You have a smartphone or DSLR camera.
You took some photos, now you are thinking how can I make money with photography?
I’ve been shooting stock or microstock if you want to call it, for 11 years now.
Is it worth shooting stock in 2018?
Will you make money from it?
What type of photos sell?
How much did I make?
You don’t want to miss watching this video today as I will be answering all questions
very honestly, I will also show you some $$ numbers as well.
I will also share very important things I learned shooting microstock.
And for those watching first time, my name is Zdenka Darula and I am a professional photographer.
Why did I get into shooting microstock?
Well, I just freshly owned my first DSLR camera.
I didn’t know how to use it well but I knew I want to get published and I need to start
making money right away.
Now with smartphones having great cameras, you have enormous opportunities out there
to make money selling your photos directly from your mobile.
What did I know?
How to shoot in natural light and how to use reflector a bit.
I was shooting only on automatic mode.
I didn’t even know manual mode yet.
I didn’t know what to shoot.
I didn’t know what really sells.
I knew that I have to take lots of photos or upload lots of photos, because I get paid
only about $0.38 per each sold image.
Depending on the license, you can earn little bit more.
Here is a look at my first photos I was uploading to microstock.
I was just taking photos of whatever I saw.
I was simply playing around with camera trying to figure it out.
I was very frustrated at the beginning as most of my photos have been rejected.
The great thing about stock is that they will actually tell you why your photo has been
rejected so you can learn from it and correct it.
Your photos need to be technically perfect.
No grainy images, blurry, bad focus and things like that.
So every time I learned how to correct my problem, my technical skills got better.
Microstock made me the photographer I am today.
My photos are 100% accepted, I know exactly what to do to have really high quality images.
With that I was also learning how to edit my photos in Photoshop.
Now I am at the point that if I take accidently photo which has technical problem, I know
exactly how to tweak it in Photoshop not to loose the photo and still have it accepted.
What type of photos sell?
Let me show you my first photos I was uploading to microctock again.
Do you think they made me lots of money?
If you are guessing “NO” that is the correct answer.
You cannot just shoot whatever and hope you will make money from it.
I hear people saying “oh stock photography is a scam” By the way this sentence made
me to make this video today.
Here is what I am going to say about this.
It is an easy comment to say when you are not doing your job right and you are upset that
you are not making any money from it.
Think of it, there are millions of images in microstock.
There are millions of photographers out there trying it as well.
If you are just going to take these very low marketable images, you are not going to sell.
You will have to start thinking as a buyer, an ad agency, and publisher.
You will need to put your creative eye a bit aside and start using your brain a little
bit more.
You will need to start paying attention to just sold photos and most popular photos.
You can easily see that when you visit Shutterstock, or Fotolia or even Foap on your mobile if
you want to sell smartphone photos.
Take a look at the photos and study what is the subject, the overall photo of image
and think how this image can be used.
Pay attention to news, what is happening right now, what is seasonal, what holidays are coming
up.
You will need to analyze your own photo whenever it sold.
What is it about this photo, that it just sold?
Once you have that handled then you can add your creativity and you are on a way to actually
having some income from stock photography.
There are two important words I am going to say.
SIMPLICITY…. and REALISM.
Let me show you something.
Now we are going to get to some $$ amounts.
I am showing my Shutterstock account.
Let me show you my first collection, which didn’t make anything or very little.
Here is Food, collection.
Photos I took when I was starting out.
Very dull, nothing special, just snapshots.
Very little commercial value.
Here is one of my best Collections which sells till this day.
HAIR.
I simply grabbed hair extensions I have at home, started throwing it on the paper, moving
it around, snapping photos…
I shot about 30 min or so.
Then I just simply made the background more white and hair pop.
Very SIMPLE images.
Nothing about them… just hair on white background.
Those photos can be used over and over in tons of different ads.
They can take the hair out and combine it with many different things.
They can be used for hair salons, beauty salons, articles about hair, shampoos, and other hair
products.
This set I shot for 30 min and edited in another 2 hours or so made me $4,653 US dollars on
Shutterstock alone.
Now, I also have this collection on other 10 stock sites, so you do the math.
They are not such a great sellers like Shutterstock but they add more money to this amount.
Let’s look at some of my average shoots.
Here is a mistake I was repeating all the time and here and there I still make the mistake
till this day.
I just simply get carried away.
I like working with models, so I shoot them but these images are great for models portfolio
as they are pretty photos, the model looks pretty in them, but the models I use are either
not a commercial type, or the images don’t have commercial value.
I simply shoot more of a model portfolio shots instead of stock worthy photos.
There is no strong message, no real emotion coming out of these photos.
So after paying a model and a makeup artist, I pretty much happy to break even, sometimes
I even loose money or I only make a few bucks.
Let’s look at some good sellers and let me explain why it most likely sells.
Here is a Yoga sequence which represents health and fitness.
Here is a simple spot light on a background.
This can be used as a background for many different ads or posters.
Another photo is a young woman doing yoga moves.
Now this model is experienced in doing yoga so her body posture is great and it looks
very realistic.
When you look at this photo, you immediately think baby.
This image is very real.
She has real emotion, real expression.
No acting or forced posing.
Stock loves REALISM.
Now, would I make this kind of money trying to sell the images on my own?
Most likely not as I am not strong sales person.
I actually hate selling.
I wouldn’t even have a time for it because I have a family and children I got to take
care off.
So this is my passive income.
I don’t have to do much and money is still coming.
I simply call it PJ money because I earn income when I sleep.
Is it worth it to shoot stock in 2018?
Yes absolutely.
You will learn so much from it.
It is important to have different sources of income as a photographer these days.
You cannot rely simply on just being only an event photographer.
To be safe you need to split your income into few different things.
For example, you are having a stock you are selling, then you are shooting weddings, and
you are also selling prints..... just in case one thing is going down, you still have
income coming to you and you can survive no matter what.
There are more photographers then dogs these days as my friend said and she is absolutely
right, so you need to think money right from the beginning.
Microstock saved me when I just had my baby and couldn’t work.
I was very happy to have this passive income.
I was able to pay bills and food in our family.
There is one bad thing though I learned about stock.
Never ever shoot models in lingerie or sexy photos in general.
As these images are not allowed to be sold in any pornographic way or offensive way…
there still will be the someone who will either try to use the image illegally, or simply
don’t read the license.
Even though you haven’t done anything wrong, the model will go after you, photographer.
It is a sad truth and it is ugly dealing with it.
So stay away from it.
Coming back to stock.
You are not going to get rich from microstock unless you are someone, you are an individual
who is truly hard working and does his research on what currently sells.
You will learn photography and Photoshop really well as you progress.
You will get published all over the world and that only helps when getting other clients
outside of microstock.
So do I recommend trying it out in 2018.
And it doesn’t matter if you are photographer just using your mobile, smartphone you know
taking photos or if you actually own DSLR camera and you are an experienced photographer.
So there you have it.
I was honest with you as much as I could and I hope you found answers you were looking
for in today's video.
And if you did, please don’t forget to give it thumps up and subscribe for all future
videos.
I will be making many more videos on stock photography and on photography in general.
Also how to make money videos with photography.
If you have any questions, or comments or would like to request a video on certain topic,
don’t be shy and leave a comment below.
I would love to answer everything you have.
Thank you for your time, I'll see you next time...
Cau …. ahoj… .