This was such a nice honest and natural spoken video. Very sympathetic, and informative. Congrats to your succsess and progress over such a long time. Endurance finally pays off. Thanks for sharing your experience. 😊👍
Thanks so much for the comment! I see too many videos that are not honest, I. ad to put my 2 cents in 😅. Its not easy, but anyone cando it 🤷♂️. Thanks again!
For several months I was not active because my husband was sick and died, I just became active again and now I have a portfolio of 320 photos, yesterday the grass photo was downloaded for the second time, when I searched on Google it turned out to be liked by users, even though only $ 0.18 made me excited to rise from sadness and believe that various stocks will be ogled by buyers
thank you for sharing and I'm sorry for your loss. 13 years later I still get exited when I sell a. photo, even if it is only $0.10, someone chose my image over millions of other out there, it is a good feeling. Keep at it and best of luck!
Thank you very much... you're right, I wonder who buys grass photos among millions of good photos? I searched and it turns out Europeans? something that motivates me to keep working... FYI I always watch your videos to learn a lot about stock photos
Hi, thank you for this video! You really described my situation - some time ago I was very enthusiastic about stock photography and yes - I used my advantages to shoot my sons roller hockey practice and game. These are some 5-7 photos which made me around 100 USD in 2 years 😂 so I'm terrible lazy and photography is my hobby, I cannot find enough time for this. I just can imagine 10000 photos with the same purchase conversion as my roller hockey photos 😂
Nice video. I have just been starting this business, still learning the basic skills of photography. At first, almost 100% rejected, now it's getting better.
Thank you! 🙏 Use stock and practice, when photos get rejected, learn why and do more, best way to learn is practice, thats the best advice I can share, It worked for me it can work for anyone 🤷♂
Awesome video, thank you. A much appreciated realistic and informational view into the process and how to navigate potential pitfalls and discouragement while maximizing the chances of success. I am sure you have saved many folks a lot of time and heartache. Glad to have found your channel! Liked & Subscribed!
Thank you so much! Stock is fun, but its not as simple as some make it to be, It can be rewarding but it takes time and effort! Thanks again for the comment! 👍
Great video. Well, I'm totally new in photography and it is just a hobby for me because I am a cardiologist, however tried to upload some of my photos to adobe stock and got 5 downloads. Yeah, its like nothing but gave me the push to continue with my iphone yet (lol). Thanks for the great advices! If I ever hit 1K per month that would be a great feedback for me, not really the money what counts.
Thanks for an honest upfront video about stock. I haven’t been uploading recently and my sales have dropped significantly. This video was what I needed to get going again. What are your thoughts on AI and the impact it may have on stock?
Glad it was helpful! AI is here to add and enhance, when stock photography went digital a lot of analog stock photographers quit, because the price dropped and now anyone could do it, this was 15 years ago, and stock is still going 🤷♂️ things will always change, we just have to adapt and do whats best for us
Great advice as always! I am learning from your videos. But I guess that all the accounts that exist several years and have therefore more sales have an advantage to newbies. Adobe stock for example recently rejects pictures, telling they are repetitions although I have the same motive sometimes only twice uploaded. But I know accounts that have one and the same animal a hundred times up there and go on loading up the same pictures. I can't help myself but think, that they are selling a lot and so Adobe lets them do this. Not fair, but I understand it's a business. It's all about making money...
This happens in cicles, a few years ago Shutterstock was rejecting everything and adobe accepting everything, then they changed and now they are back to what they were 5 years ago 🤷♂. Old stablished accounts have the advantage of files sold already and those get recommended, new accounts have the advantage of being featured under new content, the key is to upload a minimum of 10 000 pictures after that you should see results
You are welcome! I made this video a while ago it shows how to find online usage ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2godv2Doavc.html @@r.h.2830
Thank you very much for the inspiration I get from watching your videos. Great job. As a suggestion, maybe the issue of equipping a home photography studio.
Thank you so much! What type of studio are you looking for? I have done some videos with simple table tops setups, home made diffusers for small objects, outdoor product set ups and indoor small setups for food and drink 😁
Charlie, this was a great video. Lots of good information. Thanks for sharing so many of the details to make the stock photography more accessible. Bret & Lisa
Thanks Bret & Lisa! The more I dive into stock photography and RU-vid the more similar both of these two industries are, both are about numbers, popularity, trends and capitalizing on our unfair advantages!
Great video and advice, I started stock photography in February, and so far :) Shutterstock $3.53, Adobe $8.56, iStock $2.19, Alamy $0.0, Pond5 $0.0, Dreamstime $0.0its so hard, but I like so much, and I can learn more about photography. I have a question do you have any experience with PixaBay?
Very helpful video! The only thing I didn't understand was why you needed press credentials to shoot for an event, isn't considered an editorial photo?
That is a great question. And I’m not exactly sure, what comes to mind is agencies protecting them selves. Media passes and press pases are usually given to photo journalists to capture editorial photos and gain acccess to behind the scene situations. I’m assuming stock agencies want to keep a standard of journalism with certain events requiring these pases. Other events may be private and only allowed access to certain outlets or with special invites like you will see with Getty images, in which case you will have to prove you were invited to photograph them he event. It all comes down to legal protection 🤷♂️
Thanks this is a great informative post with your point at the 1:30 time stamp highlighting the greatest sacrifice we must be prepared to make that is even harder than sacrificing the money for the mort expensive equipment ..."our investment in TIME" learning , practice, trial and error where we basically are not making money. If anyone primary goal is to get rich quick rather than having a genuine passion for photography then maybe this is not for them.
100% I keep saying that this is not for everyone, if you are serious treat it seriously, if you want to learn, use it for practice, If you don't have an outlet or don't know what to do with your photos upload and see what happens 🤷♂️
Thanks for the tips!! I've started to get some sales through and trying to stay consistant. Though I've been using Photoshop, Lightroom and Premiere pro for the past 3 years, would you recommend to keep paying for adobes softwares? Or maybe theres a free alternative? Also if I take photos with people in the photos, is it possible to add the photos as editorial? Thankyou
Thanks so much, This is an interesting question to answer 😅. I had bought adobe lightroom classic years ago, and just kept updating until it went to subscription, at this point I wanted no part of it, so I bought Affinity Pro to replace photo shop and On1 photo Raw to replace lightroom (it can replace photoshop also) but not even 3 months after buying these Adobe Stock, said that because of my sales witht them I qualify for free Lightroom and Photoshop for a year, its been a couple of years now and I haven't paid for this, simply because I have enough sales from Adobe Stock, I believe it is 250 sales a year or close to it. for video I use FCPX, and again because I refused to go subscription based, Same thing with Premiere Pro, I can get it for free but after 3 years im used to final cut pro, and have no plans of changing just yet. hope this helps! And yes, photos with people with out a Model Release can be sold as editorials.
@@wollertz Yeah, I really appreciate the advice! Its really too bad adobe makes it all subscription based now. I'm gonna have to make the switch most likely to On1 and Final Cut Pro. Thanks a lot for the help!
You can absolutely sell the same photo on different platforms as long as you don't select the option of Exclusive Photo, or choose to become and exclusive photographer with one particular agency
Very informative! Question: If the photo or video is not for commercial use but for editorial, do stock photography sites still require a focused quality or what do you call that term pertaining to "white spots"?
Im not sure why you mean by white spots, editorials are more about the moment, think of them as documenting history or photojournalism, quality still hast to be good, but reviewers are a little more flexible when it comes to quality of editorial images
Great story and tips bro. One question, what about the right of using a photography when are people´s faces in it? imagine: street, corporate photos, etc. Not always one can talk to the people and ask: hey, i took a photo, you´re in, can I post it for sell it?
Thanks! You can post and sell with without permission under Editorial, this limits the use, and the rules change a little but it is a great way to sell photos pf people doing things, editorials can not be posed, can not be staged or altered, its photojournalism, show what happened how it happened.
How long before the season do you upload photos? For example, summer photos: do you upload them some time in advance or do you not take seasonality into account?
Taking advantage of your generosity I'm asking; where you the YT presenter that said that there was a free to the public site that does pay based on donations or something similar? Thank you
Thank you so much for your videos! Have you done anything on how to get *back* into stock after you've taken a multi-year break? I recently started uploading again and it feels like the algos think I'm dead, 0 views, and I'm wondering if I'm wasting my time and I'll never get picked back up into the algo flow again.
I'm going thru a similar situation. I stopped Stock when I started the RU-vid channel, and it slowed way down, nowI upload the images I use for the videos, It isn't much but it is something 🤷♂️,Ive been seeing sales on images Idid last year for the videos like the background and strawberries, and recently some of the new ones have been selling, but more importantly old content starting selling more, so the new images are getting old content found, and its just a matter of time before the algorithm treats you seriously, consistency is the key, or at least is seems to be 😅
I live in Austria (Not AUSTRALIA) and I startet Stockphotography 1year ago. I Start with wirestock only and „earned“ 15.- Euro in 7 month. With about 250 pictures . Now I try to find my niche- and think about everything about vacation in Austria, in the Alps/Mountains, Farming and farming animals With Animal Welfare. I use english Keywords .. Do you think This niche is to small? (I like your RU-vid-Channel - and Sorry for my Not so perfect english) Greetings from Tyrol - the Heart of the mountains/ Austria
please don't apologize for the way you speak, I know how difficult it can be to find the right words in a different language. now to answer your question, and this is my opinion, Stock is not so much about a niche, lots of pictures of any subject is what it takes, at least 1000 images of each subject, 1000 images of farming, 1000 of travel and mountains, 1000 with concepts for animal welfare etc. the truth is it takes about 10 000 images before you can see real numbers (income) and then you will know what is selling and what to make more pictures and of what subject.
Thank you for your video, very helpful. From many years of event photography I have a large collection of well known people from the 80's & 90's; might there be a market for them & which agency might be my best to list with? Thank you very much.
hello, again Ty for sharing your knowledge with us, any chance to make a short video on how to upload to Dreamstime? the other question is, are the still images ( RAW 27 mg ) from Gopro Hero 11 good enough for stock photography? of course, after using LR and PS take care and stay safe
Hi! I’ll try to make a few RU-vid short videos on uploading and submitting to the different agencies I use in the next weeks, (including Dreamstime) As Far as GoPro images, any photo that’s sharp and well composed is good for stock, GoPros like phones have their weaknesses and strengths, focus on the strengths and they should be fine
I thought I mentioned that in the video, maybe it was in another video 🤷♂ Top Shutterstock, second Adobe, and third im not sure all the other ones are pretty even, probably dreamstime.
Tnx. These are some good tips. Question: how did you find the time to upload all these? I have a decent portfolio. But 3500 images that i would want to upload. I never get more than a few dozen a day.
Thanks! I try to do batches of similar images, and I’m only uploading to 8 or 9 agencies, by doing similar images submitting becomes easier as I can also do batches of categories. I also export with all the keywords and descriptions built into the metadata with lightroom so I don’t have to do it with each one. I’m going to try Imatocker studio to see if it saves me time, I’ll make a video after the tests 😁
Sir I’ve submitted 4 photos on my shutterstock portfolio the first one was approved and the rest are showing eligible for data licensing What does that mean?
This means the photos are not good enough to sell but good enough to train AI, If any part of that image is used with AI you will be paid via the contributor fund
@@wollertz I made some findings and came to understand that having it eligible for data licensing is actually better, because for your picture to be eligible for data licensing, it has to be approved at first.
Hey loved the video ! You made everything clear . I had a question , i am a new photographer i photograph insects (macro), flowers , landscapes , weather , you know the general nature stuff . Do you have any recommendation for websites where i should start selling my photos ?
Thank you! Definitely adobe stock and shutterstock I have links in the video description to the agencies I use and Recommend, I’m not recommending wirestock anymore tho
@wollertz sorry for disturbing you again 😅 , I had another question, can i upload same picture on two different websites like shutterstock and adobe? , and also if i upload a picture on a website for selling can i still use it for my instagram ?
yes absolutely, you can sell the same photo in as many agencies as you want, just don't click that it is an exclusive image (some agencies offer that) and don't sign up as an exclusive photographer as far as instagram yes you can but I wouldn't, when you upload to instagram or facebook you give them rights to use your image so maybe do a screen shot so they cant enlarge it 🤷♂️
Congratulations! someone chose to buy your photo over millions of other ones. Stock is a numbers game and the more photos you have the more you can earn.
