A long, long time ago I wrote about the copyright and model release issues that determined whether an image should be editorial or commercial usage but recently I got a message via my contact form from a photographer in the UK with this set of questions: I have plenty of ideas for stock photos to take but one area I am struggling with is copyright/legal aspects. I could not find any posts on your website about this so wondered if...
Once again, a very reasonable month. I know that we are probably in the final stages of this industry in terms of whether a single contributor (as opposed to a group of artists continually uploading new content) can make a reasonable living from stock, but usually the death of an industry takes longer than you think! In this case I think the major impact on earnings is the pressure that is on the stock agencies to get buyers to pay...
I was looking at my recent sales (using Microstockr Pro) and was struck with how often the images that I have created in the past year have shown up in the thumbnails. I usually do this at least once a day as I find that just scanning the sold files gives me a good idea of which themes are selling and also those small size images also give me feedback on whether my images, which might be great on a...
As you know, I have suggested that many themes around the upcoming US election will be opportunities for stock photographers (and videographers) in the coming weeks as the various themes of mail-in voting, voter fraud, delayed results, false claims of winning, lawsuits over ballot counting, violence at the polls (and afterwards) all come together in early November. This is an opportunity for readers around the world as the basics – envelopes and various campaign stickers can be created anywhere. The...
One thing I tried many months ago was to open up the website to questions and I then tried to combine similar questions and answer them in a concise post. So this might be a time to try that again! You can ask a question in the comments below, or send me a message through the contact form. Your question can be anonymous if you like. I’ll wait a while and then start to create some answering posts. So, if...
The concepts I am working on seem to shift depending on my enthusiasm for stock imagery. I’m sure many of you are feeling the pressure of thinking of new subjects that we believe will capture the image buyers needs – it is certainly a pressure to keep coming up with something intriguing and new! We have just had Labor Day in the USA, which is the final holiday of the summer, and so I did get out to our local...
I wrote, just three days ago, that it is a long time since I had a sale on Fine Art America. In fact my previous one was back in June. It must be magic that just writing those words caused someone to buy one of my images for their wall as yesterday I got the email saying this this image of Woodburn Hall at West Virginia University had sold as a massive 40 x 24 inch metal print: The profit...
A slow month all round – slow in earnings, and definitely very slow in terms of the effort I put into stock this month! I did have a side line in photographing images for a friend of mine who sells LED lightbulbs on Amazon and he wanted to improve his store – so we did a deal where I would create new images for his store and upload them. If you are in the UK and need an LED lightbulb,...
I’ve not been very productive at producing my own new images recently, but I continue to think about what might be successful and also track my own results to see what is selling. Interestingly, Microstockr Pro has had a big upgrade over the past few days that makes it easier to see how much individual images have earned by just clicking the image in the main sales page. Before, you used to see how much that image sold on the...
It is always interesting to see how my earnings compare month by month and also with the same month in the previous years and this month was no exception. I didn’t expect to get anything like the June results, because I had some great one-off events that month that I didn’t expect to be repeated, but even so, July came in pretty solidly with $2895. That compares with the $3245 in June and $2950 in July 2019, pre-Covid! As I...
