Stock Photography - revisited
27 05 2007Way back last year, I wrote a piece about this article by Chris and his experiences as a stock photographer. I had been meaning for quite a while to get myself set up with a stock-photo agency, but, had never quite managed to get around to it. One of the main reasons for this was the fact that I did not have a great workflow or photo management practice set up. Thankfully, I now have this problem almost sorted, thanks in the main to Apple’s Aperture, which is a wonderful application for any photographer.
So, yesterday, I decided to get myself set up with two separate stock photo agencies, to give them a whirl and see what’s what in the world of stock photography. I’ve decided to go with Shutterstock and iStockphoto as they seem to be two of the biggest and most respected out there. Both have a completely different approach to selling photographs and compensating photographers, so, it will be interesting to see which works out the best for me.
My aim is not to make a huge amount of money out of stock-photography, though, if things start to happen that way, then, like Chris, I would certainly look at the possibility of focusing more time and effort into shooting exclusively for stock. But, being able to get some reward out of what I shoot would certainly be a nice bonus. I’ll report back here over the coming weeks and let you know how the whole experience goes, currently, I am awaiting some images to be approved to see if I even meet the grade to become a stock photographer.
Best of luck with the stock venture. I just turned 10,000 sales this past weekend, so it can definitely be a nice little side earner if nothing else. I’ll be watching the inspection approval q for your images….let me know if theres anything I can do to help. As an update to my own, I’ve now been offered a contract for Getty Images to run in conjunction with my iStock one.
Wow, nice one Chris! Just remembered I should have gone to you for a referral, sorry about that. Good luck with the Getty gig, let me know how that goes!
Hey Chris,
Still awaiting approval with iStock, but, here’s a collection that I’ve uploaded to ShutterStock, let me know what you think, they’re in this flickr set
[...] wrote over on my blog the other day that I was re-visiting the option of trying to sell some images as Stock Photography. [...]