Where to sell amateur photos on-line ?

CelsoDiniz · February 2, 2005

Hi,

After one month uploading my photos here and there I made $5.50 dollars... I guess my photos are not Ansel's but maybe I'm going to the wrong places or not trying all the available resources.

Check what I've been doing here: My Quest

Any suggestions ?

Thanks !
Celso.

marlinspike · February 2, 2005

The problem is the places you're dealing with. Shutterstock and iStock and all those are just hurting the industry (IMHO, this has ben brought up here before, I don't want to bring it up again, so I'm just going to say IMHO). Some of those have payouts measured in cents, others have at most $3 for a full res file. IMHO, you might as well not sell your stuff and at least have it retain its dignity. Now, granted the higher paying stock photo places are more demanding, but I just don't think there is a point in offering pictures for cheap.

evil eggplant · February 4, 2005

marlinspike wrote:

The problem is the places you're dealing with. Shutterstock and iStock and all those are just hurting the industry (IMHO, this has ben brought up here before, I don't want to bring it up again, so I'm just going to say IMHO). Some of those have payouts measured in cents, others have at most $3 for a full res file. IMHO, you might as well not sell your stuff and at least have it retain its dignity. Now, granted the higher paying stock photo places are more demanding, but I just don't think there is a point in offering pictures for cheap.

Marlinspike

I know we have been here before, but in fairness to the original poster I feel compelled to present an opposing view.

I have a small portfolio on Istockphoto and make money. My portfolio has just hit 50 images. If I can maintain the quality I have in my portfolio, and get my portfolio up to 200 images, I expect to make over $100 month.

The most difficult part of the process is developing a portfolio that contains well done, useful stock images. As the portfolio grows, so do sales. When the time comes when I have 400 useful images in my portfolio I will be earning several hundred dollars a month. This is more money than the average hobbyist or enthusiast will ever see. And this is very do-able.

So, between istock, sales driven by my website, and shooting events locally, I end up making enough cash to fuel my hobby and have a few bucks left over. Istock is a gear in my money making machine.

As for istockphoto ruining the stock business, I disagree. Alamy and Corbis will always be there for those who choose to submit to them, and for those who purchase stock from them.

Remember, only the strong survive. If I threaten the income of a "pro", then all I can say is "O well, that's how it goes"

I used to repair television sets. Guess what, when transistors became the norm, I learned how they worked, and how to service devices that used them. The old-timers who whined about the obscolescense of vacuum tumes ended up being as obsolete as the tubes they loved.

Then I learned about integrated circuits. then I learned about digital. In order for me to remain competitive in my field I must constantly stay on top of technological advancements. Otherwise, my career goes down the tubes.

So I do what I have to do. This includes embracing change and being able to adapt. Although I am still in electronics, the work I do now is much different than the work I did when I entered the field 30 years ago.

The business of electronics, and technology in general, was a lot different 30 years ago. as was I. I adapted. The same way professional photographers will have to adapt.

CelsoDiniz · March 8, 2005

Thanks
Evil Eggplant, thanks for your reply.

Actually I've been working on the high tech market (both HW and SW) since I started university in 1987 when I actually did my fortran programs punching cards to run on IBM mainframes... No need to say the business has changed... a lot :-) And will keep on moving forever... anyway...

About my hobby... yes I've been building my little portfolio on Istockphoto and I decided I will keep pushing it until I earn enough money to buy a Nikon Film Scanner of around $500... Then I will set up another goal... and keep moving... It will be great when I get there... having my hobby paying for itself... ;-)

See you around,
Thanks,
Celso.

Matthew Saville · March 8, 2005

Aim high...

www.comstock.com

-matt-

Dee · March 8, 2005

Thanks Eggplant!
I'm desperate for money! This will have to work for now for me... I just placed 66 photo cards/envelopes with a consignment shop, so far 1 sold! Five downloads will get me the same amount of income for a lot less work on my part!

This doesn't mean I have to upload my "best" photos, I can hold them out, but I have so many "almost" photos that could be useful to designers and people looking for inexpensive web photo usage.

I'm going to give it a try...

iStockphoto gave me grief about "noise" in my image. I just read Scott Kelby's book where he recommends blurring the a and b channels in LAB mode, so now I have to take more time and do that.

I buy stock photos all the time, (and I'm talking the big stock companies like Corbis, Veer, and Getty) and let me tell you, they way the supersize some of these photos there's plenty of noise. I can't believe istockphoto is so fussy! So I'll give that a try too, and see if they will finally accept the photos, if they still reject them I'll have to earn money thru shutterstock to afford a cmos camera that doens't have as much noise as my sony.

So wish me luck!

FramesMedia · March 9, 2005

Matthew Saville wrote:

Aim high...

www.comstock.com

-matt-

I agree!

-Getty
-Corbis
-IPNStock

I used to be very active at istock. But 20 cents for one's work is prostitution. Pulled down all my favorite photos.

zedEL · March 11, 2005

Hi CelsoDiniz and others!

I just registered after enjoying reading these discussions yesterday.
Planning to signup with the Pro acc.
After seriously taking photos since I got my Nikon N90S in 1996 and then moving over to PowerShot A10 and A80, I started searching how to sell all my photos. The more I searched the more confused I was getting.
I visited your blog, and that's interesting statitics you got there.
My question - did you submit the same photos to all of them ?

Now, another question is about ShutterPoint.com .
Any explanation why you didn't get any sales there ? is it because of the high price compared to dirtcheap at Shutterstock.com or istock.com ?

Do you still recommend working with both, Shutterstock and istock, in addition to SmugMug ?

I did a little research with Alexa - traffic statistics for these sites.
Because the traffic reflects how popular is the site and obviously it affects the sales.

1. Pbase.com - traffic ranking: 571 - highest(but sliding down) with 1326 sites linked toPbase.
2. istockphoto.com - 1374 - going up, with 258 sites linked
3. DotPhoto.com - 2876 - going down, with 308 sites linked
4. SmugMug.com - 4147 - going up, with only 44 sites linked so far - they need to work on incoming links from quality sites.
5. ShutterStock.com - 5186 - going up, with 8 sites linked
6. Shutterpoint.com - 31,323 - 34 sites linked

THANKS!

CelsoDiniz wrote:

Hi,

After one month uploading my photos here and there I made $5.50 dollars... I guess my photos are not Ansel's but maybe I'm going to the wrong places or not trying all the available resources.

Check what I've been doing here: My Quest

Any suggestions ?

Thanks !
Celso.

CelsoDiniz · March 19, 2005

Hi Elviz, about your questions...
Hi Elviz,

Right now I'm working with four sites that read IPTC information at upload time. They are BigStockPhoto, DreamsTime, iStock and ShutterStock. BigStockPhoto is the newest one, and it looks like it will work fine. Check the blog again and you'll see the latest statistics I published today. Now that you mentioned I will check Pbase and DotPhoto...

The answer to your first question is yes, I've been submitting the same photos to all the four sites. So, whenever I have a new set of photos to submit I send it to the four sites. Some are accepted, some are not. It is actually funny to see that one phone is refused by one site and taken by others. Anyway, ShutterStock seems to be the less restrictive one while iStock is the most picky of all four.

And despite the fact that ShutterStock pays 23 cents on the photo downloaded, and the others pays 50 cents on the downloaded, I am still making more money with ShutterStock (little money, but still money). There is this guy on the iStock forum who says he bought a car with the money he made there, but he has thousands of photos online... Anyway... It's been fun to check the evolution of this "little business". Let's see what happens when I reach the first hundred of photos accepted on each site ;-) Then the 500, then the 1000...

In regards to your second question, I gave up on ShutterPoint a while ago.. If I remember all right ShutterPoint charges an annual fee and it forces you to set a minimum price of $20 dollars I guess. I it did not work at all for me. It was great to get feedback from other photographers though. Actually, they were the first I tried and the feedbacks from the other photographers about my own pictures was the incentive I needed to try other sites. But I don't really know if they did not work just for me, or that's the same to everybody else. The price must be a key factor...

About your third question, yes, I'm with ShutterStock plus iStock and also DreamsTime and this week I started working with BigStockPhoto where I sold my first .50 cents... In regards to SmugMug I decided not to renew my Pro account. This very week I shut it off and I kept only my PowerUser one to keep my personal Albums, family stuff, etc. I guess my pictures are not the kind people will pay to have a printed copy or have it stamped on a T-Shirt. On the other hand it has been working fine on those other sites.

Well, that's it for now... Hope it helps and let's keep in touch.

Thanks !
Celso.

Where to sell amateur photos on-line ?

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