I took my first faltering steps into the world of microstock photography this last week. For those of you not familiar with stock photography, this is the arena where photographers sell photographs commercially through an intermediary. Stock photographs usually sell for $10 - $200 or more. Obviously, these need to be some really good photographs. The catch is that a photographer may submit hundreds of photographs, and only a few are purchased at any given time. Still, these photographs usually don't go out of date and any given photograph may continue to sell for years providing a nice income over time.
Microstock photography is the same concept, but the photographs sell for much less and they are royalty free. Microstock photographs sell for a few dollars or even less. There are many sites online that sell microstock photos. A few of them are:
www.istockphoto.com
www.shutterstock.com
www.dreamstime.com
www.bigstockphoto.com
www.fotolia.com
Each of these sites has slightly different criteria for the photographs they accept. Some are more picky than others. I have read that istockphoto and shutterstock are more picky than some of the others, so I started with dreamstime, bigstockphoto and fotolia. I chose 9 photographs and submitted them to each of these three sites. The results were mixed. Fotolia accepted all but one. Dreamstime rejected them all as having low commercial potential. Bigstockphoto has not reviewed my submissions yet making them the slowest of the three sites to review photographs.
Still, I am excited about this. For me, this is the acid test of my photography skills. When I can consistently shoot photographs with good commercial value, I will know I am making genuine progress. I have many ideas of photographs I want to shoot and submit. Now I just need to discipline myself into doing the work of setting up the photographs and actually taking them. This no small task in itself as several require models and careful background selection. I will share some of these in future blog entries as I build up my portfolio of stock photographs.
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2 comments:
Hey Chris! I have recently joined istock and it is great fun! It was a real challenge to try and get accepted as a contributor (took me three tries) and now getting my work accepted into the library. I feel the same as you do - that if I can consistently get my work accepted there, then I have taken great strides at technical mastery of this art. You are correct- they are picky- my acceptance rate is 31% right now (I have 13 photos in)... but like I said, it is a personal challenge. :0) Good luck to you!! (and don't give up on istock because they have high criteria! Go for it! They are the biggest agency by far, and so all the more chance to sell your work!)
-your long-lost pal, Blue (here is my istock portfolio, in case you're interested... http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&majorterms=%7B%22csv%22%3A%22%22%2C%22conjunction%22%3A%22AND%22%7D©Space=%7B%22Tolerance%22%3A1%2C%22Matrix%22%3A%5B%5D%7D&userID=2174408&fileTypeSizePrice=%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22Image%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22All%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3Anull%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Video%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22All%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3Anull%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Flash%22%2C%22size%22%3Anull%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22All%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Illustration+%5BVector%5D%22%2C%22size%22%3Anull%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22All%22%7D%5D&orientation=7&filterContent=true&illustrationLimit=Exactly&flashLimit=Exactly&order=6&perPage=20&page=1&showFileNumber=true&enableLoupe=true)
Thanks for the encouragement, Blue. I have had mixed results so far. Fotolia accepted 7 of my submissions and I sold my first one this last week. =)
Dreamstime rejected all of them as not being commercially interesting.
BigStockPhoto accepted 3 of my submissions and they are SLOW. Allow 3 weeks for a review of photographs at this site.
I have been waiting to see how it went with these 3 sites before shooting more stock photographs. I think I have a little better idea of what they want and what will be accepted. When I get my acceptance rate up a little more at these three sites, I will start submitting to the other two sites as well.
Nice portfolio, BWT. Have you sold many of these?
Chris
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