giphotostock

That's exactly what I mean. Do the same exercise for other subjects and you will have to ask "how long?" a lot less frequently. If you goal to sell and make money, it would pay to spend time on market research (ie what images sell and to whom). That would take a lot of guesswork and presumptions out. If your goal is something else, then why contribute to a stock agency (other than that there are a lot of nice people here on Alamy forum)? Of course not. But the rate of sales per image is much higher when you have (at least intuitive) understanding of the potential use BEFORE you press the shutter. I stopped shooting "documentary" or "found" images for Alamy in 2011-2012. Last few images I uploaded to Alamy was in 2014-2015. Mostly unsellable stuff that I have here sells at a rate ~1 image per month per 1000 images, in line with what other regular contributors here report. Elsewhere (not microstock) my market-focused collection sells at ~10 images per month per 1000 images. Overall I've sold 27% of images that I shot for that collection. Out of those, many are repeat sellers that sold 5-10+ times. Another statistics: Back in 2006 I shot ~1200 mostly "documentary" images. In 14 years since, 114 different images from that year have sold, some several times. In 2016 I shot 600 market-focused images. In 4 years since, 183 different images from that year have sold, many sold several times. By the way, even at that rate the collection does not bring income-level returns, as in "paying mortgage", "paying for kid's college". Keep in mind that reports on this forum are representative of what reporters shoot. I do not think reports on this forum are representative of how really successful stock images do. In fact, most reporters here do not shoot "vast range of subjects and types" of highly in-demand stock images. Have you seen, for example, Monty Rakusen popping up in the forum lately? https://www.rakusen.co.uk/ Or even this young kid: https://www.coreyjenkinsphoto.com/ Again, it is down to the rate of sales per effort somebody puts in. Do you want to chance sales and go for "everything sells" or shoot what is in a real demand? I guess I am really stating the obvious, that somebody's rate of sales is highly dependent on what somebody shoots.

A good question to ask yourself is "what these images can be used to illustrate?" (aka "what is my market?"). What it is that the buyers can do with these images? GI

Well, I think most of them are actually well-meaning people. They are nice, they are freely sharing what they know. That's the thing, people do not know what they do not know, by definition. It is probably one of the unintended consequences of democratic internet. A voice of an expert gets drowned among that of non-experts, particularly if the former attract large followings... GI

Well, his "hard-to-find" image experiment is "statue is well off any tourist areas to Washington and so only a local or dedicated stock photographer would go there and take the time to keyword and upload it" Walking to a spot in a major metropolitan area is not "hard-to-find". No wander he got the results he got. The reason it did not sell like hot cakes is because there's not much demand (=market) for it. Real hard-to-get stock images require a lot more effort to get access to, like negotiating with some sort of a gate keeper. They also often require actually producing and setting up images, not simply recording what's in front of the lens. For example: nuclear plant control room, particle accelerator tunnel, hydroelectric turbine manufacturing, scientist doing carbon dating analysis, laser eye surgery, workers reading gauges in an oil refinery, etc. Take it a notch down: mechanic fixing a car, nurse taking ECG, carpenter making hand-made furniture, farmer doing what farmers do, computer server room, mechanical engineer using ProE or SolidWorks, colorful chemical reactions (preferably something exploding), instantly-recognizable tools of a particular trade, etc. A wandering stock photographer has a zero chance of walking into one of those and snapping an image. All the above have serious demand and can command serious fees. That's where the money is. Some people make such images, place them on microstock and they sell for peanuts, but they sell a lot. Real demand and not a lot of supply. A hard-to-find statue in Washington? Yeah, right. Keep snapping and sales will come. GI

40 "downloads" total. Average $3.65 per sale. There we some $0.10, but there was a large number of sales that were more than previous standard $0.33.

Well, for what it's worth, my 50 test images on SS on the average net ~$20/month. In June, with the new commission scheme, these 50 images brought in $73. Could be a fluke. Sample size of one contributor is not statistically representative. GI

I still miss the old StockPhoto group, SAA, even the old AlamyPro... Good discussions on various aspects of stock and not only stock, input from people with different specialities, lots of market and business discussions. And yes, RF/RM wars. Sadly, current Alamy forum seems to be dominated by documenting sites/things one sees during travels and walks, the need to have 1000s of images to start seeing sales, and the "everything sales" ideas. GI

Geoff, good to see you back here.

Getty pretty much stopped accepting (direct) and distributing RM collections about a year ago. However, I do not think Alamy distributes via Getty? GI

The big market elephant in the room are textbooks and other science publications. They use a lot of LM (light microscopy) images. But then there are much better channels for distributing science images than Alamy. GI

I'd spend time thinking about what microscopic images are in demand. The market. A microscope, like a camera, is a tool. It matters a lot what you point it to. GI

Thanks for sharing buyer's perspective. So what has changed from "long time ago"? Is your (or dedicated photo researcher's) time required to find absolute cheap photos suddenly become free? Stock images (ie images shot on a speculation that they may sell one day) are maybe devalued but people's time working on a funded (commercial) project could not be much less than $15/hour? GI

You need to change what and how you shoot. Choose the market that you'd want to supply to. Yes, there are different markets (ie buyers) for photography. Study that market, what images are in demand (ie being used)? Shoot that. Pre-visualize and produce images. "Shoot what you see" is arguably the least profitable approach, even travel is likely to do better. If you keep "plugging away", that'll only lead to more fiscal disappointment in the future. If you doing it for the pleasure, that's a different ball game and my advise needn't apply. GI

If you are serious, approach it like you would approach any new business opportunity. identify the market that you want to supply to. Study that market: how large is the market, what kinds of images it needs, demand/supply balance? Identify agencies/distributors that supply into that market (particularly important if you specialize in anything other than "shoot what you see/find") Shoot for that market/agency. GI

Great shots of agricultural machinery doing what they supposed to be doing (with specific description). Do more of that, go wider to show expanse, from above if you can, show more of the field. Great blue skies, but in bad weather as well. Great shots of tractor fire and firefighters' response team. Do farmer inspecting crops (and whatever else farmers do in the field), with an identified machinery in the background. Do modern technology (ie smart phone) use by the farmers. You should know better than a lay person (GPS, weather, etc apps?) Do traditional, time-tested techniques used by the farmers. You should know better than a lay person. Show tools (lathe, chainsaw, anything else) BEING USED. Shoot a complete work cycle through all the seasons. Maybe even the same field from the same vantage point to show the progression. That'll make a nice sequence that lay people won't have the patience/access to do. What do you do with harvested crops? Shoot that. Blue background in W5DMTD (and similar) is dated, shoot on white/light. Good luck. GI