Stock agency question
I’ve started putting images on Shutterstock. Learning a lot about what is expected of images to be available. So far about 50% acceptance rate.
Tried Adobe. 100% rejection. Can’t reasonably assess why.
What other agencies would you recommend?
sadly, acceptance for listing doesn't mean sales.. I was in ANIMALS
ANIMALS/ EARTH SCENES for years - sold some photos, but the work
required to satisfy their standards for detail was taxing.. this was
back pre digital. I'm officially still with them but have not given
them anything in years - once they started taking digital stuff I didnt
have the equipment to get them up to size demands...
I have a few thousand photos on my smgumug web page - not all are listed
for sale.. but I have sold from it, as recently as last week...
Don't know anything about shutterstock except seeing their watermarks.
Hope you have some luck with it
ann
On 1/15/2023 12:49 PM, collinb@brendemuehl.net wrote:
I’ve started putting images on Shutterstock. Learning a lot about what is expected of images to be available. So far about 50% acceptance rate.
Tried Adobe. 100% rejection. Can’t reasonably assess why.
What other agencies would you recommend?
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I don’t know if I would recommend themm but there’s a UK agency called Alamy that I used to have images lodged with. In my experience, one has to have literally thousands of images up to make any decent money.
Cotty
On 15 Jan 2023, at 17:49, collinb@brendemuehl.net wrote:
What other agencies would you recommend?
Steve Cottrell wrote:
I don’t know if I would recommend themm but there’s a UK agency called Alamy that I used to have images lodged with. In my experience, one has to have literally thousands of images up to make any decent money.
Cotty
That’s my goal. To go through all my decades old chromes and negs to find the good ones plus future shooting. I’m looking at retirement this next year. Might as well let the equipment generate some income.
In 2013 I met a retired couple in PA. He shot a lot for stock. A DSLR for action and a Sony mirrorless for stills. Seemed to work well for him once he learned what was selling at any given time, which seems to be as much or more important than sheer volume.
One problem is that the amount of work you need to do just to submit is
very time consuming. For another, most of the money that
is more than a pittance if it sells is for commercial use and you have
to have releases for people and pets and even homes or other
edifices. The quality of the image in any aesthetic sense is almost
worthless on its own. Razor sharp perfectly exposed boring images
of people doing stuff get purchased more often than anything else.. and
if you can recognize the people you better have a release.
You may have an award winning photo of a famous place or striking scene
but they won't take it because they are apt to have thousands
more on file already That are good enough, not even counting that the
people buying stuff for commercial use especially often don't know what
a good photo is and care less.
It's very tough, Collin.. I feel lucky to have sold as much stock as I
did (which wasn't that much) through Animals Animals - I 've better
from my current web site and individual pieces or batches of outtakes
that were slides on ebay...
I started out thinking it would support me in my dotage too.. and there
was much more chance of that happening back in the 80's than now because
now almost everyone has a phone that shoots razor- sharp images and
there is so much royalty free stuff on line that it's very unlikely you
could
support yourself on old stock.
ann
On 1/18/2023 9:58 AM, collinb@brendemuehl.net wrote:
Steve Cottrell wrote:
I don’t know if I would recommend themm but there’s a UK agency called Alamy that I used to have images lodged with. In my experience, one has to have literally thousands of images up to make any decent money.
Cotty
That’s my goal. To go through all my decades old chromes and negs to find the good ones plus future shooting. I’m looking at retirement this next year. Might as well let the equipment generate some income.
In 2013 I met a retired couple in PA. He shot a lot for stock. A DSLR for action and a Sony mirrorless for stills. Seemed to work well for him once he learned what was selling at any given time, which seems to be as much or more important than sheer volume.
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Ann,
Your input is appreciated.
Fortunately I won’t need it to survive. Just hoping that my fun hobby produces a few $$ to compensate. I find the time minimal (for Shutterstock) when I have shot a lot of similar-class but different images. That meant time/count, and worked out well. Time spent per individual picture can be overwhelming.
Again, next step is also to see what is popular at any given time and shoot accordingly. Give the customer what they want.