Selling photos online... official MoneySavingExpert.com discussion

Tony260667

I agree unless you are a pro photographer you will struggle getting your pictures sold and there are minimum / complex entry requirements to sign up to agencies listed in the article – minimum number of images, lengthy tie in period etc.
Try looking at The Printed Image Company, ThePic, it seems here the photographer will get recognition by selling prints of their pictures to people who will hang them in their homes. :j

MandaJane14

Hi Im new to this whole photography malarky but wondered if anyone would take a look at some of my pictures and tell me what they think, honestly. I cant post a link as Im a new user but my pictures are on flickr under the name mandajane14.

Many thanks

sharpshot

I have been living off my earnings from stock photography for a few years now. Luckily my mortgage is small and I can live cheaply. Its a full time job and I think it is much harder to make money now than a few years ago. I make most of my money from the microstock sites. I do have a separate portfolio with alamy but sales haven't been encouraging there. It does seem better to sell a photo for $200 than $1 but alamy makes a fraction of my total earnings. Some photographers detest selling for low prices but with digital cameras and the internet, times have changed and there are now some very experienced stock photographers using microstock. Unfortunately that makes it even more competitive and much harder for the amateurs that just want to make a bit of extra money.

The microstock sites are hard to get in to now and they are much more selective than a few years ago. They are also reducing commissions, istock was only paying 20% for non-exclusive contributors and that will be reduced in January to as low as 15% for those with low sales. That's too low for me and I am looking at other ways to make money, using my photos to write articles with hubpages, using zazzle and redbubble. There's a good forum for anyone thats really interested in microstock, google microstockgroup

olias

Hi, just wondered if anyone has any advice on the following?

I am building a website and will be using a lot of images from flickr available under creative commons licenses. I have noticed, however, that some images with a creative commons license, also have a getty license. How does this work? Surely if an image is available for free under a creative commons license, then why would I pay for it through a getty license? Or does one supercede the other?

Olias

purple12

My assumption was that the Creative Commons license is for non-commercial use but the Getty license is if the picture is going to be used for commercial purposes.

olias

Hi, thanks for replying, but thats not it. Creative commons licenses can include commercial use.

here is an example of what I am talking about:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwinz/1992778373/

(the cc license would have a dollar sign with a line through it if it was for non commercial use only)

Olias

patman99

I was just thinking, I wonder where the companies that make puzzles get their images from?, and what about calender companies?.

Has anyone used one of the sites where you can upload your images, then sell them printed on mugs, t-shirts etc. through an online shop?.

pample-mouse

patman99 wrote: »

I was just thinking, I wonder where the companies that make puzzles get their images from?, and what about calender companies?.

Has anyone used one of the sites where you can upload your images, then sell them printed on mugs, t-shirts etc. through an online shop?.

Well, I am using bluemelon photo sharing - it makes it easy for you to present your photos and sell prints, and stuff such as mugs, t-shirts, even puzzle and various other items with your images on them. You just upload your photos and set your prices for the products that you decide you want to offer your pictures on. I like it, although it is a paid service.

It is something like smugmug, but I like bluemelon more.

You can also sell your digital photos under various licences - you can even create your own.

The website is bluemelon.com

photomad1

There is a lot of talk about macro vs micro stock, with some people saying you should avoid microstock as it only pays pennies. However, the point about microstock is that you can sell each photo a lot more times than you would on a macro site, and all those pennies soon add up.

There are a lot of photographers out there who do make a lot of money from the various microstock sites. Microstock has also opened up a massive new market - a lot of people/companies just could not afford the prices to buy from the macro sites, but can afford them from the microstock sites. The number of photos that are bought each day now is many times what it was even 10 years ago.

In fact, I think the macro sites will decline, and the micro sites will carry on increasing. The quality of photos on the micro sites is now very high, and more and more people realise that they can get just as good a photo from a microstock site as they can from a macro site, at a fraction of the cost. As all companies are looking to save money, more will be switching from macro to micro.

My advice would be to give the microstock sites a try, and see how much money you can make. They do not cost anything to join, so what have you got to lose?

I have found a very good introduction to microstock photography on the 'TakeStockPhotography' website which certainly helped me get started in microstock, and the money is already coming in

patman99

Thought it was time to create a composite list of all the sites mentioned so far. So here goes.

http://www.amc-photographics.com
hhttp://www.alamy.com
www.bluemelon.com
http://www.britishimages.co.uk/
http://www.deviantart.com
http://www.digitalmoods.co.uk
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.fotolia.co.uk
http://www.Imagekind.com
www.istockphoto.com
http://www.photobucket.com
http://www.photographersdirect.com
http://www.smugmug.com
www.thepic.co.uk

Micro-Stock sites -

www.123rf.com
www.Canstockphoto.com
www.Dreamstime.com
www.Fotolia.com
www.Shutterstock.com

According to Microstocking Group, these are the best earners.

For sites on which you can sell items with your photo on -

www.zazzle.co.uk