Selling stock photography

Fr Tod Umptious

Hi
Just wondering if anyone here is selling stock photography online and how are they getting on with it ?

I have a decent enough collection of shots (~500) I have taken since I got a DSLR about 7 years ago and it eventually dawned on me to put them up on stock sites.
Otherwise they are just sitting on a hard disk somewhere, rarely ever viewed.

Mainly of the local Kerry landscape but a few more exotic ones from South America also

I stuck a few of them (~200) on Adobe Stock and was surprised that about 10% of them so far have already been approved and are available, with more still to be reviewed
I was really surprised with some of the ones they accepted, some were ones that I personally thought were very average.

Other sites I have not been so lucky with, some ask for 3 (Alamy) to 10 (sutterstock) for initial submission
Alamy rejected all three, and sutterstock rejected 6 but seem to be happy with the other 4

I don't expect to make much, if anything at all, out of it but I'll keep snapping away and keep submitting.

A lot of places seems to advise against over "editing" and prefer shots in their most natural form, so it's not that time consuming or difficult to just upload and hope for the best.

dinneenp

Personally I think it's a hard game.
Many images on stock sites are 100% taken with stock photography in mind- e.g. a cup of coffee.
For 'Ireland landscape' there over 38,000 results so hard to get selected from that bunch (I know yours are Kerry but keywords are vital and presume 'Ireland landscape' is included).

I have a few with Getty images and get the very odd sale. However the money you get from them is much larger than with some sites, maybe micro stock images? It's still only 20% of the sale or something like that but an image can get in the hundreds so the amount you get is decent).

Why don't I upload more? Because it's time consuming & there's a ocean of photos for any topic out there & on some sites you get cents for each use.

In theory you could spend a solid weekend (or longer) submitting and then it's done. Nothing to lose except the initial time. There's loads of articles debating if it's worth getting into. And maybe getting into are the key words- some people take photos specifically to submit to stock agencies. Maybe not exciting, fun to take but shots that sell.

Good luck,
pa.

dinneenp

Personally I think it's a hard game.
Many images on stock sites are 100% taken with stock photography in mind- e.g. a cup of coffee.
For 'Ireland landscape' there over 38,000 results so hard to get selected from that bunch (I know yours are Kerry but keywords are vital and presume 'Ireland landscape' is included).

I have a few with Getty images and get the very odd sale. However the money you get from them is much larger than with some sites, maybe micro stock images? It's still only 20% of the sale or something like that but an image can get in the hundreds so the amount you get is decent).

Why don't I upload more? Because it's time consuming & there's a ocean of photos for any topic out there & on some sites you get cents for each use.

In theory you could spend a solid weekend (or longer) submitting and then it's done. Nothing to lose except the initial time. There's loads of articles debating if it's worth getting into. And maybe getting into are the key words- some people take photos specifically to submit to stock agencies. Maybe not exciting, fun to take but shots that sell.

Good luck,
pa.

Fr Tod Umptious

dinneenp wrote: »

Personally I think it's a hard game.
Many images on stock sites are 100% taken with stock photography in mind- e.g. a cup of coffee.
For 'Ireland landscape' there over 38,000 results so hard to get selected from that bunch (I know yours are Kerry but keywords are vital and presume 'Ireland landscape' is included).

I have a few with Getty images and get the very odd sale. However the money you get from them is much larger than with some sites, maybe micro stock images? It's still only 20% of the sale or something like that but an image can get in the hundreds so the amount you get is decent).

Why don't I upload more? Because it's time consuming & there's a ocean of photos for any topic out there & on some sites you get cents for each use.

In theory you could spend a solid weekend (or longer) submitting and then it's done. Nothing to lose except the initial time. There's loads of articles debating if it's worth getting into. And maybe getting into are the key words- some people take photos specifically to submit to stock agencies. Maybe not exciting, fun to take but shots that sell.

Good luck,
pa.

Thanks for that

From what I have read Getty Images are the cream of the crop, and not surprisingly the bar for getting accepted is much higher than the micro stock sites.

Right now my attitude is that I’ll submit what I myself deem submit-able from my current collection and going forward take more shots with a view to submitting, and if they earn anything great, it’s no huge deal either way

Too many of my good photos are lost in folders on hard drives or cloud backups somewhere, it’s not a bad thing to have them out in the open and available at the end of a url.

dinneenp

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Too many of my good photos are lost in folders on hard drives or cloud backups somewhere, it’s not a bad thing to have them out in the open and available at the end of a url.

There should be a public gallery and when anyone who loves photography their other half should make an exhibition of photos they never showed. A celebration of their 'hidden' photos.

pjproby

You should sign up to this discussion group. Probably all the information you want is there.

https://www.microstockgroup.com/