Most profitable locations for Stock Photography
My good friend Alex (and his anonymous partner) recently posted a statistical analysis of the most profitable locations (major cities) for stock photography, taking their earnings in that city and the cost of living into account. Their top 3 cities turned out to be Seville, Jerusalem and Rio de Janeiro. Here is their main table (although you should go and read the rest of the article!)
That got me thinking. Are those the best places for travel stock photography or can you do better closer to home? I happen to live in a medium size city in West Virginia (one of the poorest states in the USA) with about 30,000 inhabitants but with a large state university (West Virginia University) based in the city which adds 20 or 30,000 students. Then there are a couple of big hospitals, one associated with the University, and some industry. The major private employer, Mylan, closed down this summer and moved the production of pharmaceuticals to India…
So, what would the figures from Morgantown look like. Of course, the biggest difference in a smaller town is the lack of interest in it. But then, there is also much less supply in the stock agencies. Seville has 91,600 images, Jerusalem 198,000, and Rio has 220,000. Morgantown has 1269 of which about 460 are mine. Hard to be exact because my editorial images have Morgantown in the title. But I guess I have just short of half the supply!
But do they sell?
Well, I earned $2181 in the past 4 years on these images with 2700 downloads and a revenue per download of $0.82 with a revenue per image of $4.77. However, I also sell these same images on Fine Art America and Society 6, where I have 156 and 10 files respectively. I’ve been adding a lot more recently to FAA, but even so, the income per image there is $6.51 and on Society 6 it is $11.60. Total earnings if I add those two sites into the mix is now $3313 from my 460 total images to give me earnings of $7.20 per image. Not bad when the cost of living is pretty low (in USA terms I must add).
My best-selling image on stock is this one with earnings of $257:
I see this on the front of the phone book (the yellow pages equivalent that we get these days) as well as on other things that come through the door.
Next is a video of students entering the historic heart of WVU, Woodburn Hall:
Next, a panorama of the city, which has earned $180 or so:
So, the motto is – take photos wherever you are and get them online. There is no distinctive skyline here, but there are a few places where you can get a view of the city from various hilltops and none of the above needed my drone to capture them. And, of course, you can choose the days with the best weather to take your photos.
Worth thinking about!!
Thanks Steve. Interesting thoughts about Morgantown, I was always under impression that small towns would not sell.
There is nothing really special about this place. It isn’t a tourist area, no big industries, and yet it keeps selling. I just noticed a batch of sales on Adobe this afternoon for 11 images of Morgantown that together earned $32. This was not included in my analysis and that really makes the point very nicely, I think.
Vacaville, CA.
Interesting analysis. It is also one that I have experienced. I live near Ocean City, MD and Fenwick Island, DE – that have a combined (census data) population of less than 1,500 residents. However, these are also tourist towns – with a large part time population and many thousands of weekly visitors for much of the year. I do not have specific dollar numbers figured into my print sales (and I do not do stock) but over half of my sales are of images shot within 25 miles of our home. It may equate to being a big fish in a small pond instead of being a small fish in a big pond.