I've delved into the world of microstock. I know that for some this is controversial. My objective is simply to offset some of the cost of this rather expensive hobby. And, the most expensive part of this hobby for me has been the lenses!
In any event, I started experimenting with some microstock uploads a few years ago. Over the past three years, the revenues have grown to over $500 per month. At this point, it pays for a camera upgrade, a new lens and maybe a photography trip during the year.
I know many are interested in ways to make money using photographs that they have already taken. So, I thought I would share some information about my experiences in this area.
Please feel free to visit my photography blog if you are interested in reading more about this and viewing the earnings by agency by month:
Glennn, very useful information. You mention in the blog that the rejection of some of your initial submissions was related to your post processing treatments. Can you be more specific regarding what the agency didn't like about your post-processing and what you did to overcome the rejection?
Also, since you do a lot of (excellent) bird photography, I'm curious to know whether your bird photos have been received favorably by the stock agencies.
BluesWest wrote:
Glennn, very useful information. You mention in the blog that the rejection of some of your initial submissions was related to your post processing treatments. Can you be more specific regarding what the agency didn't like about your post-processing and what you did to overcome the rejection?
Also, since you do a lot of (excellent) bird photography, I'm curious to know whether your bird photos have been received favorably by the stock agencies.
John
Thanks John...
Yes...the agencies typically like images that contain minimal processing. For example, they would prefer to have an image that is slightly undersharpened rather than one that is oversharpened. They assume that the buyer will sharpen as need depending upon the usage. They seem to be able to detect any aggressive levels or curves adjustments. If there is a single hot pixel or any sensor dust visible, the image will typically be rejected.
I keep my RAW files, so I went back and reprocessed the images using minimal sharpening, reduced the extent of any levels or curves adjustments, minimized saturation and resubmitted them. The resubmitted images were accepted.
Some of the bird images sell occasionally, but they don't tend to sell very often. I don't know if it's because there are so many outstanding bird photographs out there already--or if the demand just isn't as high for those. I find that if I can capture a behavior--that the image is far more likely to sell. For example, an image like the following one might sell for a variety of reasons. Someone might purchase it because they want a photo of Great Blue Herons. But, it could also sell under the keywords of "love", "helping", "together", etc.
Just out of curiosity what kind of images sell the most? Is it landscapes or images that convey a concept? General "B-roll" fill stuff or is it images of specific things?
MaxiKana wrote:
Just out of curiosity what kind of images sell the most? Is it landscapes or images that convey a concept? General "B-roll" fill stuff or is it images of specific things?
If you view my stock portfolios on the microstock sites (available through my blog links), you can sort the images by "popularity".
For the most part, the few images that I have of people sell the best...my nephews playing football, my cousin at a birthday party, etc. Then, images that display an emotion are popular...most of my animal shots that exhibit some kind of human emotion sell most frequently. There are certain architectural and landscape images that sell frequently.
