About Stock Photography
How to Make Money
One of the channels you can choose to make money by taking photos is stock photography. Uploading the photos you take to the stock sites is one of the most curious methods of making money on the internet.
With the spread of stock sites in recent years, you can earn very good money by selling your photos with serious and determined work. Besides, you can earn money by uploading not only photos but also your works on video, vector or illustration to such sites.
There are some tricks to be aware of making money by selling photos on stock sites. Let’s start by telling you what you need to pay attention to, such as what is stock photography, how to do it, how to make money, and what to look for.
What is Stock Photography?
Stock photography is a category of photography that is put up for sale and is resold many times to meet the demands of clients. The photographer or stock photography distributor has ownership of the images, and the commercial designer has some limited usage of the photo (which is set out in the Terms of Service by the company you purchase the stock photos from).
Agencies, websites, or companies need photos to use in printed materials or digital platforms. Thanks to the development of the digital world, photographs that were previously purchased by professional photographers at high fees can now be purchased effortlessly from the stock sites.
Stock Photo Sites
First, let’s start by introducing the most preferred and known stock photo sites where you can upload your photos. Shutterstock, AdobeStock, Dreamstime, iStockphoto, DepositPhotos, and 123RF are the most used sites. You can refer to this page for various stock agency registration for selling or buying content. You may also find user plans and pricing on that page.
Become a Contributor
Start earning money by selling your images
After subscribing to stock photography sites, you can start uploading and selling your photos. However, each site has its own membership conditions and you must meet these conditions. While an email address is sufficient to subscribe to some sites, others may want to see the photos you have taken before.
Let’s take Shutterstock registration as an example. In the past, you had to upload 10 of your best photos, and 7 of them had to pass all the quality criteria. Now it’s enough with only one photo. So it’s quite easy.
What sells?
After meeting the membership requirements and succeeding to become a member, you can share your photos. First of all, on various sites, different topics sell best. One topic that will bring you good sales is the people. People doing random jobs, working, traveling, partying, and doing sports. But remember these photos require model releases. You may refer to this link for information about the model release.
On Shutterstock and DepositPhotos you’ll be better with nature, people, travel photos, and landscapes.
On Adobe Stock, on the other hand, food sales should be much higher than in the previous two. Actually it depends on the clients.
Register now and in one year’s time, you’ll be glad that you have started today. Patience and persistence are the keys. Start with one website, build up your portfolio, and move on.
