earn money from your photos

Great thread.

http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?searchterm=fork&anyorall=all&searchtermx=

 

Who cares who will pay $0.20 for a photo of a fork. What you guys need to be asking yourselves is who will pay $200 for a photo of a fork.

Who will pay $2000 for a photo of a fork? There are people that will.

Don't crawl with the bugs. Fly with the eagles!!

 

I dont know, im confused...I mean....Cant I just put some up there anyways? and sell them as prints to others anyways?

 

what is the gain from selling stock photos? arent you proud of your work? your name is no longer attached to that photo once you sell it to these people.

its just my opinion, but thats the antithesis of why i take pictures.


just my .02 cents


md

 

Lol, your 2 cents has convinced me, and given me an idea..

 

Good point!

Personally, stock photography does not interest me. I have a "personal relationship" with my work and I am not comfortable with the idea of someone using my work to get their end product. I feel it is so impersonal (the fact that they would use it); more like prostitution.

This is just my opinion.

PS: Thanks Matt. Lately I have been thinking about taking down couple of pictures that I personally like, from istock. Your words just allowed me to make the decision.

 

Ok, here's some math-lite for those who are still thinking of selling their work for .20.

The guy who "trolled/advertised/spammed/posted" the original link stated that he has made around $75. He has 67 pictures in his gallery.

Now, most of us know that most photographers take multiple shots and pick the best one out of the bunch. So, if you wanted to make 67 great shots, you might have to take between 120 - 200 shots in order to get the *best* shots possible.

That's a lot of work for $75.

Now, we also don't know how long it took to make $75. It could have been one month or 3 months.

The other horrible thing about these cheapy sites, is that you're in competition with thousands of other photographs. So, in order to get your .20 the person downloading has to look through a thousand or so pictures to get to yours (unless you're on one of the front pages).


And chances are, if you are a hobby photographer or an art photographer, you won't want to take time out of what you enjoy doing in order to take pictures of keyboards, forks or businessmen shaking hands . . . etc.

 

im glad that you and arty are taking pride in your work. i think stock photog is great for graphic designers and companies on a limited budget, but for me personally, and alot of others on this forum...we all take these pictures to remember, not to dish out to a stranger so that his kitten in a jar website will be springing to life with top notch photography. ive seen your work dan, and its amazing, so is arty's. you both take pictures for the livelihood of your soul, not for .20 cents.



md

 

Its not the .20 cents Matt. I did not post my images in istock to really "earn" money. .20 is nothing! Istock was and is just a fun thing for me, but no more fun with photographs that I love.

And thanks for the kind words re. my work. But I know I have miles to go.

 

haha, if you have miles to go, then that means im on the wrong continent.


we will ALL get there sooner or later.

md

 

MD your words have really inspired me, and screw Istock (sorry for the harsh words) no art, even my rubbish art, is worth just .20, for me thats about 9P, and...NO! lol

I still have a few lightyears to go just to reach you MD.

(Congrats on having a strong opionion against this, sometimes I wish I could see the tree's through the forest)

 

i have a strong opinion about everything. :twisted:


arty, keep snapping dude, youll get there.



md