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 !