Making Money From Your Photos

[RockNGoalStar]

I wondered if any of you submit any of your photos to any of the stock photo sites out there? Eg. Shutterstock.

Are there any downsides to doing so and is it possible to make good money out of it?

I'm not suggesting for one moment that my photos are good enough for this, but if it's a worthwhile venture then it maybe something to aim for.

Does anyone have any experiences of this and if so, which sites would you recommend?

cheers,

Tom

[Donald]

Tommy

I don't ever recall a discussion on here about it. That doesn't necessarily mean that no-one does it.

There must be money made on it or these things wouldn't get the photographs submitted. Be worth doing a trawl round some of them to see what their terms and conditions are for accepting images.

[ilovelucydog]

Hi, Tommy!

I used to frequent another forum where, like here, most people were photo enthusiasts,but there were a number of professional photographers that made a bulk of their living from their photography business... senior pics, families etc., and then there were several that supplemented their income quite nicely from selling their images on various photo sites. I don't remember any complaints that were anything other than minor.

[tbob]

I have some images on a stock site (this one : www.istockphoto.com/search/portfolio/3942545/?facets={"25"%3A"6"}#8bc336d ). Have made a grand total of $50 in two years but the process of having to be judged on technical and acceptability aspects has been a boon to my photographic skills. They won't critique the image; it's thumbs up or down but you will learn from rejection to be self critical (I currently run at 40% rejection rate so as you can see a pro I am not.

The road to riches it may be for some, however I occupy a pretty small niche of old farm buildings and the commercial appeal is probably limited. Either that or my images are crap but I elect to believe the first statement

[tbob]

Really not good at this linking stuff, the site istock and my portofolio is under contributor tbob if you care to look. One day I will be able to be adept on these forums.

[RockNGoalStar]

Interesting stuff, thanks for the replies.

I guess you have to look at photographing things with as much commerical appeal as possible. I bet there are people who pretty much make it their business to do just this. So just uploading the odd photo that you think is nice is probably not going to get you much reward...

[hoddo]

I submit but currently only to alamy. You need a huge quantity of images to start seeing any return, it also depends upon your images. Flowers, you'll join the ranks of millions of contributors so don't expect sales often. However, there's really no magic gun that can guide you to what you should shoot to obtain an income.

My advice is look at mags etc and see what they're buying and copy that and submit all your work for a buyer may be looking for something you have hidden on your hard-drive. If all our images do is sit on our hard-drive then get them 'out there' where they at least stand a little chance of providing the odd sale fee.

[GW Greg]

http://www.dphotojournal.com/sell-photos-online/

Found this article may be helpful.
Greg