Shooting Stock Photos That Sell!
Here are some of my better selling shots on Shutterstock:
Licensing your photography is a great way to supplement your Steemit photo earnings with passive income. Typically you will only get around 25 cent per license sold, but there is a cumulative effect as your portfolio grows. To be more efficient and save time, you should do some research on what to shoot. Hopefully you can learn from my experience with Shutterstock, and get straight into shooting stock photos that sell! As part of Shutterstocks T&Cs, I'm not at liberty to give any earnings specifics, but I can discuss images which sell and give my thoughts on the subject. Below are three examples of my better selling photos on Shutterstock.
I have hundreds of shots in my portfolio and many of them have either never sold, or haven't sold very well. So what have my better selling shots got in common? All of my photos are sharp and free of clutter, but my more popular work has one thing in common: a concept or message. This element consistently and dramatically increases the chances of selling photos on Shutterstock. So much so that I don't bother making stock photos now unless there is a message, a mood, a concept or a narrative. You can shoot all the inanimate objects you want, but their sales will be dismal next to something emotive or conceptual, especially those containing people..
Finally, there are some exceptions to the criteria above, of course. There is still some demand for landmarks if you can shoot landscapes to a very high standard. There is also demand for clean, clinical, archival quality shots of plants and animals, assuming you have the time to make those shots, and upload with correct scientific data, including latin names, etc.
More generally though, if you want to shoot stock photography that sells, always start with a concept or narrative. Good luck on your Shutterstock journey!
All shots - Nikon d750. Godox lighting on top two. Natural light only on the third shot. (model: @vajola)
You might also like these articles:
Shooting stock photography
LBRY - "Netflix Killer" Blockchain
I love the pic of the girl with the flowers🌸
I mean of course the cats my fav, but we all knew that anyway!
Hey PP! That cat is absolutely crazy. Loves water more than milk! Then again, I don't have a milk tap to confirm this.
Mine is the same. Sits in the shower every morning with me, and loves drinking out of anything that is not his water bowl 🙄
Is it true that they also require Raw files? My sister is an amazing photographer but still only shots .jpg. I would love to direct her to this post re stock and steemit.Thanks Condra
Hey Dan! No, they except high resolution jpg files. Shooting in RAW and converting to JPG later would still be advisable in terms of editing and color correction, but if she is averse to taking that approach, and assuming she gets it right in the camera, there's no reason why her jpg shots wouldn't be accepted. Thanks for the comment!
25 cents and cumulative. Your better selling shots.
How many licenses sold for your best one?
(Good photos BTW. How did you get the cat doing the faucet one)
Hey man!
The cat was a weird one. My brother was minding it for a friend while they were away. I happened to call over on my way home from a shoot and had the camera with me. Typically Irish, first thing my brother did was offer me a cup of tea. That's when the cat jumped up and I got the shot. Apparently that cat is obsessed with running water.
I can't give any specifics but my best selling shots sell most days. Of course, some shots don't sell at all, so over time I've tried to refine my workflow.
Would I be wrong to say, a good photo at 25 cents/license on shutterstock could make $250/year ?
Am I way over, or way under, or close ?
I'm guessing I'm way over. The key is to have 100 paying photos in your portfolio and you could probably gross $150/month
...AND WAIT! I have more questions...
Is it a worldwide license, or do you retain the rights? For instance, if a puzzle maker just loves that photo and wants to turn it into a puzzle and sell it in toy stores.. Do they contact the photographer or shutterstock?
250 a year for a strong photo would be way over. Most photos do maybe 5-10 dollars a year, and strong photos around 100. That has been my experience anyway. I'm sure there are some pros out there who do a lot better than that.
There are different licenses customers can buy, depending on the intended use. For example, if a publication wishes to print a number above a certain threshold, they will have to pay extra. The biggest single license fee I've made was about 50 bucks. Not bad for (somewhat) passive income.
Thanks for answering. I really had no idea it was that low. Seems like there is room for a decentralized crypto-version of the same thing. I hope someone builds one. :)
Interesting!! I tried this years ago.... never sold anything.... its a very saturated market unless like you said its conceptual or very very different
Hey Jason! I hope you give it another try some time, especially as you tend to shoot pretty girls! Once they agree to sign the release form, I think it's worth building a portfolio on SS.
Just sold my first picture on Shutterstock. Would love to increase my visibility. Good article with some interesting points. Always trying to do better photographs....following
Hey! Thanks for your comment and congrats on making your first sale on Shutterstock. It's exciting isn't it?! Regarding visibility, don't waste your time trying to promote your portfolio. Shutterstock are only happy for contributors to bring customers to the site via backlinks, but the chances of you making sales this way are very slim. 99% of customers will find your photos by searching on Shutterstock itself, so your efforts are better spent on finding what to shoot, and using great keywords. The best advice I can give you is to combine what I wrote above with good lighting, good models, and contemporary themes (think solar panels, fidget spinners, civil unrest, tech addiction, etc)
Following you back.
Thanks for feedback. Looks like I've got some homework to do. Just tried to submit a child photo but need to refine the shot. Thanks my friend
I saw Marmalade!
I don't know what that means!
I've been doing orange cat blogs. lol.
i've been playing with fotalia.com and they are very picky in what they accept , i like soft focus in my images and i like to play with #bokeh , they ended up declining images with the comment not enough in focus :D
the stock image that they want must be +50% in focus i lost my motivation on submitting to stock people they always ask if they can offer it for free , as if they will work for free ...
Yeah I love shallow DOF too, and SS can be quite picky in that area. Often I'll shoot a few shots at around 1.8 for my personal portfolio, then a few at 2.8 for stock. Extra work, but kinda the best of both worlds. Thanks for the comment!
Good info. I sell most at https://www.twenty20.com/
They give you at least $2 and no minimum for payout! Pics with people doing things sell best, but you need to have model releases of course. Heck people have even bought them of me....maybe I'm on a dartboard?!?!
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I'm planning to branch out to twenty20 and some others very soon. It's great being non-exclusive!
Wow. It seems like you can accumulate a lot of money by creating stock pictures. Well I guess that is if they do feet exposure and sell but I bet some people have made a lot purely of just one photo
Those are some great stock photos @condra. They look a lot like... stock photos haha
Nice post! Helpful tips and good photos! Thanks!
TYVM!