Stock Photograhy

superhornet59 · Jan 9, 2007

Okay as of now I've been freelancing and selling my photos to magazine, but with school and all I want to submit to a stock photography website, and let the monwy flow in on its own. but, i checked out shuytterstock and they pay 25 cents per download!!! thats a joke, I simply will not give away my photos for a quarter while shutterstock is making 15 bucks and god knows how much money the buyer can make off them (ie: advertising). istockphoto pays 20%, but still thats a joke.

Where do you guys, if anywhere, put oyur photos for online stock photography? I want to make a reasonable profit off my work while being sure that my photos are being used for sall things, not some giant marketting campaign that i could make way more money from. most so far are royalty free, and places where i can still get royalties too?

Thanks -Matt

dewey · Jan 9, 2007

Most stock photography works on the walmart business model... do you want to sell 1 print for $150 profit or sell that same image for a $.25 profit 1,000 times?

The people who would buy your image for .25 profit on shutterstock aren't going to buy your print framed for $200... so it's apples and oranges - they're two seperate markets all together.

niccig · Jan 10, 2007

Try photographersdirect.com - they supposedly get a higher price from the customer, so you get more.

danalec99 · Jan 10, 2007

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/2007-Photographers-Market/dp/1582974284/sr=1-1/qid=1168448324/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0790708-5659828?ie=UTF8&s=books"]2007 Photographer's Market[/ame]

Digital Matt · Jan 10, 2007

Istockpro, a sister website of istockphoto is geared more toward professionals, and allows you to set your own price. You have to apply to become a member by sending sample images. You can read more about it on their website.

craig · Jan 11, 2007

I have 9 images on Bigstock. They do not bother me and I do not bother them. Signed on because they have a couple of different royalty deals. Get the feeling that my images are buried underneath a million other amazing shots. My feelings are that it may be a waste of time. On the other hand an illustrator friend of mine does well on Istock.

The other side of the coin is getting signed with Getty or Corbis and the like.

RacePhoto · Jan 17, 2007

Digital Matt said:
Istockpro, a sister website of istockphoto is geared more toward professionals, and allows you to set your own price. You have to apply to become a member by sending sample images. You can read more about it on their website.

Yes, I'm confused...

Thank you for your interest in iStockpro. At this time, we are unable to accept further contributor applications. We are engaged in some demanding site maintenance at the moment and need to close off this portion of the site. In the meantime, if you aren't already a contributor to iStockphoto, you can apply here. Thank you for your understanding.

So I can apply, but they aren't accepting contributors?

Percentage of the sale price 20% of what? They seem to run on a credit system for buyers. It's a nice looking site.

Digital Matt · Jan 17, 2007

RacePhoto said:
Yes, I'm confused...

Thank you for your interest in iStockpro. At this time, we are unable to accept further contributor applications. We are engaged in some demanding site maintenance at the moment and need to close off this portion of the site. In the meantime, if you aren't already a contributor to iStockphoto, you can apply here. Thank you for your understanding.

So I can apply, but they aren't accepting contributors?

What kind of terms do they work on? Percentage of the sale price, flat fee, membership? It's a nice looking site.

It sounds like you can sign up, but the site is down temporarily for maintenance. I don't remember what the terms are. I have a feeling that they take a percentage of the sale. There is no membership fee.

neea · Jan 17, 2007

I have attempted stock photography on many many different sites.
All of which were rejected. Mostly because they were 'landscape' and they have 'way too many landscape pictures'. Which makes me wonder if they even looked at them because obviously... not all landscapes are the same.
Anyways, I come to the conclusion that my pictures have some other purpose in life (not sure what yet.. but it aint stock).

I dont imagine you could make a whole lot of money in it unless your pictures are REALLY REALLY good.

But perhaps I'm wrong.

darich · Jan 17, 2007

superhornet59 said:
I want to submit to a stock photography website, and let the monwy flow in on its own.
Thanks -Matt

Don't think that simply submitting images will mean that in a few days or weeks you'll have a small income from it. I've got around 120 images on photographersdirect.com and had 1 sale with 2 enquiries. I think my images are ok - better than some and not as good as others. It'll take quite a while and probably several thousand images to have any sort of regular income.

Glad you feel that 20c per download is a joke - those sites are massively underselling images by accepting lower res and poorer quality images so that average joe uploads his images. You may get a few cents but one sale on a "real" stock site will net you much more and probably more importantly, give you credit for your work. Royalty free sites where it's 20c a download won't credit the photographer.

20% seems pretty low too. it doesn't cost the library 80% of your image sale to host the image and then get the sale.

Photographers direct seems to be one of the better ones.

Forsh · Jan 21, 2007

Microstocks are killing off the business of Stock Photography as it stood a few years ago. I have been watching the trends, and it's not going in a great direction. RM > RF > Micro....Where you used to be able to earn a solid income licensing images, now expect that breakthrough to be very hard.

Perrush · Feb 20, 2007

again I'll give my 2 cnts to all of this, because to many of you the realism isn't still come through.

I simply will not give away my photos for a quarter while shutterstock is making 15 bucks and god knows how much money the buyer can make off them

Where do you get that SS makes $15 from one sale ?? They sell 750 images at $159 ... that's even less than $0.25.

Regarding your second remark ... that's totally irrelavant. The price of an image is never made by the amount of profit a buyer will make of it. Even if you sell an image at $300 and a big company makes $1.000.000 from it do you still think you're paid well ??

The people who would buy your image for .25 profit on shutterstock aren't going to buy your print framed for $200... so it's apples and oranges - they're two seperate markets all together.

that's the essence !!

Try photographersdirect.com - they supposedly get a higher price from the customer, so you get more.

wrong again. PGD doesn't do anything about pricing. YOU have to make a higher price. PGD only host your images at low res and they have a sort of mail-system where they attract buyers. They do charge 20%, but for what ?? They don't do anything !!

I dont imagine you could make a whole lot of money in it unless your pictures are REALLY REALLY good.

But perhaps I'm wrong.

perhaps yes ...

your pictures need to be 'stock-orientated'. And some landscape can be really good stock pictures but certainly not all.

Microstocks are killing off the business of Stock Photography as it stood a few years ago. I have been watching the trends, and it's not going in a great direction. RM > RF > Micro....Where you used to be able to earn a solid income licensing images, now expect that breakthrough to be very hard.

What did you expect ?? With the introduction of the digital camera and photoshop, almost everyone can make a decent photo. So the supply of such photos certainly has risen. So prices are low.

I've written most of my experiences in an article about those sites :
http://www.perrush.be/SYF_micro_E_1.html

I also did an interview with Hidesy (Istocks n°2), maybe intersting to read what she has to say about this :
http://www.perrush.be/art_hidesy_01.html

darich · Feb 26, 2007

Perrush said:
wrong again. PGD doesn't do anything about pricing. YOU have to make a higher price. PGD only host your images at low res and they have a sort of mail-system where they attract buyers. They do charge 20%, but for what ?? They don't do anything !!

If your image wasn't hosted by Photographers direct, or any other agency, would anyone buy it? No - because they wouldn't know it exists.