Give Stock Photography A Shot.

Why shooting micro stock works for me -By Daniel Troutman

My journey with stock photography started back in 2004 when I got accepted as a contributing artist on the micro stock photography site Istockphoto. For those who don’t know, stock photography is a collection of photographs available for purchase by anyone who needs photos for private or commercial use. Small business owners, graphic designers and even national publications use stock photography when hiring a photographer to create custom images proves to be too costly for the project at hand. To get a better idea of what stock photography is take a look at my portfolio on Istockphoto.

I started selling images almost immediately and with the help of a twisted sense of humor and a raw turkeyI created a following of people who downloaded my images regularly. The income generated from this became my equipment budget while my various day jobs helped pay the bills. Putting my royalties back into the business meant that I didn’t have to take out a business loan and that means less overhead now that I have a retail studio.

Even better than the money was the education. Not all of my images were good enough to put on Istockphoto. Each time an image is rejected the site inspections give you a breakdown on the problems you need to address to make your images saleable. Instead of getting mad and giving up I used this as the learning lesson it was intended to be. After a short while (money is a great motivator) I learned what it took to make money in stock photography. It was like going to a school that paid you to learn.

Now the real beauty in stock photography is that you can take a picture, do your post production work, upload it and collect royalties from that image for years to come. A lot of my food images  have been selling steadily for several years and have earned me several hundreds of dollars each. I also use my children in my stock photos and the joke around our house is that they’re paying for college by modeling for dad. Every month or so my kids make me add up the royalties from each of their pictures and tell them who made the most money. They also have a growing collection of magazines that they have appeared in. While I’m tooting my own horn, I came across one of my own images in the Oct. 2009 issue of Newsweek magazine. It was a great feeling.

I know that there are a lot of photographers that are going to tell you selling you images royalty free on sites like Istock is a huge mistake. It’s true that you don’t make as much money as if you were selling images on a rights-managed site. In some cases you’ll only make $0.35 compared to the hundreds you’d make selling rights managed.  If you’re a good enough photographer I say sell your top shelf images on a rights-managed site. But don’t overlook the portfolio exposure and volume of sales you’d receive at a royalty-free micro stock site site. Case in point, Lisa Gagne, an istock contributor sold over one million images in just over seven years. Never mind the money, just imagine how many people are looking at her work.

If you’re a newbie with a new DSLR I present the following reasons to give micro stock sites a try:
You’re going to get a crash course in how to shoot commercially viable images.
You’re going to make money doing it.
You’re going to get exposure with your work.

Lastly, with stock photography you get a chance to shoot whatever you want. For me this really helped me define what I wanted to specialize in and who I was as an artist. So whether you’re in it for knowledge or money, micro stock pays big dividends.