Framing the World in Pictures: An Introduction to Stock Photography

Do you see the world through a camera lens? Do you have a quick “trigger finger”? Do you know more about apertures than anyone else at the cocktail party? If so, you may want to consider your possibilities in stock photography.

There are two possible business approaches here:

1. Take the photographs you want to take, and then find the right market and the right buyer.
2. Find out what is in demand in the marketplace, and take photographs that fulfill that demand

The former is a better approach if you have already taken many high-quality photographs and are looking for a means to make money from your hobby. The latter is a better option if you want to actively transform your hobby into a means to make money.

What is Stock Photography?

Stock photographs are used to perk up a brochure, humanize a website, or illustrate an article, among other things. Authors, publishers, marketers, web designers, and more, need photographs to support their ideas, and most importantly, tell a story. Most images feature people for exactly this reason: people’s faces, interactions, and arrangement can convey emotion, tension, and drama. Voila! Your photo, when skillfully paired with words, has now captured the moment and clarified a potentially abstract concept.

Stock vs. Microstock

There are two types of stock photography marketplaces: macrostock and microstock. Let’s look at the difference between them.

Macrostock sites are the traditional photography marketplaces where photo prices range from a few dollars up to thousands of dollars. These sites generally sell higher quality imagery for much higher prices to more mainstream businesses such as newspapers, magazines and advertising agencies.

• Because they sell Rights Managed (in addition to Royalty Free licenses), you can submit images of people and trademarks without releases.
• Commissions are generally much higher, as are the prices, however very few images will sell more than once per year.
• To get into a macrostock library you will likely have to show that you have a large collection of high quality and commercially viable images ready to submit.

Microstock sites have become popular in recent years because photography equipment has become cheaper and more professional; as a result more and more people can afford to take professional photos with digital cameras. By selling a diverse range of images at very low prices, microstock sites attract less traditional buyers such as small web companies, start up magazines and freelance designers.

• Macrostock companies often have Royalty Free licensing. Because an image sold under Royalty Free can be used for any purpose, any recognizable person, trademark and in some cases landmarks will need to have a release. So if you were planning on sending in shots of a crowded market, then each person in the image would need to sign a release form. This can make choosing images for microstock a tough job.

• The commissions on microstock tend to be lower; however, you will find that you can sell many images, many times in a year, leading to reasonable profits. This can also help you isolate what types of images are viable and what not to submit.

So how do you decide which type to use? Whether you decide on microstock or macrostock, photography is a numbers game. If you put 10 or 20 images on either Macro or Micro stock, it is unlikely you are going to see a return for many years. To make a profit, you are going to need a constant supply of quality images.

What to Submit

All stock photography websites have guidelines that you should adhere to in order to make a successful photo submission. They usually include a detailed list of what subjects they’re looking for. You should carefully examine this list and use it as a guideline to find great revenue opportunities.

Take a close look at some of the popular photos on stock photo websites. You can learn a lot from these photos and what buyers of that particular stock photography website are looking for and are willing to buy. Submit photos in line with the needs of the marketplace.

A Few Pointers

Before you market your photographs, take note of the following points:

1. Choose your subjects carefully, and make sure that they are suitable to your target audience. If you are working with corporations, you want a more professional look whereas if you are targeting small business owners, your models might be more casual and diverse.
2. Make sure that the quality of the photograph is superb. The quality of the photograph will depend on lighting, exposure, image frame, contrast, and color. Photo-shopped images are generally not well-received.
3. Write a brief, clear image description with keywords so that potential customer can find it. Don’t add irrelevant keywords just to get more views and don’t copy other people’s keywords from similar images. It can often pay to remember alternative spellings too, regional spelling variations and common spelling mistakes. Additionally, you want to be sure that the way you characterize the image doesn’t deter a potential buyer who wants to use the same image in a more abstract (or less abstract) way.

Resources

Here is a list of websites of the top stock agencies where you can submit your work. Review each site’s image criteria, pricing plan, and the general feel of the site to determine which ones will work best for you.

• 123RF
• Corbis
• Depositphotos
• Dreamstime
• Envato
• Fotolia
• iStockphoto
• Pond5
• Shutterstock
• ThinkStock
• Veer