Selling photos online... official MoneySavingExpert.com discussion

darich

1940sGal wrote: »

1. You're absolutely right, it is what's behind the camera. But when it comes to your equipment, remember the camera comes second behind lenses so bear that in mind. You're much better off buying a body that's somewhere between entry level and pro and then adding some great lenses.

I completely agree that it's the photographer and not the camera that takes the photo but that has to be qualified by saying you do need decent kit and many agencies will not accept your images unless they're taken by a camera on their approved list.

A high quality camera and lens will let you do so many more things to a higher quality than cheaper equipment.
Higher quality equipment will be less noisy, sharper, clearer, less distortion and perform better in bad weather than cheaper kit.

If starting from scratch, then you 2-3k budget would probably be a minimum for starting out. That would buy you a mid range body and a couple of lenses, tripod, bag, memory cards, filters etc.
Additional items like spare batteries, lens hoods, processing software, hard drive space, possibly upgraded pc, insurance etc are other potential purchases so the cost can very quickly become very high.

clairemosa

Hi, I'm thinking of going about copywriting a photo, can anyone help me how? Thanks

darich

clairemosa wrote: »

Hi, I'm thinking of going about copywriting a photo, can anyone help me how? Thanks

In the UK copyright is automatically assigned to the photographer.

You don't need to do anything.

But if posting the image online somewhere it wouldn't do any harm to have a your name and the word "copyright" beside it just to remind viewers

patman99

Having now taken the step (at long last) to finally upload some images for sale, it surprises me just how different sites view the same image.
I uploaded 4 images to Fotolia & only 1 was accepted with the other 3 being 'out of focus'. I then uploaded the same 4 images to Alamy & all were accepted.

darich

patman99 wrote: »

Having now taken the step (at long last) to finally upload some images for sale, it surprises me just how different sites view the same image.
I uploaded 4 images to Fotolia & only 1 was accepted with the other 3 being 'out of focus'. I then uploaded the same 4 images to Alamy & all were accepted.

Take great care in uploading the same image to different libraries.

Some want an exclusive licence which means you can't use it anywhere else.
The other thing to watch out for is different pricing which can upset clients and put them off using your work again if they find the image for sale on another library for a lower price.
Thirdly, even if an image is not required to be exclusive by the agency, often the client wants it. So it means that an image sold by Agency 1 needs to be removed from the site of all the other agencies so that client gets the exclusivity they require.

I'm not saying don't use multiple agencies, but if you do then you'll more than likely need to set up a system for your self so you know which is image is where and if one sells, which agencies you remove it from.

I found it too much hassle for the small benefit (and it is small) until you have hundreds of images but that then means it's a real nightmare.

Best of luck though and hope you get some sales.

chrisbur

patman99 wrote: »

Having now taken the step (at long last) to finally upload some images for sale, it surprises me just how different sites view the same image.
I uploaded 4 images to Fotolia & only 1 was accepted with the other 3 being 'out of focus'. I then uploaded the same 4 images to Alamy & all were accepted.

Alamy is as far as I know unique in that providing your pictures reach a required quality level then they will all be accepted, they make no judgement on the content of the pictures. If they were out of focus I would have expected Alamy to reject all four pictures so wonder if perhaps Fotolia accidentaly gave you the wrong reason and it was perhaps just that they felt they would not sell on their site.

Any chance of a link to your Alamy pics?

messia07

hi all, i own some private interesting, unpublished photos of winston churchill (they look like they were removed from a photoalbum)

do you think these would be something a newspaper would be interested in?

googler

messia07 wrote: »

hi all, i own some private interesting, unpublished photos of winston churchill (they look like they were removed from a photoalbum)

do you think these would be something a newspaper would be interested in?

Newspaper might run a 'undiscovered photos of ...' article

Anyone currently writing a book or bio on Churchill or WW2 might be interested

Collectors might bid for the originals at auction

etc

chrisbur

messia07 wrote: »

hi all, i own some private interesting, unpublished photos of winston churchill (they look like they were removed from a photoalbum)

do you think these would be something a newspaper would be interested in?

These could well still be in copyright, are you the copyright owner?

chrisbur

I have had a look at this site. As far as I can tell it has only been going for about three months and they have very few pictures, I cannot imagine any serious picture buyers going here for their needs.
Looking at their download statistics the bulk of the downloads that they have had were for free pictures and most of the rest for pictures selling for as little as 10 cents.