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Posts Tagged ‘Microstock’

How to Make $500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

09 Jul

I am an amateur photographer, but I make around $ 500 in revenue from my photos each month. Photography is a hobby for me, but it can be an expensive hobby at times. This money pays for photography software, computer hardware, and lenses, so the hobby I love doesn’t cost a dime. This article will discuss how I did this with microstock, and provide tips on how you can do the same.

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

Making your first buck

In 2010, I wanted to improve my photography so I purchased an entry-level DSLR and started to actively study how to become a better photographer, mainly from resources on the internet. As I tried different techniques, compositions, and camera settings, I posted my photos to sites like Flickr, Facebook, and 500px. In the beginning, I didn’t get very many views or likes but still enjoyed posting and learning from other photographer’s photos on those sites.

After shooting, learning, and posting for two and a half years, a design company saw a photo of mine on Flickr and asked if they could purchase a commercial license. I did a couple of quick searches about licensing and pricing on the internet, then sold my first commercial license for $ 75. This is the first photo I ever licensed.

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

Pay for your hobby

Before this first sale, I hadn’t considered selling licenses to my photos. However, I had gotten to the point where I wanted to upgrade my entry level DSLR and lenses to a full frame system but couldn’t justify the cost for my hobby. However, I could justify the cost to myself (and my wife) if the money for the upgrade came from licensing my existing photos.

Microstock

So, I started researching photo licensing and learned about microstock sites. These sites are websites that act as an intermediary between buyers of photo licenses and photographers. They are called “micro” because they typically sell photo licenses for less than where professional photographers have historically set their prices.

As a result, there is a lot of negative information about microstock sites on the Internet. Despite this negative information I decided to try posting my photos on Shutterstock, one of the most popular microstock sites. At the time, I had only made one sale ever so I felt that getting a small payment for each sale was better than no payment at all.

The first month I made less than $ 10 with 55 photos accepted by Shutterstock. However, I kept uploading my photos when I had time. A monthly later I had 100 photos on the site. In my third month, I checked my stats one morning and found I made $ 56 dollars from selling extended licenses from these two photos.

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

A work in progress – keep at it

This was a bit of beginner’s luck because after that I didn’t have a day with more than $ 50 in sales for many more months. But it kept me motivated to continue uploading my photos to Shutterstock and even upload to multiple other microstock sites as well.

I also started uploading my better photos to art-on-demand sites like Fine Art America. These sites allow you to upload your photos, set a price, and create a storefront for anyone to purchase prints of your photos. When someone purchases the art, these sites handle the payment, printing, and shipping of the photo and send you money from the sale.

Lastly, I upgraded my photo blog to sell licenses directly from my website. Despite the fact that my photos are available on all the popular microstock sites, stock photo buyers continue to see my photos on social media and purchase licenses directly from my website.

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

Realistic numbers – don’t expect to get rich

Two years after my first photo license sale, my monthly revenue from photos was about $ 500 a month. This $ 500 is an average, with my biggest month was $ 1400, while some months have been lower. Now that my photos have been posted, they can continue to get sales indefinitely. In 2016, I did not have much time for photography and only posted eight photos over the course of the year. However, I still averaged $ 460 a month in revenue from the photos I had posted in previous years.

These revenue numbers are for all the photos I have posted online. I only post my best photos from each day out shooting. My current online portfolio of all my photos is around 700 total. Microstock sites don’t accept all of my images, so on some of the sites, I only have 300 photos accepted and up for sale there. Doing the math, my photos earn less than $ 1 a month on average (per photo). And in reality, it is even less because I have one photo that has earned over $ 4000 over the years, while others have gotten no sales.

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

However, I am fine with this because I take the photos I want to take and then post to stock sites to see if they sell. Photography is still a hobby and the pleasure it gives me comes first, making money is secondary. Often, the photos I like best are not the best sellers on microstock sites. For example, I prefer the photo of me and my shadow below because I really enjoyed making it, but the snapshot I took of a split trail while on a hike, sells much better.

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

What sites work best

Although I have posted a portion of my collection to over 20 sites over the years, all of these sites can be categorized into one of two types; microstock and art-on-demand. 75% of my photography revenue has come from microstock sites, while only 8% came from art-on-demand sites. The remaining 17% is through direct sales from my photography website.

I have tried a number of art-on-demand sites over the years but currently only post to Fine Art America because it is the only site where my images consistently sell. I have also tried many microstock sites. Typically, if I hear of a new one, I will upload 100 of my best photos to begin. If I start to get sales, then I will upload the rest of my collection. Here are my top five microstock sites based on earnings. I currently only post to these five sites as I have found the other ones aren’t worth the time it takes to post the photos.

  • Shutterstock
  • 500px
  • Fotolia / Adobe Stock
  • 123RF
  • Big Stock Photo (Owned by Shutterstock)

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

Last tips for you

If you are an amateur photographer who wants to make additional revenue from photo licenses, here are the steps you can take:

  • Post your photos to social sites. My favorite is 500px, but I have also started posting to Instagram, and I still post to Flickr, which was my favorite a couple of years ago.
  • Setup your own photography blog. My blog does not get as many photo views as my social sites, but all my social sites link back to my photo blog. It makes it easy for potential buyers to purchase licences if they see them on social media. I used Squarespace for my blog because it was easy to set up in one day.
  • Upload photos to Shutterstock. Most microstock photographers who post their revenue on the web list Shutterstock as a top earner. So it is likely that if your photos will sell, they will sell on Shutterstock more than other sites, making it a good place to start.
  • Upload photos to other stock sites. Once you see some success on Shutterstock then go ahead and post your top photos to other microstock sites.

How to Make $  500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock

Conclusion

It has been seven years since I decided to take photography seriously and I have improved a lot over the years. However, I still have a lot to learn, but these days the software, courses, and gear that help me make photos are all paid for by revenue from the sale of photo licenses, rather than out of the family budget from my day job.

 

NOTE from the dPS team: Check out our Going Pro Kit with more stock photo success tips and other ways to make money through your photography

The post How to Make $ 500 a Month From Your Photography Hobby with Microstock by James Wheeler appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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7 Benefits of Doing Microstock Photography

03 Nov

I have to confess, it took me a while to get myself to do the exercise of actually sitting down and filtering through my old photos, to find those suitable to submit to a microstock agency to start selling. Finally, I did it, but boy how I wished I did it much earlier, back when I heard about microstock photography, the very first time.

DPS 1

But wait a minute, what’s microstock?

Unlike large stock photo agencies like Getty, microstock agencies are where photographers can license their photos to be sold as royalty-free images. This means buyers can use the photos they bought, without having to pay a royalty (or licensing fee) every time they use them. I won’t get into much detail on this, as you’ve probably heard of thing called “Google” by now, go ahead and read more about it.

For us as photographers, what are the real benefits to selling our work as microstock? Below are seven benefits from my own experience. However, you may find even more benefits yourself. So here we go:

1. It improves the overall quality of your photography

The reason for this is simple: Microstock agencies have strict guidelines for accepting submitted photos, in order to maintain quality. Guess what that means? Yep, you will have to actually put some efforts into taking those photos.

Every microstock agency is different, but generally speaking, things like noise, bad composition, bad lighting, weird color cast (wrong White Balance), out of focus, and blurry are pretty common reasons of rejection. This will definitely keep you on your toes as a photographer, and will force you to pixel peep your images carefully before submitting them. If that’s what the reviewers do, why waste time submitting a photo that won’t get approved? I can’t tell you how much it improved me as a photographer.

DPS 2

2. It pushes your creativity to new levels

There comes a point as you go through a microstock website, searching for similar photos when you think, “oh man, is there any idea that’s not thought about already?” This will make force you to actually brainstorm more creative ideas, to come up with images that no other contributor has submitted yet. Do I have to tell you how drastically this will improve your overall photography thinking process? Forget stock, this trains your eyes to see differently, and your brain cells to sprint a little harder.

3. It makes use of unused photos

While some shots you will need to purposely take for stock, others are just what you can find in your archives. If you are anything like me, you probably have hundreds, if not thousands, of unused photos laying around, taking up more disk space, let alone backup drives and cloud services. While these extra hard drives and backup services are becoming cheaper every day, the cost still adds up with time. It won’t be long before you realize you have terabytes of RAW and JPEG files, not to mention the hassle of fiddling with many hard disks.

DPS 4

Have you ever thought about putting your unused photos to a good use? Well, you know the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. You won’t believe how many of those photos can be used by others. They could save someone’s day somewhere on this planet. So, instead of keeping them buried down in the hard drives, dust them off, polish them a little, and if you think they meet the criteria, put them to a good use. Who knows, they might end up paying for their own recurring cloud backup expenses.

4. It gives your hobby a purpose

Hobbyist or not, you are likely into photography because it’s what you love to do. If you are not a pro who is getting paid to do photography, justifying staying up late editing your photos to your non-photographer spouse, or explaining slowing down on that family dream vacation to your kids, can be a little too difficult to do.

DPS 5

Let’s be honest, this is an expensive hobby, so selling your photos to microstock agencies is probably the easiest way to not only make a few extra bucks on the side, but to add a goal and purpose to your photography. On the other hand, if you are a pro, I’m sure those extras shots that you couldn’t sell and don’t need anyone’s approval to use, will hold some commercial value, so why not?

5. It is as demanding as you want it to be

Selling your photos as microstock is, well, almost like running your own mini-business, minus all the struggles that come with a full-blown business, while keeping some of the advantages. As is the case with running your own business, it’s up to you how much time and effort you want to pour into it, and subsequently, how much return you will get. The good news is, you can speed up or slow down as conveniently as you want. You are in complete control of the process, especially when this is not your main income. What’s not to like about it?

DPS 6

6. It can bring you satisfaction and fame

Have you heard of Google Images search? Once you started selling your photos, go ahead and search on Google using one of your images and see for yourself where, and how many times those photos of yours are being used. Your mind will be blown away by the places that your photo might end up. Don’t be surprised if a friend one day sends you a snap of a famous magazine with your photo beautifully used in it. Go ahead and brag about that to your heart’s content, use it to your advantage, and show the world that you have published work.

7. It gives you a little bit of extra cash on the side, almost indefinitely!

I kept this for last for two reasons:

  1. I didn’t want you to just focus on the money part and miss the other amazing benefits.
  2. I wanted to keep the best for last! Not only will selling your photos as microstock make you a better photographer and bring you satisfaction, it will also give you a few extra bucks on the side.

Did you notice how I bolded and underlined the word “few”? Unless you have a big team of professional models, makeup artists, wardrobe artists, and are doing this as your main job, you will probably not make that much money, because after-all, microstock agencies in general don’t pay very much. For instance, as a contributor to shutterstock.com, I only get paid 25 cents per download. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, in fact, if you think about it, this is only per download per image. If you have enough high quality images, with high commercial value, you will soon witness the numbers add up.

DPS 7

To put things in perspective, if those few extra bucks at least pay the cloud backup charges instead of draining you, or give you some extra cash to buy some accessories online, then this whole thing is very much worth it. Here’s the good news, your portfolio will continue to grow over time and with that, your photos will continue to bring you cash during your sleep almost indefinitely.

Why almost, you ask? Well, because some photos may go out of style, or will be overused by so many designers, blogs, and publications, so you will need to keep updating and adding more photos to your portfolio to keep it fresh. This should keep the income flow somewhat steady, if not improve it over time, especially when you start to analyze and learn the ins and outs and what sells more than others.

Conclusion

I wish I had someone open my eyes to these benefits a long time ago – so here you go, I hope I’m opening yours. If you are already a microstock photographer, or can think of other benefits, I would love to hear and discuss them with you in the comments section below, maybe you will open my eyes to something I’ve not seen before myself.

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The post 7 Benefits of Doing Microstock Photography by Momen Khaiti appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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Microstock Agency Review – Photaki

11 Feb

It has been some time since visual content demand has risen on the internet, and with that some new business models have appeared, one of them being microstock. In the last years, quite a lot of microstock agencies have been created, an interesting option for contributors (photographers, graphic designers or illustrators to say some) and image buyers alike. Creative minds Continue Reading

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Microstock Photographer, Ed Hidden: How’d They Do That?

11 Dec

Adorama Photography TV presents “How’d They Do That” featuring Ed Hidden. In this episode, Mark talks with Ed who shoots stock photography for iStockphoto. Ed will give some tips on shooting stock photos. He even talks about studiolighting.net and his podcast LightSource. For related articles and videos, go here: www.adorama.com Visit www.adorama.com for more videos!
Video Rating: 4 / 5

 
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FotoTV: Microstock Photography (Long/PT2)

08 Oct

FOTOLIA WORKSHOP WITH YURI ARCURS (PT2) ******************************************************** FotoTV has been invited to visit the Fotolia Workshop “SPEND A DAY WITH YURI ARCURS. LEARN TO SHOOT WHAT SELLS” on the 6th of December 2008 in Berlin (Germany). The result is an amazing movie about Yuri Arcurs the most successful Microstock photographer worldwide. The clip contains very interessting statements in regards to Microstock photography and Yuris know-how, his way of working with models and workshop participants and provides impressions of the entire Fotolia workshop. More cool clips on FotoTV www.fototv.de More information and videos here blog.fotolia.com and many more cool clips on FotoTV http
Video Rating: 4 / 5