How on earth can a photographer make money without stock?

[montyrakusen]

network, network, network, and supplement your stock photography with commission work. Some paid work will make the 'art' easier.

 

[Village Idiot]

I forget who's blog I read this on (I think it was Zack Arias), but there was a quote from one of the people in charge of one of the big Microstock sites that said they were running an unsustainable business.

Found it.

Entire article: zarias.com :: The blog of editorial photographer Zack Arias Microstock :: SIM Cards in Cameras & Big Foam Fingers

Now images starting for $1 are the “norm” and these companies can not sustain themselves. iStock CEO, Kelly Thomson, has a post on their forums about changes in contributors payouts. Check out this quote…

Since roughly 2005 we’ve been aware of a basic problem with how our business works. As the company grows, the overall percentage we pay out to contributing artists increases. In the most basic terms that means that iStock becomes less profitable with increased success. As a business model, it’s simply unsustainable: businesses should get more profitable as they grow. This is a long-term problem that needs to be addressed.​

​

 

[KmH]

Arias' web site has crap attached to it.

 

[Overread]

Arias' web site has crap attached to it.

oddly only some people seem to get warnings from his site and others don't. I've often wondered if his site isn't just giving out a false positive (eg like the incident TPF had recently with a link to bad site getting TPF badlisted) to some virus detection setups

 

[Village Idiot]

Arias' web site has crap attached to it.

What are you getting again and is it just from one page? I'll e-mail him and let him know.

 

[wesd]

Bottom line selling your work through stock agencies is not worth it. Even if you remain the rights to your work they will pay you very little for even top not h work because the field is so flooded with photographers. So you are better off blazing you own path nd finding you own way.
It's a very hard business if you are planning in selling work that you have already shoot. I hate shooting weddings and stuff but it seems like it is where the money is at. Find out what you want to do and keep running wig it.
Peaceout
Wes

 

[SimpleFoto]

Bottom line selling your work through stock agencies is not worth it. Even if you remain the rights to your work they will pay you very little for even top not h work because the field is so flooded with photographers. So you are better off blazing you own path nd finding you own way.
It's a very hard business if you are planning in selling work that you have already shoot. I hate shooting weddings and stuff but it seems like it is where the money is at. Find out what you want to do and keep running wig it.
Peaceout
Wes

well it all depends on the site. Some agencies such as Alamy give 60% to the photographer which I feel is quite fair. It is a big job trying to find buyers - if it was easy the photographers would do it themselves.

 

[StevenW]

Stock is out too many haystacks not enough needles and the needles aren't bringing in much money. I thought for a while about doing some speculation art work for a couple of local furniture stores. One specializes in western decor and here in Texas there ought to be plenty of western scenics to photograph. So, that idea got me thinking. Other than the specialty shop why would anyone from around here buy photographs of things from around here? We really don't need a photo of an oil well when we can look out the window and see three of them. What we don't see is snow capped mountains, sugar sand beaches, and light houses. I know the OP doesn't have capital but someone else might benefit from this notion. Take some artsy pictures from your neck of the woods then go somewhere that the topography is different and sell them. While you are there, take pictures from that region and peddle them in another. There are small town arts festivals all across the country and booth rentals are usually fairly inexpensive. I was at the state fair of Texas and a photographer had a booth showing exclusively wild horse pictures. He had about 300 different pictures taken in all seasons and areas, mountains plains and ocean fronts. He had about half a dozen frame styles, from rustic to elegant and modern. All the framed pictures were 16X20 and 20X24 and were marked $1500 and $1900 and of course were very limited. The smaller 11X14 of the same images were so much more avoidably priced in their shrink wrapped cardboard backed packages. I didn't see anyone take the framed pictures, the "sold" or "reserved" signs were probably there for effect, like the one obviously empty spot. People were snatching up the smaller pictures like they were a cure for the common cold.

Best wises on your endeavors
Steven

 

[KmH]

No one has pointed out that there are 2 stock photography markets:

1. MicroStock
2. Traditional Stock photography.

Microstock is characterized by Royalty-Free (RF) licensing, which doesn't accord the buyer very much in the way of use licensing, which keeps the price low, which means the photographer won't make much money either.

Traditional stock photography is characterized by Rights-Managed (RM) licensing. RM licensing is where some money can be made.

If you want to make more than just pennies per sold photo, you have to be with an agency that does RM licensing.

 

[orljustin]

No one has pointed out that there are 2 stock photography markets:

1. MicroStock
2. Traditional Stock photography.

Microstock is characterized by Royalty-Free (RF) licensing, which doesn't accord the buyer very much in the way of use licensing, which keeps the price low, which means the photographer won't make much money either.

Traditional stock photography is characterized by Rights-Managed (RM) licensing. RM licensing is where some money can be made.

If you want to make more than just pennies per sold photo, you have to be with an agency that does RM licensing.

Wow, that is so incorrect. Royalty-Free licensing tends to give the buyer perpetual usage for a wide variety of commercial uses.

Traditional priced stock includes RF, and RM, which can net tiny amounts or large amounts based on the usage, location, etc.

 

[dnavarrojr]

I got into Microstock many years ago because it was easy, I had a day job, and the extra income was just "extra income". So there was no performance pressure for me. Even now, the money I earn from Microstock is still just "extra income" as it's no where near enough to be significant (read, I don't work hard enough at it to make any real money from it). Still, I get enough from it that occasionally it pays for a new lens, or a light stand, or some other gadget I think I need. However, the best agencies to sell through are EXTREMELY picky about the images they approve and most of what I tend to shoot has been covered a few dozen times over. I have found more success shooting editorial content (concerts, police incidents, fires, accidents, etc...). They're much more forgiving of bad camera settings if the subject is right. I have a very noisy, wrong white balance, overexposed image on Shutterstock with over 600 downloads, including an Extended License sale to USA Today.

I am constantly on the "hustle" to make money. So I sell prints through some local Cafes and I found a local gallery willing to put up my prints and sell them on consignment. I also pay $20 occasionally for a booth at the local farmer's market in the spring/summer and sell prints there. I'm really big on doing one new type of job for free in order to expand my portfolio and then using that to get others to pay for similar work. Like you, I'm on a near-zero budget, so most of what I do for promotion doesn't cost money.

I'd suggest joining the local Camera Club in your area to meet and network with people. Take a stack of business cards with you to a park and take pictures of the kids playing, families doing stuff together and give them your business card with a link to where they can find your photos online and order prints. Find a Cafe and offer to do some "professional" food shots for free and give them web sized copies at no charge and sell them prints. I did that with a little Cafe in town that had a bunch of landscape and non-food related still life photos. I shot pictures of their signature dishes, coffee in their mugs, a milkshake, etc... and they replaced all the pictures on the walls with those I took of their food. A lot of customers now point to stuff and say "I'll have that". I also stuck a business card in the lower right corner of each frame and got calls from some other local restaurants.

I do 3D rendering and I did a series of skeletal renders. X-rays, spines, etc... I made a few of them into post cards, mailed them to every doctor's office I could find and sold about 35 prints that way. But I am thinking about hiring a model or two and doing some commercial type medical photos (smiling kid getting examined by a doctor, etc...) and seeing if I can get doctors' offices to buy those. You just gotta keep hustling and not give up.

 

[SimpleFoto]

No one has pointed out that there are 2 stock photography markets:

1. MicroStock
2. Traditional Stock photography.

Microstock is characterized by Royalty-Free (RF) licensing, which doesn't accord the buyer very much in the way of use licensing, which keeps the price low, which means the photographer won't make much money either.

Traditional stock photography is characterized by Rights-Managed (RM) licensing. RM licensing is where some money can be made.

If you want to make more than just pennies per sold photo, you have to be with an agency that does RM licensing.

Wow, that is so incorrect. Royalty-Free licensing tends to give the buyer perpetual usage for a wide variety of commercial uses.

Traditional priced stock includes RF, and RM, which can net tiny amounts or large amounts based on the usage, location, etc.

Agreed. Additionally the RF license that the micro's offer is much more restrictive than the very open RF license in the traditional market. The two markets are merging as well so it will soon be tough to distinguish between the too.
The reason RF is 'often' lower priced than RM is because you don't have exclusive use to the images, the images can sell multiple times and you could end up sharing the image with a competitor. That said if you don't need any exclusivity on a RM image and your print run isn't very large it can very easily be much cheaper than a RF image.

 

[KmH]

No one has pointed out that there are 2 stock photography markets:

1. MicroStock
2. Traditional Stock photography.

Microstock is characterized by Royalty-Free (RF) licensing, which doesn't accord the buyer very much in the way of use licensing, which keeps the price low, which means the photographer won't make much money either.

Traditional stock photography is characterized by Rights-Managed (RM) licensing. RM licensing is where some money can be made.

If you want to make more than just pennies per sold photo, you have to be with an agency that does RM licensing.

Wow, that is so incorrect. Royalty-Free licensing tends to give the buyer perpetual usage for a wide variety of commercial uses.

Only if they pay more for the commercial usage.

This is from the microstock agency Dreamstime: (my emphasis).

Web templates, greeting cards or postcards especially designed for sale, similar print-on-demand services, canvas, t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads or any other items incorporating the image in an essential manner, intended to be sold or given for free, are considered redistribution (if the image is used in an essential manner) and may not be created using the Royalty Free license. Instead you will need to use one of our Extended Licenses that grant you extra rights. For Web use, you must not use the image at a width exceeding 800 pixels.

From iStockphoto, essentially the same thing saying Extended licensing (not RF) has to be purchased for commercial usage.

iStockphoto offers two types of licenses: the complimentary Standard and a set of Extended Licenses to suit your specific needs.

 

[epp_b]

i think being creative is a big deal in this business

That's half of it. The other half is being willing and able to market yourself.

 

[Tryfan]

My experience so far ( I have around 200 images on various stock agencies) is that I don't think I will be able to give up my day job in the foreseeable, Not a bad little earner, and the most surprising images seem to generate the most money.
Most sites give you the chance to see which images have been downloaded the most which is a great guide to what's selling.

Good luck ... it seems to me , to be all about numbers.