Felisa Rosalba asked:


You don’t have to be an experienced photographer, or someone who knows how to sell stuff online, to make money from your photographs. But you do need time and motivation to learn new things.

Is stock photography the best option for someone who wants to make money with photography? Most photographers say yes. Creating simple photos that can be used to illustrate online articles, or to be used in advertisements, is something that can be learned easily.

Regardless of what you like to photograph – portraits, animals, landscapes or people – you have the opportunity to offer your stock photos to hundreds of people. You can sell the same photograph multiple times, and make money. It all depends of what agency you select. For the so called macrostock, or traditional stock agencies, you’ll probably need more quality shots, and be more experienced photographer. If you prefer to be paid less, but with a greater chance of making your first sale in the first week or month of your photo business, then choose micro-payment stock agencies.

The most important thing is to create photos which can be used by webmasters, designers, small business owners and advertisers. Stock photographs are not art. Remember that. For some people this is bad news, but even in stock photography there’s enough room to be ‘arty’ and creative. Take a look at those photos in the “Abstracts” category, for example.

Make sure your photos are bright and colorful, and that there’s no noise or over-filtering. When your photo gets rejected don’t waste your time complaining on forums, move on and create another photo. Who knows, that photograph might end up to be in the top 100 bestsellers on a popular stock agency site.

And now, you can learn more about how to Make Money Taking Photos. You can also read tips for Making Money in Photography

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John M. Lund asked:


I firmly believe that now is the most exciting time ever to be a photographer, and to be shooting stock.  There are more tools and more opportunities than ever before. The playing field has been leveled.  The demand for images, and consequently stock photography, is exploding. 

Of course, there is more competition than ever before, a glut of photography in the market place, and tremendous downward pressure on prices.  Still,

over all, I believe the opportunities outweigh the difficulties.  Let’s take a look at some ways to get a stock career going in these exciting times. 

To succeed in stock photography think long term

There isn’t a professional photographer I know who doesn’t look back at his early work and cringe at least a little bit.  I know that while there are images from early in my career that I am still proud of, there are definitely images that are embarrassing.  Even now there are at least four images in my Getty collection that I actually wish they would take down.  Oh well.  To actually be able to earn a living from stock is going to require a significant body of work.  That will take time to build up. While you’re building up your body of work there are other, at least in my opinion, important steps to take.  

Create a web presence 

Get a web site up to showcase your work.  Optimize for the search engines.  There is no doubt in my mind that there people looking for stock photos will increasingly be looking for and finding stock pictures on the web sites of individuals as well as agencies.  I personally am preparing for that by migrating my images on to my site and providing links to the agencies that carry them.  If you want to, or need to, market and license your images yourself there is an increasing array of tools to help with that process.  It is getting easier and easier. 

Create images that are needed 

Study the market to find out where the holes are.  I am guessing that the market does not need a lot of businessmen on cell phones.  But there are plenty of images that the market does need.  Find those holes and fill them with images that you have passion about shooting. Study the images are used in magazines, on book covers, bus shelters and on the web.  

Search the web and search on the agencies to see where there is a need for images.  Put yourself in the shoes of someone looking for an image to advertise your business.  Just yesterday I put myself in the shoes of a business owner and searched to see what I could find.  I started out imagining myself as the owner of a dry cleaning business.  I came to the realization that, at least in my mind, there is a definite need for images in that business sector.  

It is amazing that with the unfathomable number of images out there, the number of "holes" is so encouraging!  Also, there is always a need for concept images such as "teamwork", "success", "standing out from the crowd" and others that are new and different.  You can’t go wrong with quality concept images. 

Focus on Quality 

Quantity is important, but quality is more important.  Quality content is increasingly vital.  In the early days of stock quality was not an issue.  It is now.  Recently, Yuri Arcurs, the world’s top micro stock shooter, who has also been shooting traditional stock for a year now, told me that he believes shooting successful micro stock is more difficult than shooting for traditional stock, that the standards are actually higher.  Whether that is true or not, the quality bar has been setting awfully high.  Consider it your job to raise that bar even higher. 

Slow and steady wins the race 

As you create your quality, relevant, images, submit them to agencies, post them on your own site, optimize that site, and stick to it.  Like the tortoise and the hare, one day you will wake up and realize that all the time and effort have been worth it.  You will be your own boss, can work from anywhere at what you love to do, and have an income stream that is only limited by your willingness to do what it takes.

Murray Edwards asked:


Stock Photography – Part 2

In an earlier article, Stock Photography – Part 1, I discussed the basics in getting started in business of stock photography. Deciding what topics or areas in which you what to specialize, and the requirements around performing commercial or editorial photography.

Here in Stock Photography – Part 2, I will cover how you may want to provide and control the use of your images, Royalty-Free (RF) or Rights-Managed (RM). Naturally, you want to make the most from your hard work and effort so make this decision wisely. RF and RM have many differences, be sure you understand the distinctions.

Should you decide that Royalty-Free is the route you prefer then here’s what you need to know. Unlike many professionals, I have no problem with RF licensing, long as you price the image properly. In the RF model, you will normally set the price by the size and resolution of the image. Small, low-res images which are used typically for websites are priced at the lowest rate. These images run in the sub-1MB range at 72 DPI, with longest side somewhere in the range of 6 inches. High-Resolution licenses will provide your customer with a image that is somewhere in the 8-20MB or larger at 300 DPI with the longest side being whatever your camera produces.

Royalty-Free licenses for stock images are normally used for commercial purposes and you will be required to produce the proper releases. Also be aware that when your client requests an RF license, they can basically use that image in any manner that they wish and can publish it as many times as they desire. As long as you understand that in essence you have lost a good deal of control and potential revenue from that image, then providing RF licenses is a good way to go.

Let’s take a look at a few pro’s and con’s of RF license.

Pro’s: With RF licenses you have the ability to re-license a stock image as many times and as often as you like. There are no exclusive rights issued, so a image could be used by several publications or people at the same time.

Con’s: Since you cannot provide any form of exclusivity with RF, the amount you can charge for a license is normally much less than what you can for a Rights-Managed license. So, as I indicated earlier, be sure that you price appropriately. Lack of image control is the main con for RF licenses. One other con, once you have decided that you are going to offer an image as RF then you cannot at a later date decide to make it Rights-Managed. How come? In most cases, RM licenses provide some form of exclusivity. Your client would rather upset if they paid you for rights to usage, then saw the image in another publication. Remember, in RF, anyone could have downloaded the image many months prior to use and can publish it as many times as they want.

Moving on to Rights-Managed licensing for stock images. Pricing is quite a bit different in this model. RM can be used for both commercial or editorial. Where RF is normally priced by image size, RM on the other hand is priced by type of usage and production run. You can provide special usage rights to your client, exclusive or non-exclusive, in the case of editorial usage a release may not be required. Typically, most professionals will use some form of RM calculator to determine the proper rate to charge for a license.

For a example, the rate you would charge for a publisher wanting to use an image exclusively for 6 months, ¼ page, with a production run of 50,000 would be much higher than a publisher having the same requirements with non-exclusive rights. Why? That image is now locked up and cannot be used by anyone else for 6 months.

This is the biggest difference between RF and RM, you have much more control in the manner in which your image is used and you can charge more for the license.

So, here’s the decision you will have to make, offer up your stock images at a lower cost via RF in hopes that you can license the image multiple times or be select on how the image can be used, charge more, but license less.

For the most part quantity does not always win out.

In the final two installments, I will be discussing workflow and how do you plan to go to market.

Abhishek Agarwal asked:


Stock photography refers to photographs taken by groups of people that are licensed and grouped for selling. Every time a need for a photograph arises, instead of taking a new one, people resort to stock photography. People working for magazines, in advertising agencies, and as graphic artists often use public pictures in place of photographs taken by hired photographers for projects.

Stock photography is also known as photo archives, image banks or picture libraries. There is usually a small fee for purchasing usage rights to use these pictures. Very often, membership is provided to purchase certain groups of pictures.

Stock photography saves a lot of money and time and is a terrific way of enhancing blogs, newsletters, company brochures, advertisements and more. It works out to be less expensive when compared to hiring a full time photographer and also saves time when searching for specific images. It is almost as easy as checking mail or using some search engine.

In some cases, full usage rights are available on purchase. In other cases, the rights are limited. Usually in such cases, the photographer requires that a definite percentage of the sales be given to him. Stock photograph agencies normally hold photographs in files to negotiate fees. Negotiations are much quicker with the internet.

The price of using a stock photo depends on where and for the duration for which the pictures are going to be used, whether the photographer wants royalties and also the number of people the picture will be seen by or distributed to. Prices can vary from as less as a dollar to two hundred dollars.

Pricing arrangements can vary. If a stock photograph is free of royalty, then the buyer can use it many times in many ways. On buying a royalty free picture, you can use it unlimitedly on a single payment. Also the agency selling you the picture, can sell it to other buyers too. On the other hand, a rights managed image will have a negotiated price for each usage.

Certain buyers might want to have exclusive rights over the image. Once an exclusive right has been bought, nobody else can use the image. Usually exclusive rights cost a lot of money, as the agency selling must make sure that they are getting a sufficient profit out of the deal. This is because in some cases, a photograph can make more profit if it stays in circulation than if someone purchases exclusive rights over it.

Certain stock photographers’ work exclusively for agencies. A number of images are required for different categories. Sometimes the photographers work for different agencies and sell their photographs for a fee. This has proved to be a great business for many photographers.

Stock photography can be traced back to the 1920’s. By 1980’s it had become a specialty. Many galleries hold a number of photographs for purchase. By 2000, stock photographs online became so huge that they came to be known as photo archives. Bigstock photo and istock photo offer many opportunities for using many pictures under a certain credit. Online photographs are usually less expensive than the ones sold hard copy.

www.fotolibra.com and www.shutterpoint.com have provisions for stock photographers to sell their photos. It is a terrific way of selling your pictures and making a profit. These websites also sell the pictures. You can find just about any picture you want in the stock photograph sites.

Murray Edwards asked:


What is stock photography? Simply put, it’s taking a group of images, placing them in a library in hopes that at sometime in the future, the image or many others will be purchased or licensed by someone. Here is your challenge as a photographer, what subject matter? Who knows? I’ve licensed images that I thought would never be of interest to anyone and ones I thought would have never been viewed or licensed.

Puzzling, my advice, you must have an intensive library or database of stock images on topics that you are familiar. My current library exceeds 60,000 of images of the Southern United States. After twenty years in the business, publications that I have worked with know that this is my specialty. I get emails almost daily from various publications seeking images of travel locations, events or the nature that call the south home.

What does this mean to you? Specialize, if you do not, you will get lost in the millions of other generic images that are found anywhere on the World Wide Web!

Here are a few more questions you will need to address. Are you going to shoot for the commercial, editorial marketplace or both? Do you plan to offer your images as Royalty-Free or Rights-Managed? How’s your workflow? How are you going to market?

Specialization – Is there a subject matter that you consider yourself an expert or that you have a good deal or knowledge? If so, then maybe this is the area that you should focus. Go to your local book store and scour through the magazines, check the ones that correspond with your interest. Can you provide the type of images found in the pages? If not, then work on your style or composition.

Commercial – If you plan to provide images for the commercial marketplace, then you be required to have the proper releases. Personal or property releases are necessity. Carry pocket releases with you. You can’t be bashful, you will find that most people, once you explain what you do for a living are more than willing to sign a release. To date, I have never had anyone refuse to sign one. You might offer them a copy of the picture as some form of compensation.

By the way public places are a sort of no man’s land. There is really no right to privacy while taking shots in a public location. Walking down a street, large public events, where the multitudes gather, fill free to shoot. But should you stop in front of a restaurant and take a photograph of the people sitting inside, then guess what, you will need a release.

Editorial – Since editorial images are basically used to tell a story, inform, used in textbooks and other publications of that nature, releases are seldom required. I’ve only had a couple of situations where a publication has asked for a release. 

Best advice, if you are out taking photographs have an understanding of who you plan to offer the image.

John M. Lund asked:


Jack Hollingsworth is one of the most well known names in stock photography. An early and very successful pioneer in RF, Jack not only sells stock through Getty, Corbis and his own site, but was a founder of BLEND images as well as Red Chop Sticks and IndiaPhotos. Jack has been described as “Indiana Jones with a camera” due to his constant world travel. Jack teaches, lectures, blogs and has a column in Shutterbug magazine.

John:    You have a reputation as someone who is a pioneer, who doesn’t shirk from change, but embraces it and certainly someone who is an entrepreneur at heart.  I believe you are also a realist.  In my book, these qualities make you someone who is well suited to dealing with the current market realities. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of stock?

Jack:    I’m optimistic about the future of everything.  Stock is going through a difficult time right now but it will be back.  There will always be a need for images.  It might not come back in the same way we knew it, but it will be back.

John:    My strategy is two fold:  Make the best, most relevant images I can, then get those images in front of as many potential buyers as possible.  A huge part of my plan is the development and optimization of my web site. Can you share your strategy for dealing with the future?

Jack:    Online.  The web is everything.  The web is the center, the hub of the wheel that all the spokes radiate from.  You have to learn to use web 2.0, learn the tools, learn to explore and exploit what the web has to offer.  I am revamping everything,  my blog, my site, everything from the ground up.

John:    Do you see the consumer as a viable potential client?

Jack:    Yes!  I don’t yet know how to reach them, but there are millions, and millions and millions of them well beyond the channel of commercial distribution.  The money is in getting the photography in front of the consumer.  This is an entirely new kind of market.  There are 60,000 to 80,000 commercial buyers of stock in the world.  That number doesn’t really change.  Now, with a push of a button, we can reach a billion people.  Think about that!

John:    I do think about that!

Jack:    We are at a crossroads, an intersection.  Very few can continue to have the cool lifestyle of shooting stock that we have had.  Now it is about reaching the consumer.  It is about building community and then monetizing it.  People don’t get this: Our future success has little to do with our past but rather what we do from today on. It is not about your past, what you shot before.  It is about what you do from now on.  It is about what you shoot now, and how you shoot it. You can’t rely on your legacy. You can be a Micro celebrity on the net in 12 months.  It is about developing a fan base.  With a fan base of 1,000, or maybe 5,000, you can make a good living.

John:    Micro, RF or RM…or some combination?

Jack:    Add footage to that as well.  All of them are going to be around.  It isn’t either or, it is a little bit of everything.  Some people will do all of it, some will do two or three of them.  You have to find out what works for you, what you love to do and then do it. My priority is first footage, then Rights Managed and then a split between RF and Micro.

John:    How about prints?  Are you planning on getting into that arena?

Jack:    Yes! Possibly through Imagekind, or something like that.  Right now I am going through my collections cherry picking the images that I think would make good print sales.  I really believe in merchandising.  I have big plans for what people can do with my images.  It can be coffee mugs and that sort of thing or it can be a whole lot more. We don’t even know all the ways people are going to be using photos.

John:    Jack, you are undergoing a major re-branding with your website.  When do you think you will have that ready for us to see?