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How to Make Money With Your Photography (From Fine Art America)

02 Oct

The post How to Make Money With Your Photography (From Fine Art America) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

Have you ever wanted to sell your photos, but the process seemed too time-consuming or even overwhelming? Does making stress-free money from your images sound appealing?

Then you should explore Fine Art America, a company that takes artists from creators to full-blown entrepreneurs – practically overnight.

Fine Art America is designed to get photography businesses off the ground. FAA lets you sell photos online and create merchandise directly from its online platform with zero hassle, zero equipment, and zero time spent performing thankless customer service tasks.

Instead, with Fine Art America, you can concentrate on making (and uploading) great art. Best of all, it’s free.

So how can you get started making money with Fine Art America? Below, I share the simple, four-step process to create an account and add products. It takes about sixty seconds, so there’s no reason not to do it – just follow the instructions below and sell some art!

(By the way, if you’re an art buyer and you’d like to see some of the best work Fine Art America has to offer, then check out their featured artists.)

Step 1: Create a Fine Art America account

A Standard Fine Art America account is free, and it’s insanely easy to set up.

Simply head over to the FAA website, then identify yourself as an artist:

Add your name, address, and email:

Then set up your artist profile:

You can invite other photographers to join Fine Art America, so feel free to add emails and hit the Invite Friends button:

Step 2: Upload images to sell

Now that your account is active, you can add a profile picture, join groups, and join contests. You can also create content for your profile page, such as an About section, events, or even blog posts.

However, if you’d like to start selling right away, tap the Upload Image button.

Use the browser to upload the image you’d like to sell, then add a title, medium, category, and more:

At this point, you have the option to simply submit your work with the default products and markups. However, I highly recommend you check out your list of options, as I explain in the next section:

Step 3: Determine your products and markup

Here’s where things get exciting, because in this section of the selling process, you set your own prices; you can also customize your products as you see fit.

Scroll down and you’ll notice plenty of product types, including:

Prints
Greeting cards
Throw pillows
Tote bags
Phone cases
T-shirts
Towels
Coffee mugs

For nearly every product, you have the option to make adjustments. For instance, you can change the image size, the product color, and (sometimes) the image orientation.

creating a product with Fine Art America

You also get to determine the product prices. Here, Fine Art America displays the product base price (which includes the cost of materials, handling, etc.), and you get to add markup, the money that will go directly to you when a purchase is made.

You can set a custom markup for every product, but that would take a long time. My recommendation is to use the default, or recommended, markup for your products unless you feel very strongly that it needs adjusting.

Once you’re pleased with your decisions, go ahead and tap Submit:

And your photo will instantly go up for sale. If you have more photos to upload, you can always select the Upload Image option again, or even the Upload Multiple Images option (which is a slightly faster way of handling up to five files).

Note that, when an order is placed, you don’t do any of the processing, packaging, or shipping. Fine Art America handles all the heavy lifting, while you simply enjoy!

At this point, you have the option to sit back, relax, and wait. But if you’re serious about making sales, I’d recommend taking a more proactive approach and marketing your products.

Fortunately, Fine Art America features plenty of promotional tools. In addition to selling through the FAA website, you can promote your work on Facebook, add an FAA-linked shopping cart to your own website, design emails to send out to prospective buyers, and post press releases on the Fine Art America press release page.

Remember how I said that Fine Art America is free? Well, it is – but you can upgrade to a Premium account, which offers a few benefits over the Standard (free) account.

For $ 30 USD per year, a Premium account lets you use the website shopping cart feature I mentioned above, and it provides access to the marketing email function. It also lets you design your own website (which you can use to sell prints and merchandise). And with a Premium account, you have no product cap; uploads are unlimited.

The Premium account isn’t for everyone – after all, you get most of the same features with a free account – but if you’re interested in selling via a website of your own or you want to create marketing emails, the Premium account is a must-have.

How to make money with your photography: final words

If you’re like many photographers, Fine Art America is exactly what you’ve been looking for: an easy way to sell images without tons of product costs, time on the job, etc.

And if you’ve made it this far, you know that getting started with FAA is painless (and maybe even a little fun!).

So head over to FAA and make an account. It’s quick, it’s easy, and you’ve got nothing to lose!

Plus, while you’re at it, check out the Fine Art America best artists; they’re sure to offer plenty of inspiration.

Fine Art America is a paid partner of dPS.

The post How to Make Money With Your Photography (From Fine Art America) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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Film Fridays: Are premium 35mm compact cameras a waste of money?

31 Jul

Photo: Dan Bracaglia

Back in the 1990’s virtually every camera manufacturer produced a line (or multiple lines) of premium autofocusing pocket cameras. Many of these cameras packed excellent optics and great metering into impossibly small, easy-to-use bodies, making them perfect for capturing spontaneous moments.

These days, with the resurgence of interest in film photography, these premium compacts are fetching high asking prices on the secondhand market. So are these (mostly) fantastic plastic pocket cams worth their asking price? Our pals at Kosmo Foto investigate…

Read: Are premium 35mm compacts a waste of money?

About Film Fridays: We recently launched an analog forum and in a continuing effort to promote the fun of the medium, we’ll be sharing film-related content on Fridays, including articles from our friends at KosmoFoto and 35mmc.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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How to Make Money With Photography and How Much Can You Expect

28 Apr

Live your passion. That’s what you’d like to do, right? Spend your days doing what you enjoy? Unfortunately, you gotta eat and do adulting things like paying bills. For that, you need money and your passion might not be good enough. Or is it? There are many ways to turn your passion for photography into an income stream. None of Continue Reading

The post How to Make Money With Photography and How Much Can You Expect appeared first on Photodoto.

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Find great cameras for less money in our updated ‘best bargains’ buying guide

02 Mar

We’ve updated our ‘best bargains’ buying guide, which features both newer cameras that we think are great values, as well a few older models that are inexpensive yet still very capable.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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How Building a Portfolio Career as a Photographer Can Earn You Money

01 Mar

The post How Building a Portfolio Career as a Photographer Can Earn You Money appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

When you’re starting in business as a photographer, it can be tough to find a reliable income. Often jobs will be unpredictable as to when they come in – and getting paid can be even more of a guessing game! Building a portfolio career is one way that you can counteract the unpredictability of being a freelance photographer.

Diversifying your revenue streams right from the start is a way to build a more predictable income. By having multiple diverse but related sources of income, you can mitigate ups and downs in each revenue stream while having a photographic career that allows you the freedom to shoot several different subjects.

ISO400, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f4, 1/80th sec

Lay the foundation

Start by mind-mapping around the fields of photography that you love.

Try to think of every possible source of photographic income that those fields might have, no matter how big or small. All of these could contribute to building a portfolio career.

Out of everything you’ve written down, highlight all of the income sources that could be done on a regular contract for someone else. The first income stream that you need to provide a solid foundation for is one that is both regular and guaranteed.

Ideally, this regular, but potentially low paid work will cover all of your essential bills. And when I say essential, I mean putting an extra jumper on and eating beans on toast all month.

ISO200, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f4, 1/80th sec

You could consider jobs like real estate photography, nightclub photography, or in-house product photography. None of these options will set your creative soul on fire, but they will still provide a stable foundation for you to start to build your career.

Build the walls

Now you start to do the kind of photography that you want to do. You’re looking for options in your mind-map of ideas that could be regular but might not be quite as reliable as your foundation income.

This might be where you consider incomes like freelance product photography, portraits, or weddings.

All these income streams can be a little unpredictable, at least for the first few years of your career. On top of that, some kinds of photography, like weddings, can be quite seasonal.

Headshots have been a reasonably reliable income for me over the past five or six years. They’re great because I can do them either at home or on location, and I can be available at reasonably short notice!
ISO400, 100mm, f3.5, 1/125th sec, natural window light

Over time, this income can become more regular. You’ll find that clients come back again and again if they love the pictures and the service! Eventually, you’ll be able to drop the initial low-paid but regular work that you sought in favor of this better-paid income stream.

Put the roof on

Between your foundations and the walls, you’ve got the beginnings of a significant portfolio career. Now you want to look at the well-paid occasional jobs that buy the luxuries like foreign holidays or serious gear upgrades.

Look back at your mind-map once again and think about what large, one-off gigs there might be available to you with your current skillset. You might be able to offer portrait photography at a large business conference, for example, or be on a list of photographers who shoot portraits for magazine interviews.

You’re looking for the high-ticket jobs that are sporadic. They can’t provide a reliable income because of the very nature of the work, but they can offer you good-sized cash injections now and again. It could be a yearly job or one that comes up every few months. But the unpredictability means that you shouldn’t count it as part of your regular income.

Each month I try to set a day aside to create unique and creative stock imagery for use on book covers and the like. It doesn’t provide regular sales, but when these images do sell, they pay well!
Both images shot with a beauty dish in the studio.

Business networking meetings can be an excellent place to find these jobs that will help with building a portfolio career. Often you’ll talk to someone and hand over a business card, and you’ll hear nothing for months. But when they do eventually call, it can be for a sizable job, so make sure you have some sample quotes and an idea of what you might charge for different scenarios.

You don’t have to think of every possible situation and make a fantasy quote for it, but have a few that you can adapt with a couple of days notice for the kind of jobs you’d like to do.

Start a nest-egg

Once you’ve established a good income, it’s time to make your photos work harder and build a long-term passive income. You can start to look at options such as stock photography to assist you in building a portfolio career.

For almost the last fifteen years, I’ve been building up collections with various stock libraries. It is a slow process, but worth it when you start to see regular payouts a few years down the line.

You can shoot images specifically for stock libraries if you have some spare time to fill. Many libraries will regularly publish lists of the kind of content that they’re looking to obtain from photographers. If you shoot what’s on the list, you should start to see an income quite quickly. If they’re asking for various subjects, it means that clients are asking for them!

Image: These two images were shot back in 2007 and are amongst my best earners in all that time! The...

These two images were shot back in 2007 and are amongst my best earners in all that time! They consistently make me small but regular sales and have always done so. Both of these images were shot on my Mum’s kitchen table – just showing you can earn anywhere!

You can also reuse images from other shoots that you’ve done, sending them to the stock libraries once you’ve completed the job. Be sure to check your contract, or check with the client if they’re okay with you doing this, but people rarely say no.

An example might be that if you are booked to shoot a fantastic local food market, the client might also allow you to upload these images to stock libraries. You might then look into a specialist food stock agency if you’re shooting this kind of content regularly. In time, you’ll become well-known as a photographer in this field.

Above all, just get started

You can only start your photographic career if you’re willing to put yourself out there and start looking for work. The most important thing is to start somewhere, even if you’re not quite sure where the best place to start is. You can work out the details later.

Try to look for income streams in all of the brackets above. That way, you won’t be putting all of your eggs in one basket. You’ll be protected if one income streams dries up unexpectedly for a while.

ISO200, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f2, 1/600th sec

Conclusion

This approach to a photographic portfolio career has enabled me to alternatively increase and scale back my income as and when required. It also helped me to build a solid base that wasn’t tied to any particular location, which means I can work from almost anywhere in the world!

If you’re thinking about building a portfolio career for yourself in photography, tell us about what your specialisms will be in the comments below. We’d love to hear about your plans!

The post How Building a Portfolio Career as a Photographer Can Earn You Money appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

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Flickr increases Pro subscription price after warning the company is losing money

23 Jan

Flickr has notified its Pro subscribers about a price increase that brings the current annual rate to $ 60, a ten dollar increase over the previous $ 50 annual fee. Customers are also offered other plan options, such as a monthly subscription for $ 7, a three-month subscription for $ 19 and a two-year subscription for $ 118.

The price increase is not surprising in light of CEO Don MacAskill’s impassioned plea for more Flickr Pro subscribers published in mid-December. In it, MacAskill explained that parent company SmugMug didn’t acquire Flickr because it is a wealthy company — in fact, MacAskill says, ‘Flickr was losing tens of millions of dollars a year.’

Despite the work that SmugMug put into Flickr, MacAskill had explained that the company was still losing money and that it needed more of its users to sign up for the Pro subscription. This subscription offers a number of benefits for users, including unlimited storage, ad-free browsing, discounts from partners, access to advanced account states, priority exposure in the service’s Explore section and more.

The price increase went into effect yesterday, on Tuesday, January 21. Existing Pro customers are given the option of immediately renewing their plan at the lower price using a link in the notification email sent to users. In explaining why it decided to increase the price, Flickr points toward MacAskill’s December letter and states that the company ‘cannot continue to operate at a loss.’

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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11 Tips for Shooting Travel Stock Photography to Make Money

30 Sep

The post 11 Tips for Shooting Travel Stock Photography to Make Money appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kav Dadfar.

Stock photography is a tough industry to master. The competition is fierce and prices have been falling over the last decade. But if you are willing to put the effort in and have a long term plan, you can certainly reap the rewards. As a photographer who has been involved in stock photography for over a decade, I have certainly seen the highs and lows. So here are my top tips for shooting travel stock images and how to make money from it.

shooting-travel-stock-photography

1. Include people

Picture buyers are always looking for something new and fresh. Including a person can often be what makes your images unique to the thousands of others that already exist. Including a person in the shot also gives the image some context and shows more of an experience rather than just documenting a place.

Some scenes are busy enough that you don’t need someone to pose. But if you do need someone, don’t be afraid to ask a stranger. Rarely have I found that anyone says no. I always offer to send them a copy of the image to sweeten the deal. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the more generic-type shots. It more about maximizing your sales potential by shooting a variety of different images.

shooting-travel-stock-photography

2. Get a model release

So once you have included a person when shooting travel stock photography, it is a good idea to get a model release. If the person or people are mainly unrecognizable, or if you intend to sell your shot for editorial purposes only, you won’t require one. But be aware that some stock agencies will require a model release even if it is someone’s hand showing in a photo. Of course, there are times where it simply isn’t feasible, for example, if you are photographing a crowd of people. Getty Images have a great model release form that you download here.

shooting-travel-stock-photography

3. Shoot portrait and landscape

When shooting travel stock photography, you should always shoot a landscape and portrait version. Not all scenes work in both landscape and portrait, so sometimes it might not be possible. But if you can, it will come in really useful.

But not only portrait and landscape, try to capture some different compositions. For example, place your point of interest on the left or right. Leave room above and below. You are already at the location so you might as well cover as many possibilities as you can. You never know when a buyer will ask if you have that image in a different crop. Doing this will mean that for example, your image may get used as a double-page spread or a front cover.

11 Tips for Shooting Travel Stock Photography to Make Money

4. Leave space for copy

It is important to shoot images with dead space to allow for copy or headlines to be put in. Sometimes this can mean breaking those all-important rules of composition you have spent years perfecting. But it’s worth it to make those sales.

As mentioned above, you can always shoot multiple versions of the same shot. Try to imagine where and how your image will be used in a publication (or even a website), and compose your shot with that in mind.

There was plenty of free space at the top of this image for the copy to be placed.

5. Choose the right agency

This might be pretty obvious, but it’s important to submit your images to the correct stock photography library. If you shoot travel stock photography, then a specialist travel site is best. If you shoot still life, then an agency that specializes in this would be more successful.

Beyond that, spend some time researching the agency that you are thinking of submitting to. For example, are you happy to see your images sold for a few cents? Consider what your commission rate will be as well as they vary greatly from one agency to another.

shooting-travel-stock-photography

6. Think carefully before submitting to Microstock

Every single person I have ever spoken to who submitted to microstock sites regrets doing so down the road. Of course, there are probably some photographers out there who are very happy with their returns. The problem is that you will need such a huge collection of images with a wide coverage to see any returns that will be worth your time. This is because microstock sites sell images for cents. Ask yourself, would you prefer to sell one image at $ 25 or 250 at 10 cents?

11 Tips for Shooting Travel Stock Photography to Make Money

7. Find fresh angles

If you really want to make your images stand out and catch the buyer’s eye, photograph it differently! Every picture buyer has seen the classic shot of the Eiffel Tower, and it has been on the cover of hundreds, if not thousands, of publications. So the same is not likely to catch many prospective client’s attention. It’s not always easy, but if you can capture something different or unique, you might end up with a few sales from it. This could be as simple as photographing something from lower down or higher up.

11 Tips for Shooting Travel Stock Photography to Make Money

8. Unique location

As well as finding fresh angles, find new locations. Iconic locations such as London or New York, are constantly changing, so there are always potential new places from which to capture photos. This could be from a new rooftop bar with a unique view of Manhattan or new art installation on the streets of London. Even if your location isn’t ever-changing, finding somewhere with a view that not everyone photographs can be very useful.

shooting-travel-stock-photography

9. Quality over quantity

This is often a bit of a contradiction when it comes to stock photography because stock photography is a numbers game. The more images you have, the better your chances of making a sale. However, the key is that they have to be quality shots that people would be willing to pay for. This is the reason that it will take most stock photographers a few years to get a wide enough coverage of images to see a decent return.

Try to always shoot the best locations at the best possible time of day. More often than not, this will be sunrise or sunset, but you will need to assess each scene individually. Your aim should be to capture each shot in a way that you can sell it.

11 Tips for Shooting Travel Stock Photography to Make Money

10. Stay local

Shooting good travel stock photography doesn’t always mean jetting off to far-flung locations. You can often produce great travel stock images a lot closer to home. If, like me, you are lucky enough to live near an iconic place (for me it is London), then you already have endless photo opportunities.

Shooting locally has other benefits as well.

You can revisit locations easily if the weather wasn’t great. You don’t have to worry about the additional travel expenses that eat into your profits. In fact, you will probably find that your local shoots end up having a far better ROI (return on investment) than traveling to other places.

11 Tips for Shooting Travel Stock Photography to Make Money

11. Do something different

Another way that you can try to capture different types of images is to use different technology. For example, drones have now been around a while and can offer a completely new and unique view of something that may have been photographed a lot. But there’s no denying it’s getting harder and harder to fly drones in many places. So if it’s something you are interested in, it’s probably a good idea to get a license. But drone images do sell pretty well, so it is worth considering.

shooting-travel-stock-photography

Conclusion

For most people stock photography will never be the main source of income. However, with some preparation and planning, you can certainly make some extra money from your hobby or profession. The key to being a successful travel stock photographer is to treat it like a business as much as possible. Keep your costs as low as you can, and shoot as often as you can.

Do you have any other tips you’d like to share? Do you make money from shooting travel stock photography? Share with us in the comments!

The post 11 Tips for Shooting Travel Stock Photography to Make Money appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kav Dadfar.

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6 Ways to Save Money on Camera Gear

16 Jun

The post 6 Ways to Save Money on Camera Gear appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Suzi Pratt.

It’s no secret that camera gear is expensive, but there are several very easy ways to save money on gear. So before you buy your next camera body or lens, read up on these money-saving tips.

save money camera gear

1. Look for discounts or deals

This one might seem like a no-brainer, but always be on the lookout for sales or discounts. Follow photography blogs or websites such as Canon Rumors or Nikon Rumors (or whichever Rumors sites corresponds to your camera brand of choice). They will often alert you of upcoming deals on camera gear and accessories. Another tip is to wait for holidays such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Amazon Prime Day. These are holidays that almost always result in massive gear discounts.

2. Study camera product cycles and buy just before or after a new release.

Most camera manufacturers have a fairly regular product release cycle. For example, the Fujifilm X-T series releases every 2 years, the Canon 5D series every 4 years, and GoPro Hero every year. Purchasing a camera right after release to the public won’t save you money. However, you could look at buying the previous model since there are likely to be many camera owners selling theirs, or camera stores looking to empty their stock.

Depending on how well a new camera sells, you could wait six months to a year after its release and start to see deals come up. Not only will the camera price likely drop, but camera stores are also likely to add product bundles that throw in extra goodies such as Adobe Photoshop subscriptions, memory cards, camera bags, and more.

save money camera gear

3. Consider third-party options

This tip applies mostly to camera lenses and accessories since there aren’t many “third-party” camera body brands out there. For a long time, third-party lens options were looked down upon as inferior products. However, companies such as Sigma and Tamron have really upped their game and are producing high-quality lenses that are starting to rival the price and quality of those made by original camera companies. So the next time you’re looking for a new piece of glass for your camera, definitely consider any third-party options out there to save some money.

4. Buy used or refurbished

Cameras and lenses are made to last. As long as they have been cared for, they hold their value and can sell easily.

If you’re on the market for camera gear, definitely consider buying a used or refurbished product. This process can seem intimidating, and there are several ways to go about it with varying degrees of risk.

One option is to buy locally via an online marketplace such as Facebook or Craigslist. This is the riskiest option since you will have to evaluate the product in person and there’s often little chance of a refund if the product is defective. However, this method also gives you the most wiggle room for negotiating a lower price.

save money camera gear

Another way to buy used or refurbished is to do so via an official online store. Nearly all major online camera stores such as B&H Photo, Adorama, and Amazon have a Used section with discounted gear. There are also websites such as Keh.com that specialize in only buying and selling used gear.

The benefit of using a site like this is security. In most cases, your purchase is covered by the store, and you have some reassurance in terms of returning the item in case of a defect. However, there’s no room for negotiation, so the price you see is what you’ll have to pay.

5. Rent gear

Before you buy your next piece of camera gear, ask yourself, “do I really need to own that?”

If the answer is no, it could be more worth your while to rent the gear temporarily.

This is especially true for specialty lenses such as super telephoto zooms that retail for upwards of $ 10,000 to own.

Look around for your local camera store and see if they offer gear rental services. Or there is also Borrow Lenses, a website that specializes in renting out camera gear in addition to selling used gear.

save money camera gear

6. Use credit card rewards

If you’re diligent about paying off your credit card each month, consider getting a credit card with a good rewards system. There are camera-specific credit cards such as B&H’s Payboo that reimburses you for sales tax. Or there are more general credit cards that allow you to get points or money back on a wider variety of purchases.

Personally, I’m a fan of the Amazon Prime Store card that gives you 5% back on all purchases, plus the option to finance big purchases (ie. cameras!).

Either way, do your research to find a card that suits you and be sure to pay it off, otherwise, it’s no longer a money-saver.

Over to You

There you have it! Six ways to save some money on camera gear and accessories. Do you have any tips to add to the list? Let me know in the comments below.

The post 6 Ways to Save Money on Camera Gear appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Suzi Pratt.

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What is Royalty-Free Editorial Stock Photography and Can You Earn Money From It?

16 May

The post What is Royalty-Free Editorial Stock Photography and Can You Earn Money From It? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Photographs of just about anything can be sold as royalty-free editorial stock photography. How they are licensed is defined as either editorial or commercial. An image sold with an editorial license can only be used in news or general interest publications like;

Blogs
Textbooks
Magazines
Newspapers

Royalty Free Editorial Stock Photography - What is it? Poi Sang Long Festival in Thailand

An editorial stock photo cannot be used to directly promote anything for profit.

Photos sold by a stock agency with an editorial license are more limited in how they can be published. Commercially licensed photos can be more broadly used, but there are more restrictions on what they contain.

What’s the difference between editorial and commercial stock photo licensing?

Editorial stock photos do not require model or property releases.

You can submit photos of individuals or whole crowds for editorial licensing and no model release would be requested. If you submit any photos of people for commercial use, signed model releases are required. Whenever a person can identify themselves in a photo, a release is required if the photo is to be sold with a commercial license.

Royalty Free Editorial Stock Photography - What is it? Crowds During Song Khran Festival in Chiang Mai

Commercial licensing prohibits the inclusion of any copyrighted elements in your photos. Any branding or products must be removed from the photos. This also goes for people and private property. These things must be accompanied by an appropriate release form. If they’re not stock agencies will not accept the images into their collections.

Editorial licensing allows visible branding, products, people and property. However, no manipulation of the content is permitted.

Royalty Free Editorial Stock Photography - What is it? Market Tattoos

I would not be able to submit this for sale under an editorial license because I have removed a logo from the man’s shirt. © Kevin Landwer-Johan

If you have a photo of something containing a logo or company name, you can remove it and still license the photo with a commercial license. When uploading editorial photos, you will be asked to state that you have not manipulated the photo in any way. Editorial stock photos must depict things as they really were when you took the photo.

Most stock agencies have disclaimers attached to editorial licensing of photos. The buyer is in control of how the photos will be used and must be made aware of the restrictions and their responsibilities. Stock photo agencies make it clear they are not liable for how the purchaser uses editorial photos.

Are there restrictions on the types of photos you can upload?

Most royalty-free stock agencies don’t have many restrictions. So long as you are uploading photos within the bounds of common decency, you won’t have any problems. Check with each stock agency where you wish to submit photos. They will be able to provide you with their company policy on what they want you to upload.

The law in most countries allows you to photograph anything you like from a public space. However, in doing so, you must not infringe on the rights of others or abuse their privacy. Photographing military facilities, power plants and other important infrastructure can sometimes get you into trouble. Check with local laws before you do.

Don’t just upload any old pictures. Make sure to only submit your best images. The market has become so saturated with photos that it’s increasingly difficult to make sales. Make sure your pictures stand out from the crowd.

Royalty Free Editorial Stock Photography - What is it? Woman with a SLR Film Camera

I do have a signed model release for the woman in this photo, but because of the branding on the camera I could only sell it with an editorial license. © Kevin Landwer-Johan

How do you know what photos will sell?

You really don’t.

Predicting how well editorial stock may sell is very difficult.

If you have a good photo of a spectacular event or happening of international significance, it will likely sell well. If you were the only photographer to capture this amazing occurrence, then it will certainly sell better. However, these type of situations are extremely rare.

Carrying your camera with you wherever you go will increase your chances. It will also sharpen your awareness of what a good editorial image can be as you learn to focus your attention. If you leave your camera at home, it won’t happen.

Upload a variety of images and build up a large number of your photos in a stock agency website. Doing this gives you practical experience of what will and will not sell. There are many variable factors involved.

If you can build up a solid base of your own photos, you will be able to analyze which ones sell more consistently. You can then use this information to plan what you will photograph.

Royalty Free Editorial Stock Photography - What is it? Checking Their Messages

Once you have this information to work with you can decide on a niche or two to concentrate on. Look at which of your editorial stock photos sell the best and which of them you enjoyed making the most. This is what you will be best to focus your efforts on.

Royalty-free stock agencies boast collections of millions of photos. They contain photos already of pretty much every subject you can think of. You need to take better images than the ones they are already selling.

Browse these collections for ideas. See what others have done and come up with a new angle. If you see that there is a number of similar images that sell well, and you can produce photos of the same subject, do so. Don’t just copy. Improve on what’s already been done.

Update images you find that might be out of date. Has your city’s skyline changed recently? There may not be many new photos of it online yet.

Has there been some big news recently that you can illustrate with a stock photo? This will have to be ongoing news, or you’ll need to produce and upload your photos quickly so as not to miss the moment.

Royalty Free Editorial Stock Photography - What is it? Flower Parade Float

How many agencies can I upload my editorial stock photos to?

You can choose to upload exclusively to just one agency or to as many as you have time to service.

Signing an exclusive contract to supply just one agency has certain benefits. However, you are restricted to only their customers buying your photos.

Supplying to many agencies takes time. Each stock library has its own requirements and contracts, and you must understand these and follow their terms closely. If you don’t, you may find you’ll have many of your photos rejected for one reason or another.

Royalty Free Editorial Stock Photography - What is it? China Girls at New Year

Conclusion

Do your research and understand what’s required before you start uploading photos to sell as editorial stock. You will probably find you have a huge number of images on your hard drive you can upload.

If they’re only stuck on your computer, you’ll never make any money from them. Uploaded to a stock agency, you won’t get rich overnight, but you will earn something over time.

Taking a business-like approach to stock photography is best if you are serious about it. Treating it too casually, not paying attention to what’s working and what’s not, will not bring you success. You’ll need to stick with it and consistently upload to make a really good go of it.

The post What is Royalty-Free Editorial Stock Photography and Can You Earn Money From It? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

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Ricoh GR III shooting experience: “Shut up and take my money”

21 Apr

‘The best camera is the one you you have with you’. I think Ghandi said that. It’s not true, of course – the best camera is the Pentax MX and unlike Ghandi I’ll fight anyone who says different.

What is true – and what the author of that aphorism meant – is that the best camera in the world is of no use whatever if you leave it at home. Like many photo obsessives, I carry a camera with me at almost all times, even if it’s just the 12MP camera on my phone. The cameras I tend to reach for when I leave the house now are a far cry from the gear I used to shoot with professionally. Gone are the days of carrying two Nikon D3S bodies and a brace of F2.8 zooms on my back, and my back is happier for it.

I’m much more likely to throw a Fujifilm X100F or Leica M10 into my bag these days, despite the inconvenience of fixed lenses. More recently I’ve been enjoying the versatility of the Nikon Z7 with its 24-70mm F4 kit zoom. But none of the cameras I just mentioned are really, truly, pocketable. That’s where the Ricoh GR series comes in.

This is a composite image created from several Raw files from the GR II. I’ll often shoot sequences like this on hikes, to simulate the effect of a much wider field of view. I downsized this shot for upload – the original is enormous.

Incidentally, this is the fire lookout hut where Gary Snyder wrote one of his most famous (and one of my favorite) poems. ‘Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout’.

Ricoh GR II – stitched image from multiple frames.

I owned a Ricoh GR II for quite a while, and I loved it. The breast pocket of my favorite jacket still has a GR II-shaped shape crease in it, which I suspect is permanent at this point. While 28mm isn’t my first choice of focal length, it’s great for casual shots of friends, street scenes and general outdoor photography. The GR-series have always been fantastic cameras for hiking and cycling with thanks to their solid build quality and small size, and 28mm is perfect for quick trailside landscapes.

Fitting the GR II’s relatively small 16MP files into my workflow ended up being awkward

The only reason I sold my old GR II (to one of my DPReview colleagues, in fact) was that I found myself working on projects that really needed the 24MP+ resolution available in contemporary DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. Fitting the GR II’s relatively small 16MP files into my workflow – pin sharp as they undoubtedly were – ended up just being awkward, so off it went to a new home.

Had I known how long it would be until we saw a Mark III, I might have kept hold of it. But when the GR III was finally announced, it seemed to solve three of my main frustrations with the GR / II.

While I don’t naturally gravitate to the 28mm focal length, it’s a great focal length for scenes like this. And the GR III is so small that I can dangle it over a balcony without fear.

ISO 500 | 1/40 sec | F5.6

Firstly there’s the resolution boost. 16-24MP isn’t a massive leap, but it’s enough to make a difference, and enough to make modest cropping an option. I tend to prefer 35mm to 28mm, and in 35mm crop mode the GR III outputs 15MP files – effectively the same resolution as the Mark II at 28mm. I don’t shoot in crop modes often, but it is nice to have the option of cropping later and being left with a usable amount of pixels.

Secondly, autofocus has been updated to on-sensor phase-detection. This promises faster and less hesitant AF than the notoriously hunting-prone GR II.

Finally, the sensor in the GR III is stabilized. There’s some debate about this point – why do you need stabilization to shoot at 28mm? Well, if you’re shooting on a DSLR or most ILCs, you probably don’t. Large, heavy cameras absorb moderate handshake pretty well. But with a camera as light as the GR II / III, designed to be used one-handed for grab-shooting, the (figurative) helping hand is actually very useful. I’ve found that I can safely hand-hold images down to around 1/10sec with stabilization turned on, which is turns out to be very valuable when it comes to things like capturing flowing water, or just keeping ISO low in darker conditions.

An APS-C camera with a stabilized, modern sensor that fits into a shirt pocket? Yes please.

I had held out a vain hope that the GR III might feature some kind of built-in EVF, perhaps of a similar kind to that offered by the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VI and its ilk. Realistically though, the minute that Ricoh told us that the GR III would feature IBIS, and would actually be smaller in form factor than the II, I knew there wouldn’t be room for an EVF. It turns out there wasn’t room for a flash, either. Oh well. I know a lot of photographers who were heartbroken by the loss of the latter, but it doesn’t really bother me.

I was nervous to learn that Ricoh had redesigned the GR III’s lens, but looking through my images I’m reassured to see that images from the GR III are at least as sharp as I’d expect from previous models. Bokeh isn’t amazing, but opportunities for blurring backgrounds on a 28mm F2.8 lens are pretty slim unless you’re shooting in the macro range.

Great bokeh? Not exactly. But considering the physics of a 28mm equivalent F2.8 lens, I don’t care. The GR III’s lens is impressively sharp at all apertures and focus distances, which is much more important to me in a camera of this type.

ISO 200 | 1/125 sec | F2.8

I’m getting ahead of myself. Picking up the GR III after using a GR II for so long I felt like I immediately knew the camera. Comparing them directly, it’s obvious that Ricoh has tidied up the user interface quite a lot, as well as dispensing with some of the GR II’s physical buttons, but none of the changes have really got in my way. For quick pictures I use the GR III in almost exactly the same way as I used to enjoy shooting with the GR II: in aperture priority mode, usually between F4-8, using auto-area autofocus.

The rear screen is now touch-sensitive, and partly as a consequence it is covered in a layer of highly reflective glass. This makes it almost impossible to accurately preview composition on a bright day, so I’ve taken to mounting an old 28mm optical viewfinder I had lying in a drawer, which gets me close enough. the downside is that with a finder added, the GR III is no longer quite so pocketable.

Perhaps the GR III’s major achilles heel is
battery life

Another option for outdoor use is to increase the screen brightness (I have the movie button set to provide quick access to this setting) but there is a cost. Perhaps the GR III’s major achilles heel is battery life. While you can eke out a few hundred shots per charge in a single session with minimal image review, if you’re shooting at slower shutter speeds (where the IBIS kicks in) or working with boosted screen brightness, you’re taking a risk without at least one spare battery in your pocket. It’s not quite Sony Cyber-shot RX1R II-level bad, but it’s bad. And like many small battery cameras, the GR III’s battery indicator goes from the cheerful-looking full bars icon to the unhappy no bars red blinky icon with very little warning.

This shot demonstrates one of the major shortcomings of the GR III – it’s virtually impossible to discern what’s on the screen in bright light. I shot several versions of this scene at different exposure settings, and used an external finder for framing.

ISO 100 | 1/1250 sec | F7.1

Fortunately, the GR III is equipped with in-camera charging, via the (more or less) standard USB-C interface used by a lot of cameras and mobile devices these days. The GR II used a fiddly connector which looked like standard USB mini but wasn’t. I have three of them, because twice I thought I’d lost my last spare. A full charge takes a couple of hours, but I’ve found even ten minutes plugged into an external battery pack is enough to get me out of trouble.

Unfortunately there’s no workaround for the GR III’s autofocus system, which – sadly – is still pretty hopeless in low light. In bright conditions it’s definitely improved over the GR II. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Autofocus is acquired faster and with less hunting, and the overall impression in decent lighting is that the GR III focuses about as quickly as a Fujfilm X100T/F. But take the thing indoors or – heaven forbid – start trying to shoot after dark, and it falls apart quickly. The obnoxious green AF light provides enough light for the camera to (eventually, usually) lock on, but it can take several seconds. No kidding.

Ultimately though, I’m prepared to forgive the GR III most of its foibles. The fact is that it’s a fast, responsive (usually) camera with a great sensor, effective in-body stabilization and a sharp lens which fits into my shirt pocket. I started this article with a quote and I’ll end with another – ‘shut up and take my money’.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Posts Tagged ‘Money’

Step 1: Create a Fine Art America account

Step 2: Upload images to sell

Step 3: Determine your products and markup

Step 4: Promote your products with social media, your own website, and more

How to make money with your photography: final words

Lay the foundation

Build the walls

Put the roof on

Start a nest-egg

Above all, just get started

Conclusion

1. Include people

2. Get a model release

3. Shoot portrait and landscape

4. Leave space for copy

5. Choose the right agency

6. Think carefully before submitting to Microstock

7. Find fresh angles

8. Unique location

9. Quality over quantity

10. Stay local

11. Do something different

Conclusion

1. Look for discounts or deals

2. Study camera product cycles and buy just before or after a new release.

3. Consider third-party options

4. Buy used or refurbished

5. Rent gear

6. Use credit card rewards

Over to You

What’s the difference between editorial and commercial stock photo licensing?

Are there restrictions on the types of photos you can upload?

How do you know what photos will sell?

How many agencies can I upload my editorial stock photos to?

Conclusion