Making money with photography - Anyone got experience?

Zbigniew

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Hello,

Anyone have experience with making money by selling pictures? For example selling stock pictures, or uploading to free sites like Pixabay and get donations. I am skeptical of the latter one, but perhaps stock pictures could be a nice way of getting some extra money.

Considering everyone has a camera today and loads of people wants to become photographers, I imagine that it's a highly saturated market. But I don't know, hence why I want to see if anyone has experience on here.

Is it worth the time? Too saturated? A nice, somewhat, passive income?

Thanks in advance.
 
Hello,

Anyone have experience with making money by selling pictures? For example selling stock pictures, or uploading to free sites like Pixabay and get donations. I am skeptical of the latter one, but perhaps stock pictures could be a nice way of getting some extra money.

Considering everyone has a camera today and loads of people wants to become photographers, I imagine that it's a highly saturated market. But I don't know, hence why I want to see if anyone has experience on here.

Is it worth the time? Too saturated? A nice, somewhat, passive income?

Thanks in advance.

Like most stock products, photography is a numbers game. The more items you can put out the better. Though I think it may be more suited to someone who can do photography locally, whether in a studio or for events. When I was at uni one of my flatmates did photography for weddings and had a part time gig as a photographer for a local club night and dabbled with selling stock. The local gigs (a few nights a month) made her more money than my other flatmate who was working minimum wage at dominos 5 days a week.
 
If you submit to stock photography sites, you can't just submit any old photo you just point and click. It will get rejected, they review just about every submission that comes to them I tried about 10-15 years ago and failed it's hard as heck to get things approved. That was before istock photo got acquired!

IF you really want to make it my suggestion would be to go super niche specific and start your own site selling the stock photos... Take "car repair" if you search that in any stock library you see the same old staged shots, it might be nice if you could offer engine shots, parts of the car, shoot every single aspect and part of it both with and without tools you never know who's going to need that sort of photo and there is nothing like it now on the generic stock sites (not searched for a specific supplier)

Food is another one, no one offers food getting prepared at different stages but I bet there are a ton of food bloggers who would like to use them more so if they buy content rather than create the recipes them selfs!
 
Shutterstock has domination on the stock photos and footage game, the best way to really monetise this is to put the effort and therefore it's not really a passive income type thing. My friend has made it quite big utilising instagram and going to music events to take photos of artists, once he posts and tags them he usually get's a shoutout and has built a following which led to all types of opportunities. Very lucrative but it's not passive or overnight success unless you have large bankroll and can get top artists. Another niche would be supercars e.g. in London people go to Mayfair and take photographs of Lambo's, Porsches etc or even custom builds like RX-8 at Ace Cafe and then get affiliate links with license plate sellers or car wrappers which I suppose gives potential for passive income. There's a million ways to build a niche in photography a montetize but it's just about how much effort you want to put iin
 
If you submit to stock photography sites, you can't just submit any old photo you just point and click. It will get rejected, they review just about every submission that comes to them I tried about 10-15 years ago and failed it's hard as heck to get things approved. That was before istock photo got acquired!

IF you really want to make it my suggestion would be to go super niche specific and start your own site selling the stock photos... Take "car repair" if you search that in any stock library you see the same old staged shots, it might be nice if you could offer engine shots, parts of the car, shoot every single aspect and part of it both with and without tools you never know who's going to need that sort of photo and there is nothing like it now on the generic stock sites (not searched for a specific supplier)

Food is another one, no one offers food getting prepared at different stages but I bet there are a ton of food bloggers who would like to use them more so if they buy content rather than create the recipes them selfs!
Ah yes, that is what I thought, regarding stock photos. I read somewhere that they are very strict on what gets accepted, which I fully understand.

Did you get any pictures accepted, and if so, did they earn you anything?

Smart idea with the food and car pictures. Just like you say, a lot of niches are quite shallow and everybody is re-using the same pictures. Good input man!
 
No I never did I submitted 100s that I thought where "good" but never had any accepted I soon stopped. I thought I was "good" but I think you have to be at that next level - I tried editing them and unediting the photos could get nothing past the person who was refusing my work I did at one point decide I was better than that person and thats why I never got accepted ;) lol..

There are a few specific niches where everyone uses the same photo due to not there simply being not many IF any professional ones are around. I don't want to share it on here as it's my niche ;) BUT it would take you 12-18months of time investment before you could get the finished shot to even use not to mention time and effort to set it all up...

But like I said there are plenty of super specific ones where I just don't think there are shots of to get you going. Even if you think of something like assembling a flat pack - I bet if you look most would be either tools or generic handyman looking images leaning or holding something as apposed to an action shot of them doing it.

I bet as well as an idea drinks in glasses, cocktails etc if you shot them on white background and then also staged the shot as well so you have two version of the same item that might work for something specific.
 
No I never did I submitted 100s that I thought where "good" but never had any accepted I soon stopped. I thought I was "good" but I think you have to be at that next level - I tried editing them and unediting the photos could get nothing past the person who was refusing my work I did at one point decide I was better than that person and thats why I never got accepted ;) lol..

There are a few specific niches where everyone uses the same photo due to not there simply being not many IF any professional ones are around. I don't want to share it on here as it's my niche ;) BUT it would take you 12-18months of time investment before you could get the finished shot to even use not to mention time and effort to set it all up...

But like I said there are plenty of super specific ones where I just don't think there are shots of to get you going. Even if you think of something like assembling a flat pack - I bet if you look most would be either tools or generic handyman looking images leaning or holding something as apposed to an action shot of them doing it.

I bet as well as an idea drinks in glasses, cocktails etc if you shot them on white background and then also staged the shot as well so you have two version of the same item that might work for something specific.
And I am far from good, so my chances are probably -100.

Good input man, some valuable info. You probably saved me a couple of wasted hours - thanks for that!
 
A guy I used to play rugby with decades ago, his son and daughter both now play. He and his wife watch their kids ( who are now in their early 20s ) and his wife started taking photos during the matches. She shared a few of her kids and people liked them and asked about buying some.
The quality was that good, she's now at rugby matches and other sporting events and earns from her photos she takes there.
She's reinvested in some top quality gear but she loves it, as a sideline on a weekend.
 
Where I feel the money is in photography is selling tutorials. As someone who has been practicing photography for about 5 years now and have built up a good following from it the number one question I get asked the most is "Can you teach me how to edit photos like you do?" I also see a lot of other large photographers on IG pushing their own tutorials or "Presets" for editing. Sure I've sold a few prints here and there but IMO people want to learn and if you are good enough and have the knowledge to share I believe this is the way to go.
 
Where I feel the money is in photography is selling tutorials. As someone who has been practicing photography for about 5 years now and have built up a good following from it the number one question I get asked the most is "Can you teach me how to edit photos like you do?" I also see a lot of other large photographers on IG pushing their own tutorials or "Presets" for editing. Sure I've sold a few prints here and there but IMO people want to learn and if you are good enough and have the knowledge to share I believe this is the way to go.

Photography and editing courses were popular on Udemy a couple of years back too, if you have time and patience to put a course together.
 
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