Photography for Sale!

I recently joined the stock photography site iStockPhoto.com. I wanted a way to upload and sell some of my photos and this site seemed to be the largest and most reputable stock photography site on the internet. The process to join is pretty straight forward. You choose a category of submission, in my case ‘photos’. You read through their rules of submission and tips for uploading a good photo. Then you take a brief quiz on what you just read and upload three photos for review. If you pass the test and your photos are accepted, you’re in! Pretty simple really.

I joined this service for two reasons. The first is money. iStock sells photos for anywhere between $2-$6 per photo depending on the size of the image, and from that I get about 15%. It might not sound like much, but it’s better than nothing and who knows, I might make a bunch. It’s worth a try right?

Knowing what kinds of photos sell well will give me the extra little nudge I need to shoot some different things and become a more rounded photographer in the process.

But more important than the money though is that submitting photos to a stock site like this will give me direction with my photography. This is the other reason I joined- to be a better photographer. All too often I find myself shooting the same kinds of photos like landscapes, portraits, beach scenes, etc. But my hope is that this will give me direction to shoot and explore other kinds of topics. Knowing what kinds of photos sell well might just give me the extra little nudge I need to shoot some different things, and become a more rounded photographer in the process.

If you’re interested here’s a link to my portfolio on the site. I only have one image in there so far (primarily because it takes them forever to approve your submissions) but I hope to grow it with time. Check it out.