Originally posted by Jome Hello dear fellow Pentaxians,
I just wandered if an amateur like me could sell some pictures and if yes, on which sites?
I have seen that it could be possible to do it with Alamy, Dreamstime, Adobe, Getty.(others?).
The idea behind this is to help me to sustain my LBA.
What are your preferred one and why?
Thank you to let me know.
Kind regards.
J.
Hello!
The short answer is yes, you can make money by uploading images to stock agencies.
The long answer is more complicated. In a recent survey it seems that more than 70% of the contributors will quit during the first year. The reason is simple, they make around 3-5% of the money they are hoping to make when they start uploading.
Stock photography has nothing to do with shooting what's in front of you and upload. If you think like this then you're going to be dissapointed.
I did that for an entire year and I barely made a few $ each month. Then I changed my approach due to some discussions with some top contributors which are making 6000$+ each month. Uploading to stock means:
1. Shooting what's on demand
2. Editing based on trends
3. Finding proper keywords and description (this is a very important part)
4.Timing when comes to upload
5. Focusing on one or two categories
6. Making strategies when comes to shootings and uploading
I'm focusing on people lifestyle since February and the 301 images uploaded this year make me between 450$ and 650$ each month from all agencies. 100$ are reinvested each month in models and accessories for shootings. I ussualy split the costs with models and props with another photographer.
Another important thing to consider is that each agency has its own particularities in terms of keywords and description. iStock/Getty for example has it's own vocabulary which is completely different than the one from Shutterstock or Bigstock.
My advice is to start with Bigstock, Adobe stock and Shutterstock and after you will gain more experience go for iStock, Alamy. These are the ones I would go for and maybe for Dreamstime also.
To me, this is like a second job because I "work" 6-8 hours/week for microstock looking for trends, finding articles with my images and extract from there keywords that I consider relevant, experimenting when comes to editing, etc. and in the same time is one of the best ways to go out, meet new people, socialize and take photographs.
My initial plan when the passion for photography started to grew was to do something that will cover my expenses. Today, photography which include microstock, corporate events/corporate portraits, brunches not only that pays my expenses related to gear, models and props for shootings, but it cover also 2-3 vacations in Europe each year. I'm not living from photography because I have my own training company that provide my monthly income, but this hobby does have financial benefits.