Photos 4 Sale

Those of you who know me well, know that I tend to go through different phases in my life where I seem to constantly change focus. There is a circle to my madness though and I have returned to taking an interest in photography. The above photo was taken June of last year and it is of the Norwalk River in Norwalk, CT. Sadly, the photo is a reject.

A little over a week ago I began to wonder if there was any value to the tons of pictures I have sitting on my various hard drives that I've taken with somewhat pricy equipment. It turns out that there are a couple of different business models out there for this very thing. First, let me direct you to another blog from where I got much of my information. http://photomoney.blogspot.com/

Aparently, the author of that blog had a similar inkling and created a blog just so he can tell you what he's learned. To him, I say thank you.

So the deal is this. There are the so called respectable websites that work as agents for photographers and they give you a fair and reasonable commission for your talent. Then there are the lame ass bastard sites that give what's called a "micropayment" commission for your talent. At the moment, I am hanging out with the latter.

The way the lame ass sites work is that they charge subscription fees to people who want to buy photos. The subscription isn't very pricy and these people then have access to tons of photos that they can download each month.

My first experience was with shutterstock.com. From what I can tell, they are the lowest of the low on the food chain. For every photo they sell for you, you get a measely 20 cents. You would think they would be the easiest to break into. Not so. Shutterstock requires that you start off by uploading 10 photos to them and 7 of those 10 need to be approved before you continue. You know how many of my 10 passed? NONE!!! Here I am feeling like a sellout in the world of photography where I can never show my face because of the shame of submitting to a micropayment site and these bastards don't even want me. By the way, that Hibiscus flower from a couple entries ago was one of the 10 that were rejected.

Enter bigstockphoto.com. They are a step up from the bottom feeders that are shutterstock. For every one of your photos they sell...actually, I guess the term is license as you still own your photo and can do with it as you please...For every one of your photos they license, you start out by receiving a dollar. If the photo gets downloaded a lot, then your commision goes up.

Big Stock Photo doesn't require a minimum for you to submit so initially, I only uploaded a couple of photos. In addition to higher commissions, Big Stock also gives better feedback when they don't accept one of your photos. So far they have accepted two of my photos and rejected one. They rejected my Norwalk River picture (that's right. the one at the top of this entry) because of "Blurriness, sorry.. a little too blurry". I found that interesting as I had never noticed the leaves in the foreground are a little soft but the rest of the photo seems fine to me. It's good though because at least I have a better clue what they're looking for and will look for that when I submit in the future. For my approved photos, I believe you can see them here.

I must get on with my day now so that's all I can tell you for now. I'll update you as my photo selling progresses.

C U soon.
Dave