Category: Stock Photography

Earnings from Stock Photography in February 2018

Don’t the months go by so quickly these days and although I guess February is a short month it was still reasonable. January had shown quite a bump over the previous month (and the same month last year), but February – not so good! Total earnings were still pretty solid though at $2860 although for some reason nothing has yet been reported by Zoonar – perhaps there is nothing, but usually I get a few sales there each month. Here...

All work and no play…

Did I really need to buy a new camera? Obviously no – the businessman inside me said firmly that the Sony A7r ii that I have (with 15000 shutter activations) is more than adequate for stock photography and the new model (the mark 3) has only a few enhancements. But the inner child knew that a new camera body was just what I needed and that I would be able to take higher speed videos and slow them down (only...

Sometimes my new edits turn out to be just what the market wants!

I wrote earlier in the month about seeing one of my images in a thumbnail and my mind wandering to a new or different edit. The main edit in that case was one of a drowning man holding a bitcoin, but I also realized that I hadn’t uploading the underlying scene of the dark stormy sky with the flooded ocean: The sky for this was an HDR version of the sky over the Shenandoah valley coupled with an ocean generated in...

Junk Shops – a source of Microstock ideas

I’m always looking for something different to photograph (and keeping my eyes open to what is being used on web sites) and I’ve seen a few images with older typewriters on them – gives a more interesting angle to writing, journalism or blogging than yet another laptop photo. So I go to antique stores (which are really junk shops here in the USA) and see what is around. My most recent purchase was an electric typewriter in pretty good condition:...

Getting inspiration for new stock shoots

For travel photographers, the winter can be a downer – cold, wet, snowy weather (depending on where you are of course) and little enthusiasm to brave the cold! Now is the perfect time to improve your portfolio and your skills with some studio shots. But what to take? I find ideas from just generally browsing news and opinion stories, such as ones about people not saving enough for retirement. It was illustrated by a savings jar with a few loose...

Always keep your eyes open to a new edit

I was looking at my daily sales this morning on Microstockr Pro (and there weren’t very many over the weekend!) and I saw a 38c sale of an old image of me in a swimming pool holding a “Help Me” sign. For some reason, my brain immediately jumped to the current collapse of bitcoin prices and the chance that everyone who bought in since December is likely to have lost their shirt (and hopefully not their life savings). A new...

Earnings from Stock Photography in January 2018

Another year goes by. Hard to imagine that I am now in my 11th year as a stock photographer having starting uploading in early 2008. Earnings that first year – $1113! Now we are in 2018 and January is traditionally a slow month for me in the stock world. This month is no exception – after a run of over $3000 months, I ended in January with $2727: What is interesting about the chart though is that I was significantly...

Selling the same image on Alamy and other agencies?

I’m intrigued by the question of whether Alamy buyers see an image on that site and then search for the same image on cheaper microstock sites and buy it there. If they regularly do that, then you are losing out on a higher priced Alamy license in exchange for potentially sub $1 income from the micro site. I did a detailed analysis last year which didn’t find any evidence that they do that, but I saw a couple of “zooms”...

A nice surprise

I received an email via Fine Art America this morning saying: I am a small time book artist based in Mumbai, India. I want to use your Milkweed seeds image in my upcoming website as I have a set of artists’ books made like Milkweed seeds. I request your permission. The image in question is this: I didn’t know which particular image it was at the time, and so, without much thought I replied with a link to my personal...