My strategy for stock photography
I have made it no secret that I currently sell a number of my pictures on several different microstock sites. This has become increasingly more profitable, and I expect some day in the future I may be able to make $1000 a month just from microstock. I am currently not near this number, but my sales have been slowly improving. Still, I have received a number of questions asking what types of images sell best and how I go about taking stock pictures.
When I first started in stock photography, I spent a lot of time taking pictures that I thought would sell well. These were not pictures that I ordinarily would have taken, but were instead taken solely for the purpose of profit. Here’s an example of one of these shots.
This is not a particularly interesting picture, but could be of use to someone who needed a picture of a pile of saffron, which numerous people have needed. This particular shot has sold decently, but certainly is nothing to brag about. What I would find out from doing shots like this though, changed my entire philosophy about stock.
I began to spend a lot of time taking very similar shots – or in general shots of very mundane subjects. I spent a lot of time learning isolation techniques when the microstock sites started to become more stringent. I eventually learned how to do correct isolation and started submitting pictures. The problem that occurred was I spent a lot of time on these types of shots – both in taking the original shots and preparing them in Photoshop. I began to spend less time taking shots that I felt improved my technique, and more time taking shots that improved my sales.
What naturally occurred was a number of these shots were rejected, and a number of the accepted shots sold poorly. So after all of the time spent taking these shots, I received very little in return. My skills did not improve, my wallet did not grow, and my shots were boring.
Several months ago I made a new resolution to only take shots that I liked, and to pick from those shots the ones to submit. Therefore I began to spend my time actually improving my photography – learning new techniques and studying the works of others. Since then, I believe I have improved as a photographer. Interestingly, the shots I do submit sell rather well. Sure, none of my insect shots are big sellers – but I enjoy taking them and if I can make a few dollars off a shot that I enjoyed taking, I see that as a bonus.
I recommend this technique for the vast majority of us who are just looking to make a little cash with stock photography. There are photographers that go out there and find subjects they know will sell well, but they do stock photography as a living, not as a hobby. For those of us just looking for some cash to enable us to purchase new equipment, focus on improving your work as a photographer, then use microstock as a kind of ‘critique’ to see what others think of your hard work. Using stock photography in this way enables me to use it as a tool rather than as a hindrance. When a picture is rejected, I look into how I could have improved the shot to get it accepted. This improves the quality of my work as a whole. In particular agencies such as IStockPhoto give very good feedback about individual shots.
Using this technique also hardens me towards rejection. If a shot is rejected, I am not heart broken as I took it for myself, not for profit.
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Tags: microstock, photography, Stock Photography, strategy