr).

Here is a very in-depth blog by a guy I know that goes into stock in a very detailed way and gives run-downs of the main sites and lots of examples of what will/won't sell etc.

Essentially, it's like everything else - you get out of it what you put into it

HTH

Valentia

Excellent cambo. Thanks a mil. The idea of doing it as a hobby appeals to me. They are earning nothing sitting on my computer so why not I guess.

PaulieC

actually just looking though the Random trhead and I found this by Knoximus


This is an example of a good stock photo. The pink, the heart shape and the reflection in the water are all what buyers love, especially coming up to Valentine's Day.

Wehich reminds me, two very important aspects of selling stock are keywording and timing. Obviously keywords are vitally important as they allow buyers to find your images easily. You should use as many relevant keywords as possible. Examples of relevant keywords for Knoximus' image would be swans, courtship, togetherness, romance, family, couple, close, mate, etc. etc. you get the idea.

On the timing front, you have to be ready with the relevant images in time for big occasions e.g. Valentine's day etc. I find that the bigger the occasion, the earlier buyers are looking for images related to it. e.g. Christmas images will start selling in october, whereas Valentine's may only start selling in the last week of January. If you submit related images too early they will get smothered by all teh other images submitted after yours. If you go too late you will miss out on the sales. Sometimes it's really a matter of luck...

anyway, good luck if you do start and if I can be of any assistance, let me know!


PS Knoximus, I hope you don't mind me using this image as an example

PaulieC

Valentia wrote: »

Excellent cambo. Thanks a mil. The idea of doing it as a hobby appeals to me. They are earning nothing sitting on my computer so why not I guess.

absolutely...

sasar

A friend of mine is making living out of stock. He has about 800 photos and that is sufficient to make enough money on istock alone.

I'm using istock, fotolia, dreamstime, stockxpert & shutterstock. Not earning even close to quit my FT job, but it's still great to make a few quid.

Covey

Valentia wrote: »

Excellent cambo. Thanks a mil. The idea of doing it as a hobby appeals to me. They are earning nothing sitting on my computer so why not I guess.

Agree, but with a few riders. Certainly €100 per moth would buy a nice lens at the end of the year !!

From what I've seen of microstock, a lot of what sells is what I would call boring record shots and nothing wrong with that. The danger is you get sucked in and end up taking those type of shots, leaving enough room for typeface in the right area etc and you might sell, but will you still "enjoy" your photography.

Also, be aware that most other agencies won't take you if you sells to Microstock firms. That may not be a bad thing, but it is something to be aware of.

Covey

sasar wrote: »

A friend of mine is making living out of stock. He has about 400 photos and that is sufficient to make enough money on istock alone.

Is he anorexic ?

Are we talking at least minimum wage here?

sasar

This guy actually has ~800 photos, not 400 as previously stated...

He makes around 2000 Euro per month.

Covey

Thats actually impressive Sasar.

€25k per annum, now 5/6 more of those type of ideas and I could be sorted.:D:D

trishw78

I'm also quite interested in the idea at least of stock photography, although I don't think my work is up to scratch yet but I'm getting there.

I assume 'what's in' at the moment would influence how well you stock sells, as well as keywords.

bullpost

Interesting.

I don't make any money from photography and have very little (read none) spare cash for kit so this is attractive, even if it's only small amounts of cash slowly being squirreled away in the back of a drawer.

Thanks for info.

elven

I was quite surprised when i looked into it because reading the forums i saw pretty good pictures being rejected for technical reason, and yet pictures that were accepted seemed to be pretty poor quality from what i could tell.

I couldn't even get past the sign-up - i can't remember which one i tried but they didn't like my bank account being in a different country from my passport origin. Lame.

trishw78

Ok so major bump

I've been thinking about this again lately. Recessionary times... yada yada yada...

cambo_gueno wrote:

I sell stock myself, mainly as a hobby. I would advise you to try it our for yourself, it's the only way you can decide really. Most stock sites are free to join so there's no loss to you there. The two main sites i use are

www.shutterstock.com and www.istockphoto.com

My question is cambo do you submit the same shots on both sites?

Has anyone else started using any stock sites are there any pros or cons, people should be aware of.