How to make money on photo stocks: tips for beginners

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:40

Many residents of the CIS countries at least once thought about going to work abroad. But not everyone can decide on this. It's actually very easy to work remotely in Europe, and one of those ways is to sell photos on a photo stock. The reward, by the way, will be paid in their currency. How to earn a large amount on photo stocks will be described below.

Sale photos

Before you start talking about photobanks, it's worth answering the questions of all photographers. And the first of them: what is a stock photo?

Photostock is a kind of online store that stores a huge variety of photos for any need. Most often, pictures are required for advertising purposes, for various designers, for news pages or even magazines. Therefore, it is real to earn as much as possible on photo stocks. It has been noticed that foreign companies buy photos most often.

Thus, stock photography is justan intermediary between the photographer and the person who needs his pictures. For each frame sold, the owner receives a certain remuneration, mostly no more than $5. But you can sell a photo in this way countless times. Sometimes there are offers from large companies for the purchase in a single use, which means that you need to sell a picture only 1 time. At the same time, the amount of remuneration increases tenfold. That's the whole answer to the question of how to make money on photo stocks.

Who needs them?

The second question that arises for photographers: why would anyone buy pictures if they are in huge quantities in the public domain absolutely free of charge? This is the answer to another question: why do foreign users buy more?

Post-Soviet countries do not treat the law on piracy properly. The struggle for rights, for example, in Russia, is not allocated a large budget and the necessary forces. And in the West, in China, Australia, in America, buying a photo is a common thing. People there know from an early age what photo stocks are and how to make money on photos.

The second reason is that companies do not want to spend a lot of time looking for the right material, it is easier for them to buy everything ready-made.

How much do people make from photo stocks?

Another question that worries all photographers: how much will he get paid for his pictures? Actually, it depends on many factors.

First of all, whatThe photo stock was chosen and under which licensed program sales are carried out on it, affects the price level at the photo stock. After this point, everything else depends on the photographer, on how many photos he posts every month, how many shots in his portfolio, and so on.

Is it possible to make money on photo stocks? Of course, it depends directly on how much effort is invested in the work, how well the photos are taken. It's not even worth talking about the fact that a photo should be presentable, because now all photo banks have moderation, and low-quality pictures simply will not be allowed for sale.

The most important thing is to set a goal and upload at least 50 photos a month, then any photographer will get a pretty nice reward.

Sales income

You can calculate the cost according to the following scheme: approximately 10% of photos will be successful and sold a large number of times. So, 1 picture worth 50 cents per year can be bought about 100 times, thereby bringing the photographer $ 50. And that's just for one stock photo. Now it’s clear how to make money on photos.

Tip: in order to improve your skills and sell more and more shots each time, you need to monitor every month what shots in general are in demand on the photo stock. And these categories to remove in the first place. So, for example, a greater demand for Christmas photos occurs in the fall, so you can decorate the Christmas tree as early as September.

Register

The first step toto make money on photos on photo stocks, is to register on various resources. It is recommended to do this as early as possible, even if the photographer has not yet decided which photos he wants to exhibit. Due to the fact that most of the sites are foreign, in order to start working on them, you need to fill out a tax return and submit it. All this is done electronically, but it takes a lot of time.

And also many photobanks ask to be tested or provide examples of their work. All this is best done in advance, before the work is loaded.

Good work first

If the photo is taken correctly and beautifully, then it will naturally sell better. To become a truly sought-after specialist, a photographer needs to practice and study theory all the time, as well as look for inspiration from famous authors.

An excellent result can be achieved if you learn to put yourself in the place of someone who needs these photos. For example, imagine what the designer needs and take a picture of it. By learning this trick, every photographer will see the result in terms of money.

It's all about the quantity

Even if the photographer takes insanely beautiful and high-quality photos, it will not bring him a lot of money if he uploads pictures very rarely. One of the main rules - the more frames put up for sale, the more money will be earned. This should be taken into account when adding works. So ifthere are about 100 photos, it is better to spread them over 2 months.

Don't give up

Failures, as in any other business, will certainly happen. It is possible that one of the photo stocks will not accept any work from the photographer, but this does not mean at all that the other site will do the same.

Don't take any slips personally, even if no one buys the picture for a huge amount of time. Most likely, it is not suitable for those people who buy photos. To prevent this from happening, it is worth reading the advice that is written above. In no case should you give up, no matter what the problem may arise. Everything is solvable and fixable.

Keywords are an important attribute

Sometimes you don't want to fill in additional items at all, and the photographer, having uploaded the pictures, thinks that this is enough. Not really. Since everyone who needs pictures searches for them by keywords.

A photographer just needs to take the time to correctly select a description that will allow any buyer to find a shot. First of all, you can view popular keywords and a description of similar topics. You need to add at least 20-30 words for one work. This will allow you to sell the photo as many times as possible.

Retouching allowed

A large number of photographers consider "Photoshop" a banned program. In fact, this is far from the case, but on the contrary - the more beautiful the picture and the better, the more likely it is to be acquired. Photobankit makes absolutely no difference whether the software was used, the most important thing is that the picture complies with the rules of the site.

Must look around

Very often there is a creative crisis when the photographer no longer knows what to photograph and put up for sale. To prevent this from happening, first of all it is worth not only practicing, but also studying professional literature. A great step would be to join a photo club, and if this is not possible, then you can visit various forums and not be afraid to take part in discussions.

Of course this won't allow you to travel every month, so many photographers decide they've got it all and there's nothing else. This is not so, you should once again carefully look around you and find a huge number of subjects for shooting. An excellent exercise that will help you get out of your comfort zone: you need to take absolutely any object or area - yes, anything. And photograph the same object 50 times in completely different ways. If such a thing is repeated at least once a week, then the brain activity responsible for creativity will develop more actively.

The most famous photo stocks

Here is a list of stocks used by a large number of photographers from both the CIS countries and around the world. It also tells in detail how to make money on photo stocks, training is provided.

1. "Shutterstock" is the world's first most popular photobank, every day it is on it that a greatthe number of sales, and income generation on the site is higher.
2. "Depositphoto" - the page is relatively new, so it's just gaining momentum and doing it quite well. This platform is by far the best for beginners.
3. "Photolia" - this resource has the largest photo library, but at the same time, the average price for them is lower than in competitive photobases.
4. 123РФ - the bank is also a great help for a beginner, as it does not have excessive requirements, and photos are rarely rejected. RF does not mean Russian Federation, it is an international site.
5. "Dreamtime" - photo stock without any exams and filling out declarations. Therefore, it is suitable for people who want to receive passive income through sales. True, the ratio of sales and price is not very impressive if we are talking about the TOP-5 photo stocks.

It seems that now the question of whether it is possible to make money on photo stocks has disappeared.