So you’ve got an eye for a good photo and can use a computer? Why not sell your photos on stock photography sites? There is plenty of opportunity for keen photographers to make a little extra cash and there is also opportunity to make lots of it!
Stock photographs are photos that might be of use to someone somewhere for something. Which makes the playing field rather large! Think of it this way, a photo of a man walking quickly along a crowded city pavement carrying a briefcase while talking into a cell phone might be of use to a magazine doing an article on cell phones or an advertiser of stress busting weekends away, or a newspaper doing a piece on business growth in the city.
The potential income ranges from small to large. Amateur photographers with small volumes of images can make enough money to help develop their skills and maybe buy some new equipment which is itself a good reason to try the online stock photography phenomenon. Experienced photographers who produce hundreds of images on a monthly basis can make a significant part of their living from stock photography.
Stock photography sites like iStockphoto for one example, allow you to sign up free of charge and start uploading your image files. They accept good quality jpegs and vector images as well as videos and each file will attract a value based on its quality and size. You are then credited with a royalty for downloads of your files.
The payment to you for an individual file might be just cents but consider that this for every time an image is downloaded and it starts to add up. A very popular image might fetch you $50 in a month just for that one image. If you have an eye for good images and can see what is in demand you can make lots! By the way sites like iStockphoto actually help you learn to spot the trends in demand for photos and you can upload hundreds of images.
Copyright is obviously important so there are some rules fairly common to all stock sites such as providing model releases where people are the subject of the photo or are at least recognizable in it. The stock sites have similar requirements on this but typically will want to see the persons signed consent form giving you permission to use their image in your photos and a copy of their ID. A witness signature may also be required.
You should avoid using any recognizable brand or logo type images and even well known buildings can be subject to this too. Any image that might be considered a brand or subject to copyright and trademark protection is to be avoided unless you have the paperwork giving you permission for its use.
Make sure you comply with the site guidelines for filesize and type and of course rotate and crop your images appropriately to make them most appealing and eye-catching. Remember they have to catch the eye of the potential buyer who is browsing through screens of all the images available.
Related to that need to be eye-catching, you will also need to carefully consider the kind of keywords someone might use when searching for images like the ones you are selling. These keywords can be input on the site you upload to but its often easier and better to include them in the metadata of the images themselves as this will save you heaps of time when it come to uploading your work. Photoshop and other graphics packages use the IPTC standard for embedding your keywords into your jpeg files.
So now you know a little more about the potential of stock photography whats stopping you? Good Luck!
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