William Lund asked:


When my brother John started his photography business about 35 years ago…there was no such thing as an answering machine! Nor did individuals have fax machines…He remembers being very excited about getting a fax machine…because now an Art Director could send him a layout without using a bike messenger or Fed Ex!. Now, here he is shooting without film, digitally enhancing his images on a computer and delivering them via the internet.

For twenty years he shot assignments. A huge part of the business was marketing him self to ad agencies and design firms. Thanks in large part to his foray into digital manipulation of his images; he was very successful at his marketing. He was selling stock photos through “Tony Stone”, later to become Getty Images, and through “The Stock Market” along with my line of greeting cards being sold through Portal Publications. He was shooting assignments, but he was very picky and only took assignments that really interested him.

If you were an advertising agency you went to Tony Stone, The Stock Market, or a tiny handful of stock photography houses. There was no internet and thus no way for small businesses to easily purchase stock photos for their advertising needs.

After the dot com bubble burst he found him self without assignments for a couple of months…but it didn’t matter because he was making plenty of money with stock photography. One gig ended and another took over. Of course, today that industry is in turmoil…first royalty-free stock photos impacted the business…and now micro-stock. I even see pay per click ads that cost the advertiser money…advertising free stock photos! I guess he doesn’t have much to worry about that now because the prices can’t go any lower than that free!

I remember when it took a week and buckets of money to get a good print from a photo lab! Now, if I want to print a funny animal picture I just hit command-p on my keyboard and get almost free prints that are of far better quality than anything I used to get from the lab! I can make fine art prints that are even more archival than what the labs could offer right in my own office…and these prints are in my hands in just a matter of minutes.

A few years ago my brother bought a house…a beautiful house on a hillside overlooking a valley. He was surrounded by horses, deer, wild turkeys, and even bobcats and coyotes! He planned living in that house till the end of his days. A close friend cautioned him though, that he should not count on living there forever. “One day you will sell that house” he said. My brother laughed. As I write this He is planning on selling the house in the spring.

John’s greeting card business was growing like crazy. Each quarter his royalty checks were getting larger and larger. People loved the cards…the company was thriving and he was their number one greeting card artist. Still, a business consultant friend of his suggested that he create a worst-case scenario plan for his business just in case something went wrong. John found it difficult to do because he could not possibly see any worst case scenarios on the horizon. Eventually he forgot about the backup plan for his stock photo business.

Fast forward five years…the greeting card company no longer exists. It was purchased by a venture capital firm that made some bad decisions and the business for all practical purposes died. He is now with a different greeting card company and they are slowly rebuilding the business. One thing is different this time…he no longer assumes that the greeting card business will be around forever.

Two new 35mm digital cameras have just been announced…one by Nikon and one by Canon, that both shoot, in addition to extremely high quality digital stills, HDTV motion. Videos are becoming increasing popular…as evidenced by Youtube and other internet sites for sharing video clips. There is an emerging market for stock video clips.

The stock photography business is changing rapidly. More and more small business’s are turning to the internet and purchasing their stock photos online and even getting free stock photos! Digital cameras are not only prolific, but producing better images and in some cases they produce images of higher quality than you could shoot with a film camera.

I believe the future of stock photography is online. Photographers need to adapt to changing times and learn to market their work on the internet.

Who was it who said the only constant is change? That is so true…but he does have a method for coping with all this change. His secret is a good attitude and continuously reminding him self of the need to stay open and flexible.

Nicholas Normandy asked:


Stock Photo Portfolio Sites

A stock photography portfolio site is a site where people are able to buy as well as sell digital photos. To dedicate your time to such a site, you have to be truly interested in digital photography, enough to want to go out and take hundreds of photos everyday. Stock photography sites are useful not only to you, but also to a plethora of others as well. Buyers need stock photos in order to make their web pages, advertisements, art mediums, and anything else that requires visual aid. Those that benefit from buying your photos range from independent companies, personal businesses, and any other business that don’t want or don’t have the resources or funding to hire a professional photographer. Also, stock photography sites are a big help to freelance photographers. This is a way for digital photographers, like you, to make money or earn a living selling the pictures that they take. It depends on the work put into the site, but you can make anywhere from $1 to $500 per month, per site with payouts around 25 cents to dollars per photograph. How much you make really depends on your effort and the time you take shooting photos. To make around $500 dollars per month, however, you’re going to need a good digital stock photo portfolio that will show the quality of your work.

As a freelance photographer, you are going to need to know exactly how to set up a stock portfolio. The first step is to take hundreds, and eventually thousands of pictures. For how many photos you’re going to end up taking you had better love to take photographs. You will have to go through the process of eliminating photos based on lighting and angles and any other nit picky stipulations that make a great picture. You’ll end up taking many photos, with over half of them turning out badly. When you realize that you’re happy with the process of taking your pictures then you can begin to build your freelance portfolio.

How many pictures you need for your portfolio

One of the best ways of accomplishing this feat is to set a goal for you. This way, you won’t be discouraged when you first start out and you don’t just snap your fingers and produce hundreds of photos after only one session. You need to be able to get up everyday and complete a freelance photography session of at least 20 to 40 pictures. However, out of those photos you need to pick out 10 to 20 from the bunch that are of better quality than the others. Eventually, you’ll be able to better identify angles, lighting, and concepts for your freelance photography.

Once you reach a quota of about 100 pictures that you have taken, with no more than 3-5 repeated ones, you should be able to compare some of the more recent photos with the pictures at the beginning and notice some improvement. If you are consistent with your photography sessions, you will become a lot better and have a lot of work and original freelance photos to show for it. Eventually, through hard work and dedication, you’ll have the ability to shoot a hundred photos in one sitting and only throw out a few.



What to take pictures of

What you want to accomplish with your freelance photography is a collection of quality pictures. Like the saying goes, “quality over quantity.” Businesses that are going to be looking at your photography and perhaps purchasing some of them will want to be able to depend on your originality and quality. To ensure that you produce pictures of a good quality, you should shoot subjects that you’re passionate about. If you take pictures of sea otters and you don’t particularly like taking pictures of sea otters, then you will be less likely to make sure that the picture looks good.

However, if you take pictures of things that interest you then you are more likely to take your time and produce quality work. Finding a subject that you’re passionate about and expanding on that topic then you’ll make sure and find your photography niche. It’s recommended that for your first set of pictures you should choose one or two niches for your collection. This will narrow down the competition because if you take random pictures they’ll be white noise against the other photographers.

You need to be able to narrow down your subject matter in different ways than you are used to. Instead of just thinking about subjects like macro, portrait, geometric, or cityscape you need to be able to think in subjects such as decadent, noble, sensual, blue (colors), or futuristic. This will bring those businesses that are looking for a particular niche right to you.

Other things to know

Don’t include any signatures, marks, or logos on your picture to confine ownership

Make sure for modeling pictures, that the model signs off on submitting the photos be sold

Always have enough space on your digital camera; don’t be caught off guard

Keep researching and learning from those that are already more experienced in digital photography or, invest in and Ebook to help get started