Is stock photography (as a way of earning some reasonable income) pretty much dead?

[Mr Standfast]

16 minutes ago, Martin P Wilson said:

 

Bill Brooks got it right earlier when he suggested stock photography has large been a photographic lifestyle rather than a job.

 

I would suggest that many (most/) of us need to rethink why we are taking photographs, what our purpose is. For my PhD research I am looking at long term bodies of work produced by working (or retired) professional photographers andf what is clear many such long term projects are done because 'they are imporrtant to the photographer' (Dr. Pete Davis, a once active member of these forums as Dyn Llun). It is often the photography they do for themselves rather than for commercial gain.Similarly,  I am sure Elliot Erwitt's dog photographs or Andre Kertész 'On Reading'  were shot for their own amusement, as a diversion from the day job, even if they did eventually appear in print.

 

+1 To good for just a green arrow.  I would add Open Skys by Don McCullin to that list.

[Dave Richards]

1 hour ago, Colblimp said:

Squarespace. 

Thanks Andy.

[Colblimp]

Just now, Dave Richards said:

Thanks Andy.

Hey, any time. 👍

[Dave Richards]

1 hour ago, Martin P Wilson said:

 

Ifr you are ggoing down the route of your own web site then bear this Google/IPTC in mind:

Google/ IPTC licencing

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/08/make-licensing-information-for-your

Most web sites, platforms and even libraries strip metadata so you risk orphaned images and missing out on the Google licencing opportunity. Often it is pure laziness or unawareness - they use the default GD2 image (designed when minimising data was needed for dial up) library that cannot maintain the embedded data rather than switch to ImageMagick. Other strip metadata to deny image makers their moral and IP rights.

Good advice, much appreciated. Thanks Martin.

[Dave Richards]

1 hour ago, AlbertSnapper said:

Like geophotos stated earlier, I shall pause for the time being, and not throw away what I have already done.

I can't be arsed at the moment placing my Alamy images elsewhere. Probably much work for little reward. 

 

I have other images with another library elsewhere, so will concentrate more with them.

They have a short easy to understand contract, split the money 50/50, tell you who has licenced the image, and many fees are in the £££ bracket. 

You can even pop in to their office and visit them. 

Not a specialist library either, but a very tightly edited RM exclusive general library.

So if you can get away from the Alamy (and others) of pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap model then do so ! 

 

I think for general easy to do stuff then we are already a good way down the hill.

May be as more people give up making stock pics due to it not being worthwhile in many instances, there will be more commissioned work again as image users can't find what they are looking for ? 

 

 

 

I like the sound of that other library!! Guess I'll have to search to see if I can find it.

[Keith Douglas]

39 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Realistically my figures are 3-4 times that- now. So I am just about on minimum wage.

But in 9 years?😮

There are two seperate cases that need to be considered:

 

1. Existing Stock

2. New stock

 

I was only dealing with 2. That applies to new contributors starting from scratch as well as existing contributors adding new images.

 

If I added 1000 images today, how much net income would I expect those images to generate over their lifetime? I chose the end of the decade, i.e. 9 years as their life. 

 

In my case I know that I received about 7p per image in my portfolio in 2020. So I can work out this years figure for 1000 images. But the rate per image is falling so 2021 might be 6p, 2022 might be 5p and so on. Add up the net revenue for all the years and I end up with about £200 in total over the next 9 years per 1000 images.

 

These cannot be precise figures as there are too many variables, but they do give me useful ballpark figures on which I can make decisions.

 

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Keith Douglas

[Skyscraperfan]

I made a few hundred Euros worth of sales via Alamy with just one photo of the Empire State Building, which surprised me a lot, as the Empire State Building is very much photographed from all sides. Those successful photos are very rare though and most photos will never earn you any money. For me stock photography always was the fun logging into your account and seeing that somebody bought your photo for $169 or so. It felt like finding money on the street. Now the fun is largely gone, as the sums went down a lot and the commissions also went down. If I sell an image for just 40% commission, I feel that I lose more money than I win.

I talked to an old stock photographer that is in the business for many decades and he told me that in the 70s or so it was possible to make five digit sums with a single image. If it was used in advertising on many billboards, a singe image sale was worth $10,000 or so. Today a company could probably license that image for a few hundred dollars.

If you want to get rich as a photographer, you might have to become a paparazzo. An exclusive image of a celebrity could still bring you thousands. I learned that one paparazzi agency make about four million dollar per year just with photos of Britney Spears. They have ten full time paparazzi who only follow Britney Spears wherever she goes. Such a job would go against my dignity as a photographer though, as I personally do not five a f... about celebrities.

[Michael Ventura]

I think it would be rare to find an individual photographer who is making a decent living just from stock photography.  Those who remember Jeff Greenburg, here on this forum, was one of those but not sure how things are going for him now.

[Jill Morgan]

6 hours ago, Keith Douglas said:

Time to take image, process, check, caption, keyword, upload, massage data into Alamy etc. 5 minutes per image.

 

You can do all this in 5 minutes?  I take between 10-30 minutes just to post process an image.  Keywording can vary from 2 minutes to 20 minutes depending on what I need to research on the subject.  It's very rare an image pops out of the camera with very little work needed to do on it.

 

Jill

[Keith Douglas]

21 minutes ago, Jill Morgan said:

 

You can do all this in 5 minutes?  I take between 10-30 minutes just to post process an image.  Keywording can vary from 2 minutes to 20 minutes depending on what I need to research on the subject.  It's very rare an image pops out of the camera with very little work needed to do on it.

 

Jill

I agree, 5 minutes is on the light side and they would have to be straightforward, almost Straight Out of Camera and require captioning with no research. I hesitated to put in 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 50 minutes. At 30 minutes my effective hourly rate would be about 42 pence!!

 

Of course that's treating it as a business/employment  activity. It's pretty clear from these figures that for many contributors stock is done as a hobby, not a business. But these figures and analysis answer the question that the OP originally posed "Is stock photography (as a way of earning some reasonable income) pretty much dead?". In most cases YES and it has been for a number of years.

[John Mitchell]

8 hours ago, Martin P Wilson said:

 

Ifr you are ggoing down the route of your own web site then bear this Google/IPTC in mind:

Google/ IPTC licencing

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/08/make-licensing-information-for-your

Most web sites, platforms and even libraries strip metadata so you risk orphaned images and missing out on the Google licencing opportunity. Often it is pure laziness or unawareness - they use the default GD2 image (designed when minimising data was needed for dial up) library that cannot maintain the embedded data rather than switch to ImageMagick. Other strip metadata to deny image makers their moral and IP rights.

 

PhotoShelter recently made it easy to use Google Licensing. I'm finding that some of my images and galleries on my PS website are doing well in Google searches. Sometimes my website pics and the same ones on Alamy are showing up on the first page of G results. However, this hasn't led to any buyers contacting me yet. Still, if Google Licensing starts to catch on with photo researchers and editors, it could open some doors for those licensing stock on their own.

[John Mitchell]

3 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

I think it would be rare to find an individual photographer who is making a decent living just from stock photography.  Those who remember Jeff Greenburg, here on this forum, was one of those but not sure how things are going for him now.

 

Yes, Jeff was a rarity and a phenom. Hopefully he's still out there scurrying around with his camera.

[willn]

Thanks guys, I didn't realise this would provoke such a lively debate. My feelings are confirmed, crossing 'upload photos to Alamy' off my to do list.

[Sally]

12 hours ago, Dave Richards said:

There is huge choice in stock available and I guess it is getting more difficult for stock companies to remain competitive.

This has been a hobby for me since I started, with the added bonus that I may score a few dollars now and again. I retired (belatedly) almost a year ago and I can, now that Covid restrictions have eased, get out and about and do more, so I'm not giving up any time soon.

Ian mentioned his website and that has prompted me to investigate that as an option for my other photography which I don't post on Alamy.

Any recommendations from those with experience for a (not too expensive) web provider would be appreciated.

I use Zenfolio which has as few bells and whistles or as many as you like. You can easily set up selling, for example, or just have it as a showcase. Here is a referral code for which anyone can get 10% off (and I will too off my next year’s subscription). 

H5B-YB8-S6X

[Dave Richards]

9 minutes ago, Sally said:

I use Zenfolio which has as few bells and whistles or as many as you like. You can easily set up selling, for example, or just have it as a showcase. Here is a referral code for which anyone can get 10% off (and I will too off my next year’s subscription). 

H5B-YB8-S6X

Thanks Sally, I’ll take a look. I would be mainly interested in using it as a platform for just selling prints. If you don’t mind me asking, do you use it that way and, if so, how successful has it been?

[Sally]

22 minutes ago, Dave Richards said:

Thanks Sally, I’ll take a look. I would be mainly interested in using it as a platform for just selling prints. If you don’t mind me asking, do you use it that way and, if so, how successful has it been?

I have done so but only for particular events. For example, I took a pile of photos of classic cars on a car rally event and quite a few owners wanted prints. You can set up a gallery to sell prints through a third party company - One Vision Imaging for example. It’s not something I have done much but may well focus more energy on. Ive also recently set up a free account (only 25 images) with Fine Art America too but have no idea whether that will result in anything. The main problem with selling through your own website - whichever platform it is on - is generating the footfall. 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Sally

[Autumn Sky]

I use Zenfolio too.   As Sally said, there are as few or as many bells and whistles as you'd like.   It is geared towards photography & ability to organize port via "galleries" is very good.  My interest is also hiking trip reports & I was able to incorporate this relatively easily with custom pages, where you have ability to insert your own javascript, css styling etc.   For instance this is recent hike I was on & it is custom page.  If you scroll into gallery to second last image, it will have "click to zoom" in caption & then mouse click will zoom image (like flickr) & you can look closer if you wish.  It was just open source javascript I host on my google git & then pull in from zen custom page.

 

They have built-in selling support I didn't find useful;   so with each image I am willing to license I simply provide in description basic data (file size, resolution and cost),  then point interested customer to contact me via email.  After we agreed on details,  I simply create private gallery with images they are interested in & give them download password after my paypal has been credited.  This process would be quite time consuming for professional level sales as it is not automated, but for amateur / hobbyist I find it works quite well + gives me greater control.

 

I had issues over the time & their support was not able to resolve it, which was disappointing.  But just like many other things, too much effort has already been invested & switch somewhere else would be painful.   I also treat site as storage for my (processed) images;  on lowest subscription level you can't store RAW files, but you can as many JPG's as you'd like.  Support / redirection to your own domain is ok if you don't want zen branding in URLs but it will cost extra

Edited May 24, 2021 by Autumn Sky

[Colblimp]

15 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

 

You can do all this in 5 minutes?  I take between 10-30 minutes just to post process an image.  Keywording can vary from 2 minutes to 20 minutes depending on what I need to research on the subject.  It's very rare an image pops out of the camera with very little work needed to do on it.

 

Jill

As a press photographer I’m processing pics in 20-30 seconds, headlining and captioning in around 3-5 minutes, exporting in around 20 seconds and uploading straight away.  It’s the culling that takes the time. 

[Dave Richards]

9 hours ago, Sally said:

I have done so but only for particular events. For example, I took a pile of photos of classic cars on a car rally event and quite a few owners wanted prints. You can set up a gallery to sell prints through a third party company - One Vision Imaging for example. It’s not something I have done much but may well focus more energy on. Ive also recently set up a free account (only 25 images) with Fine Art America too but have no idea whether that will result in anything. The main problem with selling through your own website - whichever platform it is on - is generating the footfall. 

 

8 hours ago, Autumn Sky said:

I use Zenfolio too.   As Sally said, there are as few or as many bells and whistles as you'd like.   It is geared towards photography & ability to organize port via "galleries" is very good.  My interest is also hiking trip reports & I was able to incorporate this relatively easily with custom pages, where you have ability to insert your own javascript, css styling etc.   For instance this is recent hike I was on & it is custom page.  If you scroll into gallery to second last image, it will have "click to zoom" in caption & then mouse click will zoom image (like flickr) & you can look closer if you wish.  It was just open source javascript I host on my google git & then pull in from zen custom page.

 

They have built-in selling support I didn't find useful;   so with each image I am willing to license I simply provide in description basic data (file size, resolution and cost),  then point interested customer to contact me via email.  After we agreed on details,  I simply create private gallery with images they are interested in & give them download password after my paypal has been credited.  This process would be quite time consuming for professional level sales as it is not automated, but for amateur / hobbyist I find it works quite well + gives me greater control.

 

I had issues over the time & their support was not able to resolve it, which was disappointing.  But just like many other things, too much effort has already been invested & switch somewhere else would be painful.   I also treat site as storage for my (processed) images;  on lowest subscription level you can't store RAW files, but you can as many JPG's as you'd like.  Support / redirection to your own domain is ok if you don't want zen branding in URLs but it will cost extra

Thank you both. I have no previous experience in marketing prints so the information you have kindly provided gives me a 'starting block' to investigate further. Selling through a third party looks interesting.

Thanks again.