In this video, I will go over our top 10 disadvantages of starting a stock photography
business in 2023. In our previous video, we went over our top 10 advantages of starting
stock photography and we linked it above and in the description. At the end of this video,
we will attempt to conclude if stock photography is still worth it today.
My wife and I have been doing stock photography for the past seven years as a full-time business
for a living. In this video series, we would like to share our experience with you and let
you know what to expect if you are thinking of getting into stock photography. Please
subscribe to our channel, as we will be posting many more educational videos about
starting and succeeding in stock photography. Disadvantage number one is that you will need
an investment at least of $3,000 to $5,000 to start your stock photography business.
While the majority of this expense goes towards purchases of camera gear, you will also need to
budget for various software programs to edit your photos and videos. The post-processing
software is typically offered on an annual subscription basis from $200 to $400 per year.
If someone tells you that you can take stock photos and video using your phone or cheap
cropped sensor camera, do not trust them. They are being disingenuous. Generally, it is true that
you can take photos of decent image quality using cropped sensor cameras; however, the image quality
is not anywhere comparable to full-frame cameras. Also, lenses for full-frame cameras produce much
higher image quality compared to cropped sensor ones. If you go cheap, the result may be a high
rejection rate for your content when you submit it to stock photo agencies. As for the phone,
it is very limiting in terms of image sensor size and inability to swap lenses.
When we started our stock photography journey, all we had was an inexpensive cropped sensor
Nikon camera with a zoom lens. However, we quickly upgraded to a full-frame Nikon
D810 and later D850 DSLR cameras. Later, we bought a 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom lens and 14-24mm f/2.8 wide
angle lens by Nikon. Because we started with very little capital, we purchased all this equipment
through Amazon on our credit card that gave us an interest-free 12-month financing. We spent
over $4,000 on these purchases. Later, we bought a 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto lens that completed
our holy trinity setup of lenses. We also have a few prime lenses, mainly 35mm and 50mm with wide
aperture for night photography. As soon as we transitioned from a cropped sensor camera to a
full-frame one, the difference in image quality was very noticeable, especially for videos.
Disadvantage number two is that you will need to build your photography skills. Unless you
are already proficient in photography, building the those skills can take a little bit of time.
When it comes to stock photography, there are three sets of skills that you need to learn.
The first is how to take photos/videos that are esthetically attractive and will sell.
The second set is how to post-process your stock content. And third is how to correctly keyword and
title you photos and videos for submission. As for taking attractive photos/videos that
will sell, there is a technical skill in terms of knowing how your gear works,
how to set proper exposure and which focus distance to use. Then, there is a creative aspect
to it. Among the things you will need to master are composition, design and use of light. We will
make a separate video about which resources could help you expand your creative vision.
When it comes to stock photography, unfortunately, it is moving in the direction of AI or artificial
intelligence models judging and deciding which content to accept or reject. Even
if your photo is perfect in every sense, but the machine learning algorithm used by stock
agencies detects that there is some level of noise, your image will be rejected. Therefore,
proper exposure and correct post-processing are paramount to get your images accepted.
Finally, you will need to learn how to correctly keyword and title your photos and videos that
they will be sellable and discoverable on stock photography agencies. It takes
a little bit of time to master this skill. In our future videos, we will discuss in detail
these skills and how to improve them over time. The third disadvantage of doing stock photography
is that in the future reductions in stock contributor payments are very, very likely. Since 2015,
when we started our stock photography business, there were several major reductions
in contributor payments. I have no idea what the ratio of exclusive to non-exclusive stock
photographers is. However, I would guess that the majority of stock contributors are non-exclusive,
like ourselves. That means that they contribute to multiple stock photo agencies at the same time.
Under the disguise of benefiting exclusive contributors, almost every major stock agency
lowered payments to non-exclusive contributors since 2015. In 2017, Getty Images lowered
their percentage payments to non-exclusive contributors to an industry-low of 15%. Next,
in 2018, Alamy lowered their commission rate from 50% to 40% for non-exclusive contributors.
In 2019, Pond5 made a similar move by lowering commissions from 50% to 40% for non-exclusive
contributors. While Shutterstock does not publicly offer exclusive contracts to contributors,
in 2020 they made a similar move by introducing various levels of sales you need to achieve to get
a higher payment percentage. These achieved levels reset each year. Effectively, this was a pay cut.
Overall, I would speculate that we’ll see further reductions in contributor payments
sooner or later. With Getty paying 15% to non-exclusive contributors,
there is a lot of room for further reductions. At the end of the day, these stock photo agencies are
corporations answerable to shareholders who demand maximization of profits. So,
as one goes, the other follows and so on. However, I would speculate that there is
probably a limit to how much they can lower further contributor payments. At some point,
if the contributor payments are way too low, individual contributors, like you or me, will
be unwilling to submit their work to stock photo agencies. And that will be a trouble for them,
because they largely depend on small individual contributors, like you or me. So, I am sure that
they will keep this in mind in the future, as they are still searching for other means to lower
contributor payments and maximize their profits. Disadvantage number four is that stock photography
is a numbers game and it is a long game. This means that you will have to have a large number
of photos and videos submitted to generate a substantial income stream for your living.
Do not get upset if you submit your first 100 photos and you will see an immediate result.
How big your portfolio should be depends on how strategic and lucky you are with choosing
the right themes for content that will become your best-seller. In our case, we do not limit
ourselves and submit in pretty much almost any category you can think of, although landscapes,
cities and food dominate our portfolio. What sells best changes all the time and it is a
guess work that requires research. Even if someone tells you that this or that category sells well,
it could be a thing of the past by the time you hear about it. So the best way to cover
your bases is to submit a large number of diverse photos and videos of high quality.
As for us, we have over 35,000 stock photo and over 6,000 videos and it took us about 7 years
to build it up and earn a living. It is possible to earn a living with a smaller portfolio and make
it work faster. It all depends on the themes of the photos and videos you submit. Also,
from my personal experience, videos can potentially earn even more money than photos.
Disadvantage number five is that stock photography is a very competitive field. These days anyone
with a camera gear and decent photography skills can submit to microstock stock photo agencies.
Actually, microstock photo agencies are inundated with images and it is very
difficult to stand out. So, you will have to make sure that your work is differentiated and
appears on the first page of search results. One obvious thing is to create high quality
content. Second, you need to keyword and title photos and videos well. Third, do not wait and
start submitting footage, including timelapses, for sale as soon as you can. Because making
high quality videos is a bit of a trickier process, I feel like competition in stock
footage is less severe compared to stock photos. This leads me to disadvantage number six for stock
photography and it is that it demands a lot of administrative work. By administrative work I
mean keywording and titling your images. If you ask around stock photographers, they will tell you
that the biggest bottleneck in their workflow is keywording and titling their content. We
realized early on the importance of keywords and titles for your images to sell. And therefore,
we quality time on each image and video to make sure that it has correct keywords and
titles that will make sure that it appears on the first page of search results.
Some people may advise you to outsource keywording and titling. We have not tried it. Moreover,
I have two major concerns about it. First, you need to pay for keywording services.
If you submit a lot of content and it turns out that only 10% or 20% of it sells well,
this could be expensive. Also, concern number two is how accurate keywords will be. Let’s say,
I have an image of a rare temple somewhere in rural Japan. How would a person keywording this
image know about this particular temple? The worst case scenario is that you will get a bunch
of generic keywords that will require you redo their work and add or replace certain keywords.
Over the years, we perfected our workflow for keywording and we will
make a video about it soon. So stay tuned. Disadvantage number seven is that it is very
easy to get discouraged by different mishaps that happen early on. You need to find ways to
stay motivated and on track of submitting your work regardless of what happens. As you submit
your first batches, you will probably get a lot of rejections. Some people
say that their acceptance rate is about 10%. Clearly, they are doing something not right.
I would say that our acceptance rate ranges somewhere between 50% and 90% depending on the
batch and agency. Despite these rejections, you still have to keep on going and submit your work
and learn how to take better photos and videos. Also, at the beginning you will see likely very
small sales. That could be discouraging too. Because there is no boss around to tell you
what to do or pat you on the shoulder, it is important to keep things in perspective
and continue your work. If you know what you are working towards and your ultimate goals,
it is easier to stay on course. Personally, the most discouraging
thing for me is the time it takes to keyword and submit photos and videos. Sometimes,
it feels like it takes forever. But once I submit my content and I see sales, especially big ones,
I feel even more motivated to continue my work. My wife and I always remember that stock photography
provides a valuable passive income. This income can give you financial freedom and ability
to pursue many things in life, such as other hobbies, travel and more time with loved ones.
Disadvantage number eight for stock photography is that sometimes your vacations may feel like
workations. Traveling is one of the fastest ways to build your portfolio, because you are
constantly exposed to new things, cities, food, nature and people. When we travel, this is when
we take most of our photos and videos. Knowing this, it is very easy to fall into a trap of
constantly working and forgetting the reason you travel in the first place, which is to see new
places, try new things and meet new people. When we first started traveling and working,
that’s exactly what happened to us. However, with time we got much better about balancing
our work and leisure. As long as you are conscious about it, there should not be
problems for you to mitigate this disadvantage. Disadvantage number nine is that with the benefit
of tax deductions comes the responsibility of keeping track of your expenses, revenues
and taxes. Regardless of whether you decide to go with sole proprietorship or form a limited
liability company, you will still have to keep track of your revenues and expenses using some
sort of accounting software or on your own. As for us, because our income and expenses
are relatively easy to keep track of, all we use is an Excel spreadsheet. It
is not the most convenient or glamorous method; however, it works and it costs nothing. Also,
we file our taxes using H&R Block or Turbotax software, because they make it very convenient to
calculate depreciation expenses and they also make sure that we do not miss on any tax deductions.
If our photography business involved working with clients, besides doing stock photography,
we would most definitely form a limited liability company and use accounting software for a small
business. Doing so will shield our personal assets from liability and allow us to do accounting in a
more efficient way. For now, sole proprietorship and an Excel spreadsheet is all we need. We
will make another video shortly where we will detail how we do our record keeping. Stay tuned.
And the final tenth disadvantage of doing stock photography is that you will be working from home,
likely alone. This may or may not be a disadvantage depending on whether you are
a people’s person or enjoy working by yourself and learning new things. As I mentioned earlier,
you will be spending a lot of time post-processing and keywording your
content. Therefore, it is very important to make this process as efficient as possible.
As for us, my wife and I teamed up early on and help each other with many aspects of stock
photography work. If one is sick and tired of keywording, the other can pick up the slack.
We sometimes brainstorm video and photo ideas and bounce them off of each other. It would have been
much lonelier to do all stock photography work by ourselves. So, maybe you can find a partner or ask
your significant other to help you with your work. Those were our top ten disadvantages of doing
stock photography. So the question is: should you do it? I cannot answer this question for you,
because it all depends on your goals in life. The best you can do is to put pros
and cons next to each other and put weights for each line item and see which side wins.
In our personal experience, aspiration for financial freedom and love of photography beat
all the cons. What are your goals for doing stock photography and do you have any other negative or
positives to add to the list? Please let us know in the comments section, as we are very eager to
hear what other fellow photographers think. Also, if you liked this video,
please give it a like and subscribe to our channel. We will have more YouTube videos,
where we’ll discuss all things related to stock photography and how to succeed in it.