Stock photography

Elife

Elife

Active member
So I really like photography, I'm sure many of you do to, and what better way to make money than by selling photos of things you've shot by choice, i.e. stock photography. I've looked into a wee bit, checked out the Getty Images (largest supplier of stock photography in the world) and the application to become one of their photographers (for those interested you can navigate to it through a little searching from their home page). It requires you to submit 10 full res photos and a website (can be flickr) for their consideration. Getty must be extremely competitive (being the largest and of highest quality) but I was wondering if anyone has had any experience/success in selling stock photos and would like to help a brotha out (anything from other ways to sell or things to shoot, etc.)

++++++karma.
 
i havent, but im interested in this now that you brought it up

ps check out smugmug.com its a website that you pay $40.00 a year and if people want to order your pics on something you get physically paid, the host through amazon or somethign and you set a price and factor in the price that a blank 4x6 or coffeo mug might cost, then you get whatever you set as the actual price

ex:

coffeo mug no picture- 3.00

your price for mug with picture- 6.00

you just made 3 dollars and didnt have to do anything to print it
 
i looked into this a while ago and thought of how long it must take for someone to actually buy or pay for the rights of your pictures especially if there are so many pictures out there, i think its all luck when you put stuff on there sometimes
 
yeah... I'm on a site called imagekind that does the same thing only there is a free version with an upload cap. No one's bought anything but I haven't exactly been marketing. Check the link in my profile.
 
I am signed up and was approved, but I haven't really put anything up.

You can make good money if you have 23423543 pictures up there/advertise well.
 
I hate to be the negitive, but your shit ain't up to par.

I would keep shooting a bunch until it gets up there, and stay away from HDR. just because people on flckr love um don't mean it looks good. Very rarely does it work out.

Work on trying to get your shots right with the camera and avoid having to fix stuff in post.

Composition is another thing you should work on. Some of your shots have potential but the composition makes them boring. Or your just to close to the subject and I have to read your description to figure out whats going on.

and stock photography is a great way to pay for a subscription to playboy but its not gonna make any real money.

Keep in mind selling your images really cheap through a stock site is just lowering the price for photos, then when you get to the point when you want to make some money you can't because you helped lower the price earlier. So selling to/through a stock site is just shooting your self in the foot.
 
Selling stock is not that easy man, you need to have hundreds if not thousands of photos with an agency in order to make money. I have dabbled with it in the past with minor success on the side of all the other things i shoot. But I wouldnt have wanted it to be my only source of photography income

I actually just did the application for getty last month and as I have been accepted im going to start adding shots to their archive next week. One thing to bear in mind is that Getty charge $50 per image just to upload it. You really need at least a few hundred shots on there to stand any chance of making money so thats a few thousand dollars you need to lay down before you go anywhere. I have heard they are also quite harsh on the judging to get in so you need to have a good portfolio. I believe its more than 10 shots you need to show them though , i think i sent them 40 the other week....

Having spoken to some very successfull stock shooters about it , its clear that to earn full time money at it you need to work full time at it shooting full time 30 hours+ a week to keep adding shots to your collection. It's definitely not an easy way to make a living but it does at least give you freedom.

 
thanks man... I was really looking for that inside scoop. Sounds like Getty isn't the way to go for me then, oh well.
 
wow.... thanks for ruining my day and trying to make me feel like an amateur that doesn't know shit. So I took a few HDRs does that make me a bad photographer?

I understand the principles of stock photography and know what it means.... I'm not trying to get a subscription to playboy so go fuck yourself.
 
cobra_commander really does have a point theres lots of competition in getting people to buy your stuff in stock photography and you have to have hundreds of "sale worthy" pictures to be noticed among all the thousands of pictures already on the site.

and im not trying to say your stuff is bad

 
i would check out istockphoto.com. you only need to submit 3 photos to get in. I tried to do it once, but i dont have a dslr and they said that my pics were good but not high enough quality for the site. recently ive been looking into selling video on the site. I got accepted, but im having trouble sending in footage in the correct format, cause primere cant export hdv.
 
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