Earnings from stock photography in December 2021
Another year comes around! So, firstly, a Happy New Year to you all and let’s hope that 2022 shows us some light at the end of the tunnel.
December did not look like a great earning month right from the start, with a very slow few days, and although it picked up a little, I still ended up with $2309, which as this graph shows, is the lowest for 5 years, but when I checked in my stats, it is actually the lowest earning December since 2013 when I had a whopping 5500 assets in my portfolio. What an industry!
My current assets are closer to 17000+ these days and I end up earning less!
It is quite instructive to look back over those years to see how earnings peaked and then started a steady decline:
This shows how volatile earnings can be with occasional big sales and what a difference that can make in an individual month, but there are clear signs that this year has been on a steady decline. The annual version of this shows it more clearly:
Still, life goes on, and let’s see what made December into the month it was!
Firstly, I think almost all agencies were down compared to November. SS came in at $566 compared to $612 and good old iStock dropped way down from $524 to $390. As usual, a lot of small earnings, but nothing particularly big. In fact, there were just 3 sales over $10 and together they brought in $39 which shows how the lack of a big sale can seriously diminish the results! I always report my iStock earnings in the month I get the cash and so this detail is actually for sales they published for November.
Adobe Stock was down at $420, Alamy down at $215, Fine Art America down from $319 to $64. I’m sure you get the picture! Collectively, this meant that the month had no real chance of going anywhere.
Overall, I had 16 downloads that earned $10 or more in December, with the best one being a $50 net sale on Alamy of a variation of an old favorite:
This particular version has only sold twice so it is nice to see a big sale for its second outing! Alamy also gave me a second reasonable sale with this one of the vineyards on the banks of the River Douro in Portugal:
This one netted $44. Alamy also gave me $15 for this image of a Tether coin. I talked about this to my premium subscribers a couple of months ago.
I had a few $20 and $30 sales on Shutterstock of various images but no real pattern to them – obviously the image just met a specific need which is why you really need as many variations of subjects as you can manage:
Just why this one was chosen and earned $35, I have no idea! My best selling video was again on Shutterstock and continued my Drone sales:
I’ve been back here to get closer shots of this coal powered power station – I think that will be a continuing subject for 2022 and onwards.
One final bit of unexpected news – a sale of an extended commercial license on Creative Markets to earn $24:
Once again – put the images in as many places as you can manage. You never know where the sales will come from!
I’ll update my sums and do a review of 2021 in the coming days (if I can build up the enthusiasm!)
Thanks Steve, still very respectful numbers, but I agree, the state of the industry is not exactly inspiring.
Steve, happy new year! I had two sales on Alamy last month fir less than 20c!
Yes, happy new year! Wow, 20c each!
Less than…
Sorry – missed that!
The sites with free download photos are part of the picture.
Yes, absolutely. Train someone that they can get something for free and they will expect more in the future!
So sorry to read about your :”unfair”: Covid infections – after being so careful. I hope that you and your wife are fully recovered. Thank you for all your news. Best wishes for the New Year, Sue. in Andorra
Hi Sue – yes, we both recovered fine! Thanks for asking! We don’t hear much about Andorra in the news – has it been OK there?
Steve, your analysis continues to be an inspiration in all the doom and gloom news. Love your work as well
Thanks!
Hi Steve. A Happy New Year to you and your family. I’ve done zero stock uploading for a year (where has it gone??) and consequently have had little reward. No surprise there then! When I’m out and about with my camera I take images with stock in mind (I’ll have thousands of them! ) but due to various reasons I haven’t uploaded to any agencies. In fact the first time I have uploaded for a year is today! The point of this rambling message is if you were considering shooting for stock today in 2022 Steve, would you bother? Not many people seem to have a positive outlook on the future of earnings potential of the industry hence question.
Thanks for your time.
Very good question! In my own mind, it depends on whether you are going to be taking the photos anyway (or traveling to somewhere partly because you want to visit it and partly to photograph it). If you are, and if you are planning to sell a few of the better images as wall art, then you might as well keyword them all as they will be pretty similar, and then upload them all to the stock agencies. Using Stock Submitter, it is almost no effort to upload 1, 10 or 100 images so you might as well do it. I don’t think I would pay good money now just to create a stock photo – I do buy the occasional product to photograph, but only because I can use that product. So I guess I am arguing myself into continuing!
Thanks for your reply Steve, I do appreciate your time and trouble. I don’t often take ‘pretty pictures’ as such (though I’ve a few in my portfolio), most of my shots are of things that I think MIGHT interest a buyer (mainly editorial), road signs, shop fronts, storm damage (plenty of that of late in Cumbria!!) and so on. Another question if I may, have you ever had any concern about submitting your tax details to any stock agencies? Am thinking of identity theft if they ever got hacked. Maybe I’m being paranoid!! Andy
Living in Cumbria and you don’t take “Pretty pictures”?? The place is surrounded by interesting landscapes! But I also agree that taking things that people might want to license is important as well. I took some pictures of a burned out caravan and that sold very well. Not pretty at all, but it filled a need. On to your question – no, I’ve never worried about it. I’m sure there are so many other hacks that have exposed my details and so I did lock down my credit reports (which you can do in the US) to make it harder to open a new account. I also formed a small company when I started this and it is the tax details of that company that I supply to the agencies. So I’ve never given this fear much thought to be honest!
Yes, I just knew you’d say that about the scenery here Steve!! It does seem odd I know living where I do, but my ‘passion’ in photography is street. Not many pretty pictures to be had in that genre but many interesting ones of people which I upload to Flickr and Instagram. But as I wander ‘the streets’ I do see stuff that might be of commercial value as stock and shoot it. I have uploaded a good few photos of Lake District views and not sold one. Of the small amount of pics (300) on Shutterstock I’ve had about 200 sales none of which could be construed as ‘pretty’. Not from memory anyway. Thanks once again for your fast reply and input.