Two years ago in the middle of November 2007 I started my adventure with microstock photography by submitting a few pictures to iStockphoto, and then to Dreamstime, Fotolio, 123RF and Bigstockphoto. It took me much longer to get into Shutterstock (4 attempts) and StockXpert (5 attempts).

On November 28th, 2007 I got my first sale at iStock just 8 days after uploading this picture of a hot air balloon shot a few weeks earlier at the Hot Air Balloon Harvest in Greeley, Colorado.

Here are my first two posts related to microstock (I moved them from the old blog):
Starting Microstock Photography
Polaroid Transfers for Microstock?

These two years passed really fast …

First part of this article was easy. I simply decided that I would measure productivity of my portfolio in reference to the total number of pictures I have produced for microstock. These cover rejects, pictures not submitted and some multiple versions, so they represent my entire work for microstock including learning process and some failed projects.

To proceed further I need make some assumptions and guess estimates.

After two years of microstock photography I consider myself the part-timer. I have half time in a regular job and some other streams of income in a self employed mode. It means that I can share different expenses between my self employed activities. I am not planning to work a full time for microstock.

I do not keep records of my hours spent on microstock. That wouldn’t be fun … My estimate is that I am working about 60 hours per month, i.e., 1/3 of my time. I am doing this quite regularly shooting a 3-4 times per weeks and processing and submitting a few pictures almost every day. No special shooting campaigns or “power weeks.”

I am analyzing here 23 months from December 2007 to October 2009. To build a portfolio of 1748 pictures I needed 1380 hours. It results in about 46 minutes per picture.

After months of experimentations my stock photography is focusing now on a table top subjects and concepts in my home office/studio. I enjoy a lot of outdoor activities (paddling, hiking, biking) usually with a camera. However, sales of my “recreational” pictures are too low to justify counting these trips into expenses and labor time related to microstock. However, I take into account time needed to process these outdoor pictures for microstock submissions.

Some short trips are planned specifically for microstock shooting. It is sad that shooting a local sewage outlet is much more profitable from microstock perspective than visiting Rocky Mountain National Park or other scenic destinations in Colorado where I live.

Is it just a hobby providing a supplemental income or business? Am I really making any money here?

After 18 months I have my portfolios in 8 agencies with some regular earnings. These portfolios differ in size and, also, in content. The differences will grow in time. I expect to to have two times more pictures with SS than IS soon.

In my previous post I presented the scoop project in my microstock photography.
It happens that one of these pictures, a scoop of my favorite cereal, pepita-papaya muesli, just helped me to reach the first $50 payment from StockXpert.

I had a late start with StockXpert and started to sell pictures in that microstock site in May. This is what I wrote in my April 2008 earnings report:

A few days ago I got accepted by StockXpert after 4 failed applications “At the moment we are not looking for …

I needed 9 months to reach my first payment from Dreamstime.

The $100 line was crossed by this picture of sunflower seeds on a tablespoon. About $10 in this amount came from referrals. So, if you like to join Dreamstime you are more than welcome to use my referral link.

You can find many enthusiastic articles on the web “How to make a few extra bucks from microstock photography.” It is not so difficult to sell a few pictures and make a few dollars, but to get paid any money from this business is a different story. You need to reach a certain earnings balance to receive a payment. This minimum varies between $30 and $100 in different agencies

I am celebrating a little milestone in a growth of my iStockPhoto portfolio today.

I just had my 100th picture accepted there. And, also today, I reached $50.39 earnings from iStock portfolio after 3 months on-line. So, I can expect reaching the first payment limit of $100 in a couple of months. I have more than 100 images with other microstock agencies (Fotolia, 123RF, Big Stock Photo and Lucky Oliver), but with much lower earnings. I cannot even predict when I may reach payoff limits there yet.

It was a time of intense experimenting and learning. I was trying to figure out which of my pictures can be accepted in microstock.

In particular, I wanted to test whether my Polaroid image transfers may be a stock material. These are pictures originally shot as 35 mm slides, and then transferred using 4×5 peel apart Polaroid film on watercolor paper. So, these images are by their nature noisy, grainy, blurry, imperfect, painterly and rather artistic

I have just started submitting my pictures to microstock agencies. I am still in a very initial stage of learning what is accepted and what is not. It looks like an interesting experience and, certainly, a way to improve technical aspects of my photography.

After two weeks of efforts, I have a small portfolio of between 10 and 20 pictures in five microstock agencies and a few sales at iStock. My plan is to develop a set of 100-200 pictures in micro stock before deciding whether I really want to proceed further. Generally, I am more oriented towards a fine art photography. Some say that shooting for a stock is addictive.