# Website for photo licensing and sales?



## agp (Aug 17, 2014)

Hi all, I'm not professional photographer, I just take some photos when I travel. However, I would like the opportunity to sell some of my pictures. I opened a 500px account but then realized it is more a platform for photographers to share photos than it is a sales platform. Is there a better platform that gets more visits from non-photographers looking to buy photos than photographers? Is istockphoto a good candidate? I am not looking to make a living by selling pictures, but a few dollars every once in a while would be cool!


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## Overread (Aug 17, 2014)

A few thoughts;

1) Stock is dead - utterly and without question dead. The prices on micro stock and many easy to get into stock sites are so tiny and the profits for the photographer smaller still that its simply not worth the time putting stuff up. You've got to have a huge library of wanted and usable photos to turn any kind of income. Heck even the industry itself is on shaky ground and likely to crumble. 

2) Smug-mug might be more your street, you can setup a store front and have them handle billing and production and postage whilst you can set your own price. However most store front sites will have annual membership costs to run. 

3) Its not enough to just make a website and put stuff up for sale; if you want to actually sell something you've got to market yourself. If you don't you might make a sale or two to friends or family but otherwise you won't really make many from the net itself. The net is saturated with people so you've got to advertise to get any notice. 
Note if friends, family and a few others are about all you're thinking of pitching to its not worth it to open a store-front site.


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## KmH (Aug 17, 2014)

In 2013 1.6 million publicly accessible photos were added to Flickr _*every day*_.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/franckmichel/6855169886/

That is pretty much typical for most online photo sites that have  way for photographers to sell their photos - Zenfolio, SmugMug, 500px. etc.
85% of all the photos that sell have people in the photos, and are bought by the people in the photos.
Consequently Travel photos comprise a very small portion of the remaining 15% of the total photography market. 

As Overread points out you would need to market and promote yourself to stand out from that crowed of photographers.
In other words you have to get potential buyers to look at your photos.

Working photographers spend 75% or more of their time marketing and promoting themselves.

Licensing terms that are very broad - like royalty-free licensing (RF) - reduce the value of a photo.
Rights-managed (RM) licensing pays a lot better but only the biggest stock agencies still offer RM licensing.
You basically want to set up as a 1 man stock photography agency.

Stock photography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## andywag (Aug 17, 2014)

Overread said:


> A few thoughts;
> 
> 1) Stock is dead - utterly and without question dead. The prices on micro stock and many easy to get into stock sites are so tiny and the profits for the photographer smaller still that its simply not worth the time putting stuff up. You've got to have a huge library of wanted and usable photos to turn any kind of income. Heck even the industry itself is on shaky ground and likely to crumble.



"stock is dead". Hmmmm tell that to the multi BILLION dollar industry which is the stock photography industry because I don't think they know.

It certainly is not dead, it has changed drastically over the past few years but there is more life in it now then there ever has been.

That said, it is no longer the place where photographers shoved a few images and forgot about them, just getting a cheque every 3/6 months to remind them they had pictures with an agency.

Now if you (as a photographer) want to make money out of stock you have to treat it like a  "proper" business and spend time and effort on it.

RM rather than RF is the way to go and the income from RM outstrips that of RF from all but the large "micro stock" agencies.
So the way to go if you want to make money from stock is with more specialist agencies who deal in RM more than RF and who don't have the "10 images for a dollar" mentality that the "istock" type agency have.

It is not dead it is just changing.


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## KmH (Aug 17, 2014)

My emphasis.





> *(CNN)* -- Online photo archive Getty Images is opening 35 million images to online publishers _*to use free of charge*_, acknowledging that many of its pictures are already being copied anyway.


Getty makes millions of photos free for online use - CNN.com


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## tirediron (Aug 17, 2014)

andywag said:


> "stock is dead". Hmmmm tell that to the multi BILLION dollar industry which is the stock photography industry because I don't think they know.


From the point of view of the photographer, stock is indeed dead.  As way for me to make any money at all, unless I am one of the very, very, VERY few photographers who is already well established in the industry, it is pointless.  It used to be that if you were a skilled photographer you could shoot stock for a little extra pocket-money; you could even make a living at it with some effort, but that's NOT the case any more.  Yep, for us, it's dead.


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## andywag (Aug 18, 2014)

tirediron said:


> From the point of view of the photographer, stock is indeed dead.  As way for me to make any money at all, unless I am one of the very, very, VERY few photographers who is already well established in the industry, it is pointless.  It used to be that if you were a skilled photographer you could shoot stock for a little extra pocket-money; you could even make a living at it with some effort, but that's NOT the case any more.  Yep, for us, it's dead.



I guess you missed this bit in my post.

_"That said, it is no longer the place where photographers shoved a few  images and forgot about them, just getting a cheque every 3/6 months to  remind them they had pictures with an agency.

Now if you (as a photographer) want to make money out of stock you have  to treat it like a  "proper" business and spend time and effort on it."


_


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## tirediron (Aug 18, 2014)

andywag said:


> I guess you missed this bit in my post.
> 
> _"That said, it is no longer the place where photographers shoved a few images and forgot about them, just getting a cheque every 3/6 months to remind them they had pictures with an agency.
> 
> ...


No, I didn't.  Even if you do treat it like a "proper" business and put a LOT of time in to it, unless you are already well established, and/or a person of exceptional talent and vision, it's dead.  I like to think that I am reasonably competent with a camera, and that I know at least a little something about running a business, and I know that even if I quit the studio, and turned away all of my retail clients to shoot stock full time, I'd be VERY unlikely to make even enough money to afford the gasoline to get where I'd need to go to shoot.  Yep, as far as 99.9999999% of us are concerned, it's dead.


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## andywag (Aug 18, 2014)

KmH said:


> My emphasis.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Did you actually take the time to read and digest what that article said?

Parts like this "It also clarifies Getty's insistence that any commercial use of the company's images requires a paid license,"
or "including the opportunity to generate licensing revenue,"
This "embed its images using a code similar to what's on sites such as  YouTube. The image that appears will include a Getty photo credit and  will be linked to the company's website, where viewers can have the  opportunity to license the photo."

In other words they are *attempting* (my emphasis) to control what is currently outright theft and consequently build on their already substantial business.
Which in turn means more revenue for the contributors.

Hardly dying, but I guess if your glass is always half empty then you would think that way 

You know,, all I see on forums is how professional photography is being killed off by this, by that and by the other. 
IT ISN'T. It is changing though. The world is much more visual now than it has ever been. The demand for images is greater now than at any time in the past.
That can only be a good thing for those of us in the business.

Sure there is more competition, but have you actually seen the state of some of that so called competition. A lot of it is total and utter dross and tbh if people who call themselves 
professional photographers cannot compete with that dross then maybe they are in the wrong business. (that is not aimed at anyone in particular, just a general statement).

Yes, people (individuals and businesses) are trying to get images for free or for minimum amounts. Errrrrr newsflash folks, they have been trying to do that for years. Publishers have
been doing copyright grabs since the year dot, private clients have been trying to get "discounts" since the first days of any sort of sales. 
Again, if professional photographers cannot deal with that then don't, just get out and blame everyone else for your own failures!!!

Stock HAS changed drastically since I lodged my first 100 images with a specialist agency. In those days they had to be medium format, preferably "chromes" and absolutely spot on to be accepted. The agencies normally wanted exclusivity and you would be paid (by cheque)every 6 months and the prices paid were good even though the split would be 50/50 at best. But you absolutely knew that the agency would be pushing your work to the best of your ability.
Now virtually anything goes in submissions, you can stick everything everywhere (if you want). If you want it at the top of the pile then you have to spend as much time keywording as you did on the images in the first place and the agencies (the big RF ones anyway) just rely on their websites to pull in clients. 
If you want to make money with RF then you need to be putting 10,000 MINIMUM images up a year. You can reduce this for RM and reduce it more if you go with the many many good specialist agencies around.

Stock IS only a way to make a living if that is what you do full time. It IS however still a way to add to your income stream and it is most certainly not dead to photographers.


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## robbins.photo (Aug 18, 2014)

tirediron said:


> andywag said:
> 
> 
> > I guess you missed this bit in my post.
> ...



Ok, but I think your discounting all of the photographers who just got into stock photography within the last year or two and made huge money at it.  You know, people like .. ummm..

Well there's ... ok, no I guess not.  But how about...  Oh ya, he never made a dime either.

Ahh.. crap.

Yup, lets face it, you'd probably make a lot more money donning a pair of dark glasses and selling pencils out of a cup on a subway bench.


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## robbins.photo (Aug 18, 2014)

andywag said:


> KmH said:
> 
> 
> > My emphasis.
> ...



Ok, so a minimum of 10,000 images a year works out to be about 833 1/3 images a month, or roughly 30 images a day if you are working 7 days a week.  if you only want to work a traditional 5 day week your looking at roughly 40 images a day.  That's a pretty good pace really, considering they all have to be shot, post processed, uploaded, and apparently keyworded - in short your looking at an awful lot of work.  My guess is that by the time you break down how much your making per hour shooting stock you'll probably discover you'd be making a whole lot more working a minimum wage job.


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## andywag (Aug 18, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Ok, so a minimum of 10,000 images a year works out to be about 833 1/3 images a month, or roughly 30 images a day if you are working 7 days a week.  if you only want to work a traditional 5 day week your looking at roughly 40 images a day.  That's a pretty good pace really, considering they all have to be shot, post processed, uploaded, and apparently keyworded - in short your looking at an awful lot of work.  My guess is that by the time you break down how much your making per hour shooting stock you'll probably discover you'd be making a whole lot more working a minimum wage job.




Sorry but it is obvious that you don't really know what you are talking about.
Yes, if you are a one man band trying to do that then yes, it will be hard, actually probably not possible.
But, and at the risk of repeating myself again, run as a PROPER BUSINESS, i.e. with the proper staff and tools then it is perfectly feasible to shoot 10,000+ stock images. The "factories" turn out a darn site more than that on an annual basis.

All I did at the outset is state that stock photography is NOT dead as was said by someone. All you have to do to see that is actually do 10 minutes of research.

I have not said that it is the way people should go. I have not said that it is easy, I have not said that it is good, bad or indifferent. Just that it is NOT DEAD.

Can you sell images through stock agencies? YES
Can you make your fortune with a minimal amount of "holiday snaps"? NO
Can you make a living shooting stock? YES. There are a number of people who do.
Would I do it? NO
Do I really care if any of you lot do or if you agree with me? NO, not in the slightest.

Just opinions folks. Like other things, we all have them.


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## robbins.photo (Aug 18, 2014)

andywag said:


> Sorry but it is obvious that you don't really know what you are talking about.



Your numbers, I just did some simple division. So if anything I guess your really saying is that you don't know what your talking about, or at the very least that you don't understand division. After all it was you that used the 10,000 a year number. If it would help I could show my work:

10,000 images per year / 12 months in a year = 833.33 images per month
833.33 images per month / 30 days in a month on average (if you work all 7 days a week = 27.77 images per day, or approximately 30.
If you only wish to work 5 days a week, that's an average of 20 days a month - 5 days a week * 4 weeks a month (on average) = 20 days per month
833.33 images per month / 20 days a month (5 day work week) = 41.66 images per day, or approximately 40

Those are your numbers. So having a really hard time figuring out why you'd have such a huge issue with them, all I did was break down the yearly figure you gave into a daily estimate. Not my fault really if you never stopped to do the math yourself, but there it is - and it's not subject to interpretation. So, perhaps you might wish to calm yourself and give some serious thought to your reply - just to avoid any unnecessary distaste caused from lodging your foot into your mouth that far again.



> Yes, if you are a one man band trying to do that then yes, it will be hard, actually probably not possible.
> But, and at the risk of repeating myself again, run as a PROPER BUSINESS, i.e. with the proper staff and tools then it is perfectly feasible to shoot 10,000+ stock images. The "factories" turn out a darn site more than that on an annual basis.



So your contention is then you have to hire a staff and run your own stock agency? Interesting.. and what exactly is the business model for competing with these huge stock agencies that are already well established who are paying pennies on the dollar for these photos? I mean you have to be paying your own staff something, right? Well it certainly won't be minimum wage or you'd never be able to compete with the big clearing houses who don't pay their photographers squat. 



> All I did at the outset is state that stock photography is NOT dead as was said by someone. All you have to do to see that is actually do 10 minutes of research.
> 
> I have not said that it is the way people should go. I have not said that it is easy, I have not said that it is good, bad or indifferent. Just that it is NOT DEAD.



Just not seeing a viable business model here myself.


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## andywag (Aug 18, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Your numbers, I just did some simple division.  and a lot of blah blah blah





I don't wish to be rude but this, well this load of rubbish deserves a response. especially as you decided to be so insulting in your response.

You obviously have a bit of difficulty actually understanding what has been said so I will try and break it down for you.

I am not going to bother with your figures because they are just rubbish. Sure the maths is correct and yes I did say 10,000 but you did not read or rather understand anything else.

One bit on the figures though. It is very simple, very simple indeed to shoot 40 a day, it is very simple to shoot double that and have them ready to upload the same day. If you are not capable of that then it says more about your skills than my maths.

"So your contention is then you have to hire a staff and run your own stock agency". Staff yes. If you actually read posts properly then you would have seen that. Run your own stock agency. Errrrr where exactly did I say that then? As It happens there are a number of photographers out there who do run their own small stock sites but they also are major contributors to the "main" stock agencies.
You really don't know much about the business do you? 

"Interesting.. and what exactly is the business model for competing with  these huge stock agencies that are already well established who are  paying pennies on the dollar for these photos? I mean you have to be  paying your own staff something, right? Well it certainly won't be  minimum wage or you'd never be able to compete with the big clearing  houses who don't pay their photographers squat."

There you go, your next lines prove just how little you have read or understood. Where exactly did anyone say that these photographers were competing with the "huge stock agencies". (a change of glasses iis in order I think pal).
As to staff etc. Again, go away and do a little bit of research before you make comments about things you obviously know nothing about.

Now take your head out of your arse (You are not the only one who can throw insults around pal).
 and actually do just a little bit of research before attempting to argue about things you obviously know nothing about.

I will not be responding to any more of your idiotic know nothing posts pal.


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## Overread (Aug 18, 2014)

Guys cool the attitudes. I don't care how wrong someone is in your view - keep the debate and discussion calm and reasoned.


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## robbins.photo (Aug 18, 2014)

andywag said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > Your numbers, I just did some simple division.  and a lot of blah blah blah
> ...



I have to admit I'm a little perplexed, the numbers were the ones you provided, all I did was illustrate that such numbers really didn't make for a viable business model.  Have to admit that it confuses me that once I did you seemed so upset by the numbers, now to the point of discarding them completely - I mean they were your numbers.  

I'm also curious as to how you intend on paying a staff of photographers given the profit margin you'll be looking to make if your uploading 10,000 images (or whatever number you care to replace that with) to another stock photo agency and they are taking anywhere from 50-70% of the sale and you are left with whatever is left, which you then have to divide up to pay your staff.  As I mentioned previously I'm just not seeing this as a very viable business model.  It also begs the question why would any photographer submit his/her photos for you to upload when they can just bypass the middle man and upload it themselves and keep the entire 30-50% instead of splitting that with you and the other photographers on staff.  Just doesn't sound like much of a deal to me.

Yes, I do know a couple of guys that make some extra money selling stock, I don't know too many that manage to make a living at it and fewer still that make a good living at it.  Is it possible to shoot 40 images a day?  Sure.  But when you start adding up all the time it takes you to shoot, driving back and forth to get something interesting that might sell, post processing, uploading, keywording, etc, etc, etc.. well your looking at a pretty significant amount of hours on average.

So you end up making a lot less per hour because your putting in more hours.  I ran into the same thing running my own computer repair business years ago, yes I made a decent living at it - but when I actually sat down and figured out the number of hours I worked and looked at what I was making per hour, well it just didn't make a lot of sense.


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## andywag (Aug 18, 2014)

Just a link which might help one or two people.

It is only Microstock and not stock as a whole and it is only a small sampling of around 800. 
I will try and dig out one for macro and traditional stock but not promising. 

meanwhile have a look at this http://blog.microstockgroup.com/2013-microstock-industry-survey-first-look/


Edited to add this link for those that still lack understanding
http://www.microstocktime.com/#

Its ok. I don't mind doing the research for you.

Obviously the one microstock guru that everyone references is Yuri Acurs, but as he has recently totally changed the way he works and also has his own stock site now he is not the most relevant to point to.
However he was (is?) the worlds most successful microstock photographer (albeit he had a STAFF of about 20) and was turning over millions a year.

I am done with this now. One can only bang ones head against a wall for so long before it starts to hurt.


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## robbins.photo (Aug 18, 2014)

Interesting survey, but a lot of vital data missing.  Less than 30% of the respondents state that they make a living from stock photography full time, and there is no data showing the average number of hours a week they work or the average income they make as a result.  At least one of them apparently spends 140 hours a week - my guess is most of the 30% who claim to be making a full time living are in the upper end of the hours worked per week bracket and that the other 70% bring the average down to 20 hours a week.

Sadly though without a breakout of that data it's impossible to determine what the average is for the 30% who actually claim to be making a living at this full time,  nor is it possible to determine how much they make an hour on average since the survey doesn't ask for approximate income at all.


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## orljustin (Aug 19, 2014)

agp said:


> Hi all, I'm not professional photographer, I just take some photos when I travel. However, I would like the opportunity to sell some of my pictures. I opened a 500px account but then realized it is more a platform for photographers to share photos than it is a sales platform. Is there a better platform that gets more visits from non-photographers looking to buy photos than photographers? Is istockphoto a good candidate? I am not looking to make a living by selling pictures, but a few dollars every once in a while would be cool!



............. Aaaaannnnyways....

Hunter Yves / 500px

Your images are pretty average when it comes to stock.  Go to any of the major sites and see what you're up again for a specific keyword.  They don't tell a story - they're more illustrative, which is the kind of thing that doesn't garner large sales because, well, everyone can shoot those things if they are in that area.  And the people that live there will shoot it better than you because they can be there when the light is perfect and they aren't rushed.


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## agp (Aug 20, 2014)

Intense debate here...

I'm not looking to become a photographer. I just take pictures because, honestly, my memory is sh and I can't remember half the things I see. And while I'm at it, why not make the pictures look nice? I'm also not looking to do shoot full time. I have a full time banking job that takes up 60-80 hours a week, so if I could get income from photos, it would have to be passive income, and since I know photography is an active-hunt-your-clients-down thing, I don't expect to make much, if anything. I think my hopes are realistic, although my expectation of turning a profit may not be.

With that said... let's say Thai Airways is paying for my flight to Bangkok or Chiang Mai to take some photos for them at a portion of what they would pay a professional photographer, I'd jump on it in a heart beat.


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## orljustin (Aug 20, 2014)

agp said:


> With that said... let's say Thai Airways is paying for my flight to Bangkok or Chiang Mai to take some photos for them at a portion of what they would pay a professional photographer, I'd jump on it in a heart beat.



That's great.  I love doing accounting and banking, so if your employer just gives me a free toaster, I'll do your job for portion of what they'd pay a professional banker.


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## Raj_55555 (Aug 20, 2014)

I'm with you all the way Andywag, demolish my archenemy for me !!


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## agp (Aug 20, 2014)

orljustin said:


> agp said:
> 
> 
> > With that said... let's say Thai Airways is paying for my flight to Bangkok or Chiang Mai to take some photos for them at a portion of what they would pay a professional photographer, I'd jump on it in a heart beat.
> ...



My comment was not made with an insidious intention. Perhaps you are taking too much liberty to feel offended by what I said about my expectation for photography. And if you must compare - no, I'm not a bank teller or an accountant. I don't do your taxes, I don't do the VP's expense reports, and I don't have a plus-sized calculator on my desk. What I have, is a graduate degree in biostatistics from University of Michigan and I work as a statistician in risk management for an international financial firm. 

Feel free to share your work.


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## orljustin (Aug 20, 2014)

agp said:


> orljustin said:
> 
> 
> > agp said:
> ...



The point wasn't your position in particular, just that you're ok doing something for free what others get paid to do.  Of course, I'm of the opinion that you get what you pay for, so if you can work it out, best to you.


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## agp (Aug 21, 2014)

But it's the same for every profession and everything one does. People trade stocks high-frequency and full time and make money, but I swing trade and make money too. Sure I don't make as much, but I also don't need to spend my day staring at tickers. I just sit on it and it makes money, usually.


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## Santa_Claus (Aug 23, 2014)

If you have marketable images, I would personally recommend a SmugMug Pro account. You do your part to drive traffic to your SM gallery and then leave the rest to them. They take the order, fulfill the print, ship it, deal with customer issues, handle the sales taxes, etc. You get a direct deposit and a year-end sales income statement. Easy-peasy. The tricky part would probably be marketing, but the popularity of social media makes "going wide" a lot easier than ever (and free).


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## pixmedic (Aug 23, 2014)

Bartering for services is  not anything new, nor is it limited to photography. 
I'm always amazed that some people think that their field is "the one" field affected by people doing side work.

As far as "you get what you pay for", that is often the battle cry of someone who is not business savvy or skilled enough in their craft to get the prices they want/need.  Sometimes it is applicable, sometimes it is not, but if you are a tradesman trying to make it as a business and you are complaining about $30 mini session photographers, it probably applies to you. Sorry to inform you so late.


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