By doing a quick calculation, my photos make up 0.002% of the still images available on GettyImages.com
Which means I have 1600 photos for sale out of about 80,000,000
I don’t normally do this but I like you all here on Steemit so here is a link to all my stock images on Getty. This way you can see the difference between what I sell as art and what I sell as stock.
How does it all work?
By using a third party like Getty Images to sell my photos, I’m giving up all negotiating power when it comes to how much a photo sells for and to whom. I also only get 20% of that sale. Why would anyone ever want to do this? Because Getty is the largest marketplace when it comes to buying and selling stock photos. You’ve got to go where the customers are. By handing over all these licensing rights to Getty, I’m putting my images in front of people and companies from around the world. These are people that would probably never see these photos without a service like this. That means I can sell these photos so much more frequently than just on my own. Which also means that the 20% I get from a sale still amounts to more money than I would make putting in the hard work to get my photos in front of buyers. And all I have to do is send Getty the photos.
What I really have to do.
OK, so it’s not as simple as just uploading photos. They need some level of curation and editing. I have to think about whether they are “sellable”. Could I see this image being used to sell a product, idea, concept or lifestyle? I need to edit them to make them stand out from all the other photos that will be in that category. A quick search for “TRAVEL” on gettyimages.com.au brings up nearly 3 million images. This brings up another important part of searchability which is keywording. For each photo that I upload I have to add information. The location, the date, a brief description and up to 50 keywords. 50 is a lot of keywords when you think about it. For any of the images I’ve put in this blog, try and come up with 50 individual words to describe the scene. It is very important that these keywords are added though, and that they match exactly what a customer would be looking for in a stock photo. This brings up new thoughts on how to describe the photo. “Copy Space”, “Backgrounds”, “Incidental People”, “Tourist Destination”. These are some of the more common keywords that I add to photos to make them more searchable for people wanting general stock photography. Now imagine having 300 photos from a trip to New Zealand to upload and each one needs 50 relevant keywords. This takes time.
How much?
With the exception of a few, all my images are Royalty Free. This does not mean the photo is free. It means that you can pay a one off fee and use it for whatever you like, without ongoing royalties. You pretty much just pay for the size of the image and then use it how you want. Images can sell from a small size for $50AUD to a Full Resolution size at $775AUD. This means for each sale I can get between a few dollars to over $100.
The other form of licensing is Rights Managed. This means you pay for exactly what you are going to use it for. Check out the Getty Images calculator to see how much a photo would sell for when you set the conditions: https://www.gettyimages.com.au/purchase/price-calculator/sb10069475ab-001
The key to making a decent amount of money from doing this is quantity of quality. Having 2000 average photos on there won’t do as well as 200 super stocky clean photos. Because stock photography isn’t my full time job, I find having a large amount of decent photos does quite well. When I go out to shoot, I concentrate on getting photos for my website first, and also think about generalised shots of a location that would be good for stock.
What does well?
Not what I’d expect…
Here is the image that has made the most money for me:
An Origami modular star I made for fun and took some photos of it as evidence that I did it. Turns out people like it.
Here is the image that has sold the most amount of times:
This one kind of makes more sense in my head
Second highest in both amount sold and money made:
An old photo that use to be one of my best but certainly doesn’t make the cut for my website artwork now
How can you make money?
How many of you have a hard drive full of photos just sitting there? Photos that aren’t bad but you don’t want to print them out or share them because they seem maybe too simple or generic. Why not look into stock photography? There are lots of stock photography websites out there besides just Getty Images. Most of them have a “test” you’ll need to pass before you can be a contributor, but once you get to to uploading photos, all those photos gathering virtual dust on your computer could be making you money with a little initial hard work. Make the effort to get them in front of paying customers and then the stock photography site does the rest. It can be a great way to start generating a passive income that will grow over time as you build up your ahem... stock portfolio.
Header Image: compare this stock photo to my website photo in this blog
Intro Post
Website kieranstone.com
Instagram @kieranstoneau
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