Stock photography, money to be made?

thebigsky · December 8, 2006

Hi,

I've recently joined Alamy and had my initial images accepted. I'm still at a very early stage with my photography so I'm certainly not expecting the money to start rolling in any time soon if ever.

I just wondered if any of you regularly sell stock photography, whether it's just pocket money or if it's a substantial part of your income? What sort of images you find are the most likely to sell etc?

Photography is currently a hobby but I don't feel overly secure in my current choice of work, just how much of a challenge is it to make a living from stock photography, is it unrealistic unless you're at the very top of your profession?

Any help, experience or comments would be appreciated.

Charlie

DoctorIt · December 8, 2006

Making a living as a photographer isn't easy. Of working photographers I know from dgrin and elsewhere, I've never heard of a single one that could claim a high percentage of their income from stock photography.

To make matters worse, most of the online stock photography houses are pennies on the dollar. Simply taking advantage of the digital photo boom and harvesting as many images as possible. Be cautious.

sunione · December 8, 2006

Stock Photography
Selling (great images as) stock was once a profitable idea (2 decades ago) and for the few at the very top of their game it might still be but not much longer. Many factors are the cause but perhaps the online cheap stock sites are at the top of the list. These sites are hurting all who are trying to earn a living as a photographer. Next consider the number of people who now have found digital photography, how much cheaper it is to produce hundreds of images (no matter how dreadful they are) and because they know how to use a computer too they think how "fun" it would be to say they sold them online. They don't have to say they were paid .20 a download!

thebigsky · December 17, 2006

Thanks guys, I had imagined looking at the proliferation of cheap stock sites, Istockphoto etc, that making any serious money would be unlikely.

I guess I'll just keep adding images to Alamy and see what happens and I'll do some more research into what sort of images sell, maybe make a bit of pocket money here and there if I'm lucky.

Charlie

pulpmojo · December 26, 2006

sure it's tough to make a living off of stock but it can be done. I've met a few very succesful stock photographers during my very short modeling career, in fact, I spoke to one of them about it and this is more or less what he told me.

-their studio consists of 3 employees, photographer, director, producer. (it was originaly a two person operation (photographer and director) up to a year ago.
-they've been shooting stock for the last 17 or 18 years
-they're at home only about two or three months out of the year, they spend most of their time traveling throughout the world
-they shot landscapes and travel photography for the first 10 years but eventually moved to the far more lucrative business of people photography
-it took them six years before they had a library of images large enough where they could leave their day jobs and make photography a full time job
-they're on contract with the big three agencies (alamy, corbis & gettys)
-they submit anywhere between 1000 to 2000 images per year to the different agencies, and make a not too meager income from those

so it can be done, it's difficult, but then again as my daddy told me... "nothing worth doing is ever easy"

ChrisRabior · January 1, 2007

I've been lurking, but this thread caught my attention.

I'm currently submitting to five different micro sites (it was 7, but I cut two).
It's not much, but it has paid for some extra camera gear.

Having grown accustomed to the low payout, I started looking for non-micro sites that were accessible to semi-pro and advanced amateurs. Alamy was the first on the list to pop up. Next was photographers direct. That one will deny you simply on the basis of being a micro stock member. They've extremely unhappy with the micro sites 'taking advantage of amateurs.'

For the Alamy users, do you see much of a return on your images? I have about 1K images on shutterstock, mostly editorial. I've been considering dropping the micro sites in favor of the macros.

Stock photography, money to be made?

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