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The Stock Photo
Business
What is the stock photos business? In a nutshell,
this is the business of taking pictures or creating
photographs and putting them in stock or inventory
so that they can then be available to end users.
Sometimes those that already have a collection of
pictures will make them available for others to use
in a free stock photo library but in most cases if
the photography is a quality photographic image and
worth using for commercial uses, a photographer will
make it available to end users for a price.
There is a large market for high resolution and high
quality photography and many buyers for really good
stock photos. By purchasing a stock photograph
rather than commissioning a photographer to create
the desired image, the buyer saves both time and
money. Most buyers want the images for their
magazines, websites, billboards, video or TV
commercials, books and ebooks, and advertising in a
variety of formats. Their objective is to use the
image to grab their prospect’s attention and draw
them into the copy or message which is designed to
make the prospect take action. Because a first
impression is so critical for an advertiser, they
need and demand images of the highest caliber.
For photographers considering selling their high
quality and making money, the internet has made the
process of making money with stock photography
significantly easier than it used to be. If you’d
like to make money online selling your pictures then
one of the first decisions you’ll need to make is
whether to market and sell your photography off of
your own site or whether to use brokers or stock
photography agencies who do the marketing and sales
processing for you for a percentage of the sale.
A good photographer is a creative artist using
science and technology to craft his masterpiece. If
you as a photographer want to sell your photos from
your own site then you need to be prepared and able
to be switching constantly between the artist focus
and the entrepreneurial business building focus. For
most people making that transition regularly is not
easy. That is probably why most stock photographers
end up using stock photo agencies. Some
photographers sell some photos of their own site and
others from their photo portfolio through agencies.
From an end user’s point of view, a good stock
photography agency will have a large inventory of
images from many different photographers and have
photographs in a large number of categories. The
best stock photo brokers have enough high quality
stock so that when a buyer comes looking for an
image to meet their immediate need, they are going
to be able to find one at that agency.
From the stock photographer’s viewpoint, a good
agency will attract large numbers of buyers for the
reasons mentioned above, give a good percentage of
the sale back to the photographer and make it easy
for a client to find the photographer’s portfolio. A
good example of how a photographer’s photos should
be displayed can be found in this example from my
portfolio over at
i Stockphoto. Another important consideration is
the reputation of the stock agency.
Some royalty free stock agencies build large
inventories of photos but are not highly
discriminatory about the photos they take into their
sites. Avoid such an agency because even though it
may be easy to get your photos accepted by them, the
buyers soon learn of the low quality or
unpredictable quality of the agency and will move on
to those that are much more quality conscious.
Although it may be frustrating for a photographer
when first submitting photos to a high quality
agency and trying to get their images accepted by
the “picky” inspectors and high quality
requirements, you have two big benefits by using
them. First and foremost, the buyer base will tend
to be large and loyal because of the quality they
find there. Secondly by submitting your art to the
higher caliber inspection standards, you are going
to develop a higher degree of skill and expertise
and build a portfolio that will stand the test of
time and one of which you can be proud.
In summary, for most buyers and sellers of royalty
free stock images the compelling advantages are to
utilize the services of one or more of the several
high quality stock photo agencies. For most
photographers, this allows them to focus on their
art and craft and leave the business end of the
money making process to someone else. For the
advertisers, designers and other buyers of
photographic images, using a reputable agency gives
them the assurance of quality, ease of transactions
and the convenience of being able to get just about
any image they may possibly want from one location.
(latest revision: 3-24-2010)
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