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| | Is Stock Photography
for Me?
If you are trying to decide if stock photography is for you, maybe the
following can help:
- Can you take well composed, clear, and clean photos?
You do not need to be a professional or one of the best, but a blurry
snapshot of your dog or a shot of the family will not do. The nice thing
about doing microstock is that you don't need to be a professional. It is a
great way to get started and it is well within the reach of many photographers.
- Do you enjoy photography?
If you are
only in it for the money, you are in for a huge challenge. To make a
significant amount of money, you will need to put in many hours of
work shooting pictures, processing pictures, preparing them for upload, and
uploading them to stock sites. If you don't enjoy what you are doing,
it will be reflected in your work and sales.
- Do you have the right equipment?
The easiest
way to do stock photography is to use a digital camera. Preferably one with
4 or more megapixels. A digital camera allows you to take a lot of pictures
and experiment without having to pay a lot of money for film and film
processing. With a digital camera, you can go on a photo shoot and take
several hundred pictures, experiment with exposure, angles, and composition,
and not spend any money. If you are using a film camera, this might cost you
several hundred dollars to do each time. This doesn't mean you can't use a
film camera, it just means that each picture you take will cost you. You
will also need to have a good enough scanner to scan your photos, which is
an additional processing step. Whether you go digital or film, you will need
software to process your photos. You can spend hundreds of dollars on
software or find some free photo editing software, but you will need
something and a knowledge of how to use it.
- Do you have the time?
Stock photography, regardless of whether you go with microstock or
macrostock sites, take time, at least to begin with. After you get sore
photos uploaded to the sites you want to work with, you can sit back and
just make money, but over time, your sales might drop, adn if you want your
sales to grow, you will want to continue to work at it. This doesn't mean
you have to put in lots of hors if you don't want to, but it will take time
and if you don't have it, doing stock photography will be difficult.
- Do you want to earn money selling your photos?
There are many good photographers that could easily sell their photos, but
they really aren't interested in making money selling their photos. Their
photos are for them and their friends and that is as far as they want to go.
This is fine.
- Are you bothered by making only a few pennies a picture?
Some feel that selling your pictures for so little money is selling yourself
way short. They also feel that photographers that are willing to do so are
ripping themselves off and hurting photographers everywhere. Not to get into
a philosophical debate about this, but if you feel this way, microstock
sites might not be for you.
- Are you already an established photographer?
If you are already an established photographer, maybe with a Web site
and a large portfolio, you might not want to go the microstock route. You
might meet the requirements to sell on macrostock, as they are sometimes
called, or traditional stock photography sites. These sites are much
more restrictive on the photographers they accept, but they also pay a lot
more for each picture sold. Instead of making a few cents for each photo
sold, you can make several hundred dollars or more. Of course, you will
still need to decide whether to go the high or low price route. Some
photographers go both routes. They sell some photos on macrostock and some
on microstock. Just be sure that the sites you align yourself with do not
require you to be exclusive with them. Some of the macrostock sites do not
require exclusivity, but they probhibit you selling any photos through
microstock sites. Do your homework before you sign-up with anyone.
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