Does anyone sell their photos on stock photography sites?

[c_pass]

With my day job, I find myself using shutterstock alot for stock images...

Do you put your photos up on these sites and do you make any kind of profit from doing so?

Nikon D5100

 

[MTVision]

I looked up shutterstock and it says you can make .25 up to 28.00 per download as a contributor.

 

[honoryourlife]

So is there some sort of review process? Like how do you go about sending them stock photos and I assume they own the photos?

 

[c_pass]

Thanks MTVision.

I was wondering if you or anyone currently do it or have done it in the past?

Nikon D5100

 

[spacefuzz]

microstock is a tough tough buisiness to get into. I looked at it for a while but in the end my photography was worth more in the fine art market. If you have some want to be model friends though, they always love shots with people in them so you might be able to break into the market that way.

 

[JG_Coleman]

With my day job, I find myself using shutterstock alot for stock images...

Do you put your photos up on these sites and do you make any kind of profit from doing so?

Stock photography, at least through micro-stock agencies, is an extremely challenging way to make money. Royalty-free images go for such incredibly low prices these days that unless you can manage to sell hundreds -if not thousands- of times per year, you'll make next to nothing. Or, I should say, you will not even cover the costs of your time and equipment.

There ARE people that make some decent cash selling royalty-free, but it should be understood that these individuals:

a) have stock portfolios of thousands of images that cover a wide range of subjects

b) have incredible shots that cater directly to market trends (i.e. oftentimes they shoot specifically what customers want, not necessarily what they enjoy shooting)

Most often, the people that have true success in micro-stock fulfill both A and B!

The bare-bones reality is that VERY FEW photographers are industrious enough to make enough money for micro-stock to be a worthwhile endeavor.

So is there some sort of review process? Like how do you go about sending them stock photos...

There is indeed a review process for every micro-stock agency. Generally, you must first apply. This application process will vary from agency to agency, but usual involves sending them some number of photographs such that they can review the overall quality of your work. If they don't like what they see, you will be rejected.

If they do approve of your work, they will admit you. But, understand, it isn't as if you simply add your photos at will afterwards. When you get accepted, you're basically given an account and a control panel at which you can upload all your subsequent photos for review. Every single photograph that you submit will be reviewed... and either be accepted or rejected.

...and I assume they own the photos?

The micro-stock agency DOES NOT OWN YOUR PHOTOGRAPH. You maintain your copyright, but merely license the photograph to customers through the agency. They take a cut (oftentimes a pretty big cut) and give the rest to you. You can offer "exclusivity" to the agency, whereby you are legally obligated to license the photo ONLY through them, but the photo is still owned by you. This will usually get you more profit.

All in all:

There are a rare few that do REALLY GREAT through micro-stock... but suffice to say, they are so rare that you will probably never meet one. Most people are very lucky to pull-down a couple hundreds bucks a year. The ordinary person that gets accepted into any given agency will probably make a miserable pittance... selling rarely and ultimately have a stock portfolio that collects "digital dust". The micro-stock market is driven by trends... and only those photographers that are extremely flexible and on the pulse of those trends will make any real money.

 

[KmH]

JG_Coleman alludes to the fact that there are 2 kinds of stock photography agencies, and 2 kinds of use licensing.

The microstock outfits like Shutterstock, Fotolia, iStockphoto, Dreamstime, Bigstockphoto.

Then there are the stock agencies like Getty Images, Alamy, and Corbis.

Microstock agencies mostly sell RF use licenses (Royalty-Free)

Royalty-free (RF)
"Free" in this context means "free of royalties (paying each time you use an image)". It does not mean the image is free to use without purchasing a license or that the image is in the public domaine.

• Pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times for multiple purposes (with limits).
• No time limit on when the buyer can use an image.
• No one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he or she wants).
• A Royalty-free image usually has a limit to how many times the buyer can reproduce it. For example, a license might allow the buyer to print 500,000 brochures with the purchased image. The amount of copies made is called the print run. The buyer is required to pay a fee per brochure, usually 1 to 3 cents, for additional prints. Magazines with a large print run cannot use a standard Royalty-free license and therefore they either purchase images with a Rights-managed license or have in-house photographers.

The big stock agencies mostly sell RM use licenses:

Rights-managed (RM)(sometimes called "licensed images")

• The value of a license is determined by the use of the image, which is generally broken down along these lines;
  • Usage: (e.g. Advertising - "Above the Line", Corporate - "Below the Line" or Editorial - "News Media")
  • Specific Use: (e.g. Billboard, Annual Report, Newspaper article)
  • Duration: (e.g. 1 month, 2 months, 1 Year, 2 Years etc.)
  • Print Run: (e.g. up to 10,000, up to 1m)
  • Territory: (e.g.; USA, Europe, UK, Germany, or whatever combination of territories are required)
  • Size: (how big is the image to be used - 1/4 page, 1/2 page, full page, or double page spread)
  • Industry: (Industry type - e.g. Consumer Electronics, Marine Engineering, Financial Services etc.)
  • Exclusivity: (Exclusive, or Non Exclusive)
• The terms of the license are clearly defined and negotiated so that the purchaser receives maximum value, and is protected in their purchase by a certain level of exclusivity.
• Rights-managed licenses provide assurance that an image will not be used by someone else in a conflicting manner. The agreement can include exclusivity, and usually recognises that this represents added value. Not all Rights-managed licenses are exclusive, that must be stipulated in the agreement.
• A Rights-managed image usually allows a much larger print run per image than a Royalty-free license.
• Editorial is a form of rights-managed license when there are no releases for the subjects. Since there are no releases the images cannot be used for advertising or to depict controversial subjects, only for news or educational purposes

 

[Overread]

Personally I think you'd make a lot more taking a few good landscape pics - printing and framing them and then hanging them in a local teashop with a price - one sale from that (minus any commission from the shop) and chances are you'd make more than you would with dozens of photos in micro stock.

 

[McNugget801]

I use Getty.

 

[Josh66]

I have a few images on a couple microstock sites... Yes, you can make some money - but it's not much.You could make more on a single print sale than you would all year selling on microstock sites.

 

[imagemaker46]

I supply to a agency in Japan that makes me some ok money every year. All sports and only Japanese athletes. If you find the right stock agency you can make money, if you find the wrong agency they make money, you don't.

 

[mavrik]

There are a rare few that do REALLY GREAT through micro-stock... but suffice to say, they are so rare that you will probably never meet one. Most people are very lucky to pull-down a couple hundreds bucks a year.

I just thought I'd say hi! I am not exactly Yuri or Lise, but I make a good part of my living through stock and microstock and run the 2nd most popular microstock blog. I end up making around $10k a year on microstock and another few k a year on midstock and some macro/specialized stock.

Everything above is pretty accurate, though. It's pretty hard to make a "living" at micro and I'm glad it's not the only thing I do. I do upload shoots because I enjoyed shooting them so when and if they don't sell, that's ok by me. I shoot weddings & portraits for the majority of my living and don't upload anything from those. I sometimes do my own model shoots (TF normally) and I do a lot of graphics and food photography. It's a living.

That said, it's a little late to the party. Micro is ... fluttering. As one top TOP contributor just told me yesterday "unsustainable" is the word of 2011. Many of the top shooters (Yuri, Lise, iofoto, VVS, MBI) are transitioning into other markets and the top shooter I'm talking about has been making $12-20k a MONTH for 6+ years in the business.

Unless you want to devote a good portion of time to micro, it is a waste of time. The message about "thousands" of images is accurate. I have about 4000 accepted images with the sites I contribute to (which include all the major ones.)

 

[Joel_W]

I've lookied into the micro stock agencies, and the odds of making any money decent or otherwise is slim for the average person. Shutterstock pays .25 cents per sold picture for single use. If that isn't bad enough, you have a open account that they credit your sales to. You don't get paid until your account reaches $75. That translate into 300 sold images. the odds of you actually having 300 pictures sold is slim to none unless you dedicate all your spare time to taking pictures of what sells, and that's not the type of pictures you most likely take. What hot now is girls buying from retail stores. Now while your accumulated sales is posted to your account, they invest part of it, and keep what funds fluid as needed. So basically they're earning the interest on your money. Now a few dollars here or there doesn't sound like much, but multiply that by the literally thousands of photographers, and it's a nice income for them. What's more, many people eventually give up, and they forfeit any funds left in their account once it becomes inactive.

Basically, it's no win situation for the masses. Sure, in every field there are people who make money, but the vast majority don't make a penny.

As for getting your work accepted, everything gets reviewed. At the beginning you're only allowed to submit 10 pictures at a time. Each picture needs to be perfect. Shutterstock loves to reject work for white balance issues.

Bottom line is save yourself a lot of time, and grief and don't bother, as you'll never make a dime.

 

[KmH]

First, stock agencies don't sell photos. Stock agencies license photos.

Second, the are 2 main kinds of license - Royalty-Free (RF) and Rights-Managed (RM).

Third, a single stock image can be licensed multiple times 100's or even 1000's of times.

Fourth, take into account there are different types of stock agencies. Shutterstock, iStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, etc are microstock agencies that specialize in low cost RF licensing. Getty Images, Corbis, Alamy, etc are stock agencies that offer both RF and RM licensing.

RF pays pennies. RM pays dollars.

The stock photography industry has changed massively over the last 10 years. It was once a pretty fragmented, boutique type of industry that could be quite lucrative for photographers.
Getty started buying agencies up. Then Bill Gates, richest man in the world at the time, started doing the same thing (Corbis)

Today, it's tough to make a buck doing stock photography.

 

[thedigitalpro]

I purely submit a few photos to istockphoto every once in a while to support the purchase of further images from the same site. Probably make around $100 a year but then convert to their credits and buy ones for my own projects. It would take serious investment to make any serious cash.