Make Money With Your Photos
By doing a quick calculation, my photos make up 0.002% of the still images available on GettyImages.com
Which means I have 1600 photos for sale out of about 80,000,000
I don’t normally do this but I like you all here on Steemit so here is a link to all my stock images on Getty. This way you can see the difference between what I sell as art and what I sell as stock.
How does it all work?
By using a third party like Getty Images to sell my photos, I’m giving up all negotiating power when it comes to how much a photo sells for and to whom. I also only get 20% of that sale. Why would anyone ever want to do this? Because Getty is the largest marketplace when it comes to buying and selling stock photos. You’ve got to go where the customers are. By handing over all these licensing rights to Getty, I’m putting my images in front of people and companies from around the world. These are people that would probably never see these photos without a service like this. That means I can sell these photos so much more frequently than just on my own. Which also means that the 20% I get from a sale still amounts to more money than I would make putting in the hard work to get my photos in front of buyers. And all I have to do is send Getty the photos.
What I really have to do.
OK, so it’s not as simple as just uploading photos. They need some level of curation and editing. I have to think about whether they are “sellable”. Could I see this image being used to sell a product, idea, concept or lifestyle? I need to edit them to make them stand out from all the other photos that will be in that category. A quick search for “TRAVEL” on gettyimages.com.au brings up nearly 3 million images. This brings up another important part of searchability which is keywording. For each photo that I upload I have to add information. The location, the date, a brief description and up to 50 keywords. 50 is a lot of keywords when you think about it. For any of the images I’ve put in this blog, try and come up with 50 individual words to describe the scene. It is very important that these keywords are added though, and that they match exactly what a customer would be looking for in a stock photo. This brings up new thoughts on how to describe the photo. “Copy Space”, “Backgrounds”, “Incidental People”, “Tourist Destination”. These are some of the more common keywords that I add to photos to make them more searchable for people wanting general stock photography. Now imagine having 300 photos from a trip to New Zealand to upload and each one needs 50 relevant keywords. This takes time.
How much?
With the exception of a few, all my images are Royalty Free. This does not mean the photo is free. It means that you can pay a one off fee and use it for whatever you like, without ongoing royalties. You pretty much just pay for the size of the image and then use it how you want. Images can sell from a small size for $50AUD to a Full Resolution size at $775AUD. This means for each sale I can get between a few dollars to over $100.
The other form of licensing is Rights Managed. This means you pay for exactly what you are going to use it for. Check out the Getty Images calculator to see how much a photo would sell for when you set the conditions: https://www.gettyimages.com.au/purchase/price-calculator/sb10069475ab-001
The key to making a decent amount of money from doing this is quantity of quality. Having 2000 average photos on there won’t do as well as 200 super stocky clean photos. Because stock photography isn’t my full time job, I find having a large amount of decent photos does quite well. When I go out to shoot, I concentrate on getting photos for my website first, and also think about generalised shots of a location that would be good for stock.
What does well?
Not what I’d expect…
Here is the image that has made the most money for me:
An Origami modular star I made for fun and took some photos of it as evidence that I did it. Turns out people like it.
Here is the image that has sold the most amount of times:
This one kind of makes more sense in my head
Second highest in both amount sold and money made:
An old photo that use to be one of my best but certainly doesn’t make the cut for my website artwork now
How can you make money?
How many of you have a hard drive full of photos just sitting there? Photos that aren’t bad but you don’t want to print them out or share them because they seem maybe too simple or generic. Why not look into stock photography? There are lots of stock photography websites out there besides just Getty Images. Most of them have a “test” you’ll need to pass before you can be a contributor, but once you get to to uploading photos, all those photos gathering virtual dust on your computer could be making you money with a little initial hard work. Make the effort to get them in front of paying customers and then the stock photography site does the rest. It can be a great way to start generating a passive income that will grow over time as you build up your ahem... stock portfolio.
Header Image: compare this stock photo to my website photo in this blog
Intro Post
Website kieranstone.com
Instagram @kieranstoneau
Facebook Kieran Stone
We often upload to stock and have also got a bit of money from it too, but it just takes so long to upload and tag each shot that we just can't do enough of it!!
I go through phases where I'll spend a couple of days doing nothing else but uploading and keywording. But in the end it pays off. It's hard to know the value of it when you don't get immediate returns on your time spent
Yeah its laborious for sure, but we have had it pay off a few times, maybe I need to get back doing it!
You have beautiful images
all i can make is
This is an image for sale on Getty:
https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/photo/silhouette-landscape-against-sunset-sky-royalty-free-image/730254905
Yeah the stock world is another beast entirely. I have some friends that do it full time but I have never done it because i assume it takes a good amount of work and upkeep to stay relevent. At least that's what I hear. They push for you to keep uploading is that right? It'd be cool if I could slowly get 2000 images up there and just bank on that for a while... but that's not what I have heard. But then again I haven't done it.
You certainly need to stay relevant if you're shooting events and editorial kind of shots. But basic stock for travel and lifestyle can last for ages and still be relevant. A beautiful tropical beach will sell for years and at anytime.
Awesome good to know. I may have to start looking into it. But i realize its tons of work. Right?
It's a bit of work at the start but once you build up a decent collection it can just make you money with no effort. Kind of like Steemit ;)
I've been doing Stock for a while, but have recently been thinking about removing all my photos from all the websites - I truly believe something better will come along on the blockchains of the future: I've seen first proposals for stock sites on the blockchain pop-up and am waiting for 'the one' :-) They will have different business models and from what I see we will be able to keep around 80% instead of 0 (and believe 100% must be possible as well, like you get 100% of your content's worth on Steemit as well).
Have you considered this road yet too?
And yes, it's always the funny pics you don't expect to make a dime that will make you most! :D
If I can get 100% of the sale then that would be great. But the problem is also where the buyers are. A great system of stock photography on a block chain where photographers make more per sale sounds like a fantastic idea, but if you don't actually make any sales then there is no point.
Until something better comes along I still think Getty is the best place for my photos to make lots of small amounts, rather than zero larger amounts.
Very interesting. I have a lot of photos I've released on a free license in the past that have done well, but I just assumed that was because they were free. But I'll definitely have to look into this. Might as well try I suppose!
Free sites like pixabay and unsplash are terrible for the photography industry. If someone wants to use a photo then they should be willing to pay for it, especially when it will make them money. If you have photos you think people would want, then definitely don't hand them out for free. It makes the public think that any photo they find online is free to use. Depending on the use of the image, some can be worth thousands of dollars, which you may be handing over for nothing...
Thanks for the advice, Kieran! I think maybe I should give it a try on Getty 🤔
Getty is the biggest but there are a lot of others out there too. Shutterstock, stocksy...each seem to have a different feel and style they look for
Very atmospheric photos :-)
Thank you very much :)
Excellent post ! Stock is such a tricky one as its hard to assess how much time is worth investing. Some people do it well; but it can become a full time job in doing so. The key is getting the right balance as you say. Having shots with people in them (and releases) is also important and overlooked by most people. I am also not sure Getty is taking new photographers directly anymore. I think they push everyone now though iStock and select the better images to go up on Getty.
I haven't looked into whether Getty is accepting new contributors because I'm already in. I think it's also important to realise what photos are worth spending the time on. If you waste time on uploading and keywording just any old photos that probably won't sell then it's not worth it. The better quality the images are the more time you should put into making them searchable.
I rarely have people in my shots, and if I do it's probably my wife. Properly thought out and planned stock travel shots with models do a lot better than just ordinary photos, but they can cost money to make as well, if you have to pay the models.
Yes all good points.
I think they are actually accepting offers to getty again (or at least they now have a joint istock/getty application page rather than directing you to the istock one)
Kieran, have you thought of using Diimex? Im fairly sure my rate is roughly 70% of the sale. Obviously getty has most of the market share therefore more chance of selling the image
I think Diimex is more editorial rather than commercial. Also one thing I have to consider is that any photos I upload to Getty are exclusive for Getty. I cannot license them myself or upload them to another stock site. I can however sell them as prints and use them to market my own business.
I think you are right, Diimex is more related to editorial - where Getty has a big hand in both. Its quite amazing how much money could be used on this platform, i've been here for 3 weeks now and i'm blown away with the photography community side of it
Have you used Diimex successfuly ?
Do you have to be exclusive ? Or is that a choice you have made?
It's in the terms of use. Which does kind of make sense. Why sell it on their site if you can get it anywhere? That's why I don't put my "good" photos on their though. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to license them myself.
Ok. Interesting. I thought it might be an option. I have some photos up on Getty via EyeEm market and they are not exclusive. That said EyeEm then take a cut.
Wow its quite harsh on similars "All Content submitted to Getty Images is on a Content exclusive basis. This means that Content submitted to Getty Images and any other content that is substantially the same (a “Similar”) may not be licensed to any third party unless Getty Images has notified you that Content and all of its Similars have been rejected"
Yeah it is a bit. But with the time I spend on Getty, I don't have time to do the same work with similars on other sites. Like sharing to lots of social media
Yes for sure. So hard getting the balance right.
Thanks for posting this. i was really curious if these stock image sites were worth the time. Also not sure how my food photos would make much sense there. I created an unsplash account a few months ago to see what it was all about and in a week i had nearly 10 million views and over 10 thousand downloads.
i started seeing my photos literally everywhere, even magazines and not a single credit was ever given to me and i was regretting i ever used the site. I contacted unsplash with my concerns and they deleted all my images immediately with no response to my email. The learning lesson for me was that people do enjoy my work, so its got me thinking what next!
It's very sad to hear that someone with awesome food photos like yourself has lost so many of them to the curse of Unslpash.
With shots like yours, if you got them in front of the right people, then you could make a proper living off them, in my opinion, rather than wasting your talents on Getty or other stock sites. As I say in the article, I pretty much put my rejects on Getty just so they are still working for me.
I'd highly recommend looking into "what next" with your food photography career.
And never put your photos on unsplash or pixabay etc ever again.
Thank you so much for the detailed response. I appreciate your words, you are a phenomenal photographer & artist. Unfortunately i didn't know any better, somebody DM'd me on IG to sign up for Unsplash, i did and that was that. We live & learn as they say. I will take your words to heart and really decide what is "next" I have much to learn as im only 1 year into photography but i am OBSESSED with learning and evolving. Thanks again !