Making money with stock photography Part 1

Hello all,

My name is Chris, I'm a professional photographer with extensive moving image knowledge, actively selling my work on several agencies over the past 4 years.

- What is stock photography/videography? 

Stock photography is an evolving industry with plenty different structures and ways to monetise one's work. Today, we will be focusing on micros tock. Micro stock is a relatively new way of selling work to clients and currently the least fruitful in regards to return per image for the contributors, do keep in mind though that sales are happening at a higher rate.

Certain agencies license photographs and video clips to their pool of clients. On one end you have the contributors (photographers, illustrators, videographers,) and on the other end you have the clients (commercial companies, publications,individuals etc).

Agencies serve as a market place for clients looking for work that suits their needs. The client pays for the image/video and the contributor (that's you), gets a commission of the sale.

- RM – RF 

Quoting from wikipedia: Royalty-free (RF) refers to a copyright license where the user has the right to use the picture without many restrictions based on one-time payment to the licensor. The user can, therefore, use the image in several projects without having to purchase any additional licenses. RF licenses cannot be given on an exclusive basis.

Rights Managed (RM) in the stock photo industry (sometimes called "licensed images") refers to a copyright license which, if purchased by a user, allows the one-time use of the photo as specified by the license. If the user wants to use the photo for other uses an additional license needs to be purchased. RM licenses can be given on a non-exclusive or exclusive basis.

In the micro stock business, typically your work will be sold as RF.

- Do I need to be a professional photographer/videographer? 

No.

You do not need to be a professional media creative in order to sell your work. Plenty of people do this as a hide hustle without being in the creative industries.

You will be expected to create work of a certain standard that has some commercial value otherwise it simply will not sell.

It's needles to say that you will have to have some understanding of photography, videography and editing. Access to a better camera and gear will enable you to create work with more commercial value.

That said, a good quality phone is perfectly acceptable in certain instances, especially for editorial work.

- What do I need to shoot? 

That is not a simple one. Let me begin by explaining briefly the three different kind of work you will be submitting.

A. Commercial

Commercial stills, videos and illustration work that clearly demonstrates a feeling, an action performed by a person even a product.

Your work should not include any sort of branding or else it will not be accepted as commercial. Commercial images with recognisable people, buildings or any other kind of property should include a model or property release form. That is a contract between you and the model or you and a property's owner (e.g tattoo artist).

Examples of commercial stock photography:

Here's a shot of a luxury handbag about to be wrapped. This image demonstrates a very real scenario, allowing enough space around the product for what we call copy space. This will enable the potential buyer to communicate a message (by text) or add their company's logo (brand awareness).

It's important to mention that the handbag's logo had been removed in Photoshop. No recognisable product means this photograph has commercial value and will be accepted as commercial by the agencies.

Here's an other example of a commercial photograph communicating something meaningful. There are no recognisable people, there is enough copy space, the lighting is on spot it can be used by a wide range of clients.

B. Editorial

A photograph labeled as Editorial is an image (or video) that is not meant to advertise a product or service. People or properties depicted in these images do not need to sign a release form (the contract we were talking about). Typically editorial images or videos need to illustrate current events.

Here's an example of an editorial image. Very relevant to the pandemic current events as shoppers are seeing to be wearing masks. At the same time the high street is not really busy.

This makes a newsworthy image were logos and recognisable people are allowed.

Here's an other example of a newsworthy editorial image, depicting drawings showing support to the NHS workers in the U.K. This has actually sold a number of times.

C. Illustrative editorial

This third and last kind of photography is a little bit trickier than others.

A number of agencies will accept a second type of editorial images, called illustrative editorial. This is typically a staged image illustrating a product. In a market flooded with thousands of images every day your illustrative editorial attempt must convey some meaning. A shot of a Starbucks cup alone won't do it anymore. However, placing a Starbucks cup in front of a blurred person working on a laptop demonstrates the product in relation to the very relevant gig economy seen in the Western world.

Above you can see an illustrative editorial image by a branded luxury handbag. This does not convey meaning as mentioned before but it is still sellable in the current pandemic reality as there has been a lot of talk in the media about luxury goods holding their value as an investment. (I know Coach is a little bit basic but I wont share my best seller :))

That's the end of the first part of me attempting to explain how the stock photography world works.

Please feel free to ask any questions under the post, I'd be happy to help and make things even easier to understand.

In the second part I will cover agencies, metadata and ways of uploading.

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