Stock Photo Secrets

Don’t get too excited – I haven’t suddenly come across the alchemist’s dream of a way to turn a boring snapshot into a million dollar stock image. But I did come across a very interesting site aimed at explaining the ins and outs of the stock business. The site is professionally put together and focuses more on stock buyers than contributing photographers, but it does give us all a chance to get into the mind set of the buyer – what are they looking for, what alternatives are there, when do they need an editorial license and when a Royalty Free, etc.

Each of the main stock sites is reviewed, revealing details of pricing, collections and search options, and there is an up to date summary of the free photos available from each of the sites that week – again very interesting to a photographer.

It is not all good news for us contributors – they do have a section on how a buyer can locate an image on the cheapest site, so when we upload our photos to all the sites, this tool lets the buyer find the cheapest place to buy it! I don’t think that means we should stop multiple uploads, but it does show yet another trend to the lowest price site leading the way (at least for a time!)

Check it out at www.StockPhotoSecrets.com