Stock Photographs: HI All My grand daughter is an amateur photographer, living in Alaska. She has taken some pretty nice images and I wanted to get some information on how she might go...

ClarkC

HI All
My grand daughter is an amateur photographer, living in Alaska. She has taken some pretty nice images and I wanted to get some information on how she might go about marketing her images for say "Stock photographs" or any other venue. Any information is appreciated. I've enclosed one of her shots taken this past winter.

Joecosentino Loc: Whitesboro, New York

Adobe stick, shutter stock, they will only pay from 33 cents to 99 cents depending on the person who is buying. Set her own smugmug page up but then she has to do SEO, and marketing.
I have 400 photos at adobe stock. And I make a little, there are lots of photos just like hers out there. So it’s a crap shoot on what photo the buyer decides.

This photo may be rejected because there is a logo on the cup? I had a violin sitting on sheet music you could barley see more than a couple of measures and it was rejected because of copyright infringement.

It’s always fun to see the e mail saying you have made a sale. So good luck to her
Joe

cascoly Loc: seattle

visit http://microstockgroup.com for extensive discussions of all aspects of stock photography - however, to make even a moderate income you need thousands of images and continual monthly uploads (you're swimming in a pool of hundreds of millions of images)

smugmug et al are great for making your own website, but even worse for actually bringing sales (after a lot of work, and monthly fees)

yet another approach (tho equally difficult to monetize) is http://FineArtAmerica.com

more on stock photography:
http://cascoly-images.com/pix/sell-your-photography/

Charlie157 Loc: San Diego, CA

There is a book called photographer's marketplace. They list places where photographer can sell their photos. They list stock agencies, type of photos the want, as well as terms of agreememt, ownership and sales. You can probably find it at Barnes and noble or amazon.

ELNikkor

Sorry, but I'm a little jaded by the "a billion nature photos to choose from for free or less than a dollar, hope they pick mine" approach, but if she wants to try, give her the info and turn her loose!

Seabastes

She might look at www.alamy.com which is a photograph portal that markets a photographer's images and takes commission of 60 percent and 40 percent for the photographer on non-exclusive images.

Stock photographer was once a lucrative option for photographers making a living, but that has changed and the income possibilities fairly limited. It can take thousands of images to see any appreciable income.

I would suggest that she go to Alamy and do a search on Alaska Scenics or what ever subject her images are.

Don't be surprised if thousands of images show up in a search. If her images could compete with whatever is already online with Alamy, she can make a decision as to if she wants to invest the time posting, captioning and shooting images that she can place with Alamy or other sites. Due to Microstock, many marketing sites only pay the photographer pennies on an image when sold. Do check out the information on Microstock listed on this subject discussion here.

I did a search on Alamy using the word Alaska and found that Alamy has over 400,000 images on the subject.

gasstro Loc: Indiana

I got on about ten different microstock sites about six years ago when I retired. I currently only get small profits from two or three. Sometimes you only get .25 for an image. I don't like that they don't tell you where the image goes. I stopped adding images after about six months, still sell a few, but the time it takes to upload, add keywords etc isn't worth the time when you consider how many images they have on file.
I have been on Fine Art America for about five years. They sell, print and package your image when it sells. I'll never make a living from it (made over $1,000 so far this year) but it's a great place to showcase your whole portfolio.

cascoly Loc: seattle

Charlie157 wrote:

There is a book called photographer's marketplace. ...

PM was a great source before the internet - now a google search will get the same.

microstockgroup.com lists the relative income photographers rec'd from MS the previous month and also has reviews of the agencies

there are actually only a few MS agencies worth submitting to (and they all pay low royalties) - shutterstock, adobe, dreamstime, pond5

as previously posted, alamy is no longer a great option - they've always had few sales - that was fine when you rec'd $300-500 per sale - but at the same or slower rate of sales, income is $5-15/image

for me, alamy is one of the lower performers

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

I attended a seminar years ago by a successful stock photographer. He told us that landscapes, wildlife, or nature photos just have too much competition. He recommended lifestyle or business photos with people as most profitable. He specialized in health care photos. He would approach hospitals or clinics and offer to shoot their people working. They got copies of the photos for their use in exchange for releases to sell them for stock. You need something there aren't already millions of great photos of.

richardsaccount

Joecosentino wrote:

Adobe stick, shutter stock, they will only pay fr... (show quote)

I remember some years ago reading a photo magazine article about the late great color photographer and Leica SLR user, Ernst Hass. His reply to a question concerning his possible involvement in stock photography was that stock photography "rots the brain". One man's opinion.

mflowe Loc: Port Deposit, MD

ClarkC wrote:

HI All
My grand daughter is an amateur photographer, living in Alaska. She has taken some pretty nice images and I wanted to get some information on how she might go about marketing her images for say "Stock photographs" or any other venue. Any information is appreciated. I've enclosed one of her shots taken this past winter.

Absolutely not worth the time. No photographers make money on stock images unless they have been well established for years. And even then they don't make much. The world is glutted with "pretty" images.

mflowe Loc: Port Deposit, MD

JohnSwanda wrote:

I attended a seminar years ago by a successful sto... (show quote)

spaceytracey Loc: East Glacier Park, MT

Seabastes wrote:

She might look at www.alamy.com which is a photogr... (show quote)

I signed up w/Alamy but they require a minimum of 17mb for their images! I have a few w/in this range but most of my work is around 4-12mb. Oh well.

cascoly Loc: seattle

spaceytracey wrote:

I signed up w/Alamy but they require a minimum of 17mb for their images! I have a few w/in this range but most of my work is around 4-12mb. Oh well.

it used to be 24 mb! yes, it's one of the silliest requirements of any of the MS agencies - and they still ban certain cameras as non-professional

you can use apps like Topaz gigspixel AI to upsize your images - i've used it for more than a year now and get results similar to the ones in their ads. i use it for low light days and interiors

Winslowe

richardsaccount wrote:

I remember some years ago reading a photo magazine article about the late great color photographer and Leica SLR user, Ernst Hass. His reply to a question concerning his possible involvement in stock photography was that stock photography "rots the brain". One man's opinion.

Actually, Ernst Haas switched from Rolleiflex to Leica rangefinders early in his career. He did not care for SLRs.