stock photography?

toofarjimmy · Oct 25, 2009

hey i'm traveling to India next month and going to take heaps of photos, I have a great eye but no business sense and wondering how to go about selling the images as stock photos. Any suggestions?

KmH · Oct 26, 2009

If you want to sell your images directly to stock image users, you'll need a web site and an advertising campaign to let them know a new stock image source is available. You'll be competing with Getty Images, Corbis and all the microstock agencies.

If you want someone else, Getty, Corbis, or microstock, to market your images, you first need to decide if you want your images available as Rights Managed (RM) images or Royalty Free (RF) and then submit your images to the appropriate type of stock house, and hope they are of sufficient technical quality to be accepted.

Any Stock image user and/or stock houses will require properly executed/witnessed model and property releases for each image as appropriate, before they will buy/accept.

Getty Images has blank versions of their model and property releases online in a variety of languages. Carry plenty of each.

Did you see the recent story about the amateur photographer whose stock image was used on the cover of Time magazine? His cut of the usage fee was $30.

Have a good time on your trip.

JamesMason · Oct 26, 2009

Did you see the recent story about the amateur photographer whose stock image was used on the cover of Time magazine? His cut of the usage fee was $30

Do you have a link to this ? or know where it was published ?

Writing a dissertation on Microstock and this would be pretty handy

bigtwinky · Oct 26, 2009

Google is your friend. Ironicly, the Time edition was about "the new frugality" and they paid $30 for a cover image, which would normally be in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

http://images.mediaite.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/times-new-frugality.jpg

Image owner post on MM:
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=480730

Link to the image:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-6465698-coins-in-the-glass-jar.php

Articles:
http://open.salon.com/blog/future_of_journalism/2009/07/29/photog_thrilled_to_get_peanuts_from_time
http://www.mediaite.com/print/times-30-cover-photo-cheap-now-expensive-later/

Interesting comments:

“Who is the IDIOT that is happy he got paid $30 for a TIME cover? I have had TWO EDITORIAL TIME FRONT COVER STORIES and I can tell you that once the money runs out YOU CAN”T BLOODY EAT THE MAGAZINE! I am sorry but anyone that accepts this kind of payment has absolutely destroyed the viability of this industry.”

"“Congratulations Robert, you’ve just become the poster-boy for exactly what is wrong about iStockphoto. A stock rate previously known to be $3,000 for the cover of Time Magazine you just sold for $30 – a 99% discount. After all big “wins”, the winner usually gets asked where they’ll go to celebrate. I’d ask you where you’re going with that dough, but you can’t even go to Disneyland, like winners in the past. I know, as I was just in the Disney Store an hour ago buying tickets for the trip I can afford to Disneyland because I don’t make the dream of the profession of stock photography into a nightmare as you have done."

But: Robert pointed out in his initial post that the benefits of a Time cover tearsheet had immense value to him quite apart from a higher payday (even, say, double!). Which is true — the benefits of having a great clip or tearsheet or ongoing platform for visibility are hard to dismiss. More and more, this is becoming institutionalized: On sites like the Huffington Post, Guest of a Guest, Gawker, the Awl (and, yes, this one), certain contributors will gladly offer their content for free in exchange for the platform it gives them (for the eye-rollers out there, NB: Even the New York Times is doing it, via the “Virtual Assignment Desk” for their “The Local” blog). The new realities are different: Barriers to entry are lower, and competition is stiffer in a more crowded field, often with a less-discerning audience. Quality takes money and time; in some cases, it’s just not worth it.

KmH · Oct 26, 2009

bigtwinky said:
Google is your friend. Ironicly, the Time edition was about "the new frugality" and they paid $30 for a cover image, which would normally be in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

http://images.mediaite.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/times-new-frugality.jpg
Image owner post on MM:
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=480730

Link to the image:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-6465698-coins-in-the-glass-jar.php

Articles:
http://open.salon.com/blog/future_of_journalism/2009/07/29/photog_thrilled_to_get_peanuts_from_time
http://www.mediaite.com/print/times-30-cover-photo-cheap-now-expensive-later/

[/QUOTE]
Time paid much more than $30 for use of the image. $30 was the photographers cut from the sale.

Moonb007 · Oct 26, 2009

Jimmy, check you PM as I sent you a message.

They used an iStock image so they paid a lot more then $30 as Time bought an extended license. I am sure the user got paid more then $30 too for that image....although typical images sell around a $1 a piece.

RedPixel · Jul 12, 2013

KmH said:
If you want to sell your images directly to stock image users, you'll need a web site and an advertising campaign to let them know a new stock image source is available. You'll be competing with Getty Images, Corbis and all the microstock agencies.

If you want someone else, Getty, Corbis, or microstock, to market your images, you first need to decide if you want your images available as Rights Managed (RM) images or Royalty Free (RF) and then submit your images to the appropriate type of stock house, and hope they are of sufficient technical quality to be accepted.

If you're not sure what "Rights Managed" and "Royalty Free" mean for you as a stock photographer, this article does a good job of explaining the basics.

Competing with popular stock photography sites is no easy feat. You'll want to make sure the stock photo website you create looks professional, and the quality of the stock photos are very good. If you aren't familiar with SEO (search engine optimization) and what keywords to use with each of your photos, consider getting help from an SEO professional. Optimizing your website and stock photos for search engines means your site has a better chance of showing up in natural search rankings on relevant search engine results pages - i.e. when people search for a stock photo relevant to a stock photo you have on your own site, a link to your website comes up high enough in search rankings that a potential customer will see and click on it (most Google users don't look beyond the 2nd page of search results, some stop at the 1st page - which means you want your website to show up in the top 20 search results).