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I truly love the modern online stock photography phenomenon, since it is the first and probably the only business model
allowing amateur photographers like you and me earn some money from they lovely hobby.
In fact, if you are a talented photographer and you shoot hundreds of pictures every month
you can earn a very significant part of your living by selling some of them to Internet stock photography agencies.
At least you will be payed back for all that nice and expensive photographic gear you have purchased last year ;-)
There are many microstock photo sites that will be happy to sell your photos and share with you the revenues.
iStockPhoto,
ShutterStock and
123rf are just a few microstock sites to name.
"Micro-" means that they sell your images for a few bucks per download, or even for less.
There are also "macro-" stock agencies, such as Getty Images with their 880 millions dollars revenues in 2006,
followed by Corbis and Jupiterimages group. An average price for a royalty-free image at Getty is around $200,
and for the rights-managed image they will ask a buyer to pay about $500.
Smaller, but more photographer-friendly "macro-" agencies like Alamy and PhotoShelter could be a good choice if you are ready to start selling your pictures at "macro-" prices.
How much do you get per sale? Well, it completely depends on the agency' policy.
Your share can be calculated as a fixed price an agency agrees to pay you for each sale of your image, or, alternatively, it can be an agreed percent of the final sale price for your image.
Every agency has its own payment policy and you have to agree to this policy if you wish to contribute your images to that agency.
The good thing is that all stock sites allow you free and very simple submitter's registration,
so you can start uploading your images in a matter of minutes.
However, be aware that many sites request to send them detailed personal information, sometimes accompanied by a scan of your picture ID or the passport.
Also, at many sites you will be requested to sign and fax back a signed copy of the site’s ‘submitter's agreement’.
I think that there is nothing wrong with these requests if we consider them as a part of continuous effort of limiting the image fraud on the
Internet. These efforts should protect both image buyers and image copyright owners from the fraudulent behavior.
In addition to the submitters' authentication, some stock photo sites will request you passing an online test.
The test should verify that you have all the required photographic skills and that you understand the rules of the game at the stock photography market.
Do not be scared of that test.
If you know the difference between shutter speed and the aperture and if you can explain what is DOF you will pass this test for sure.
And if you can not, never mind! Just go and read a few articles on photography and shot tons of images to get some practice.
There are many Internet forums and sites where you can discuss your pciture and get advices on how to improve it.
Photo.net is probably the oldest and the most developed web community that
will help you to develop you photographic skills.
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