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BigStockPhoto – End or New Beginning?

Marek — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:32:50 +0000

Unexpected acquisition of BigStockPhoto by Shutterstock is discussed everywhere today on all microstock forums and blogs. So, I took a quick look at my portfolio performance at BSP.

I started to submit to BigStockPhoto in January 2008 and currently I have close 1300 pictures there. BSP provided 4.3% of my total earnings from microstock. I plotted my monthly earnings from the last 13 months below. It is my regular graph of monthly earnings, but I removed iStockphoto and Shutterstock which provide together more than 70% of my income. We can better see how my portfolio is performing in lower income microstock agencies.

Earnings from BSP are low but steady and higher than from 123RF and CanStock. When their payout limit was $30 I was receiving regular monthly payment.

Is it the end of BigStockPhoto or new beginning? I will keep to submit my pictures.

Monthly earnings with my microstock portfolio excluding iStockphoto and Shutterstock
from August 2008 to August 2009

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Speedlinking for Microstock Photography, September 17, 2009

Marek — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:09:55 +0000

My recent on line reading on microstock photography:

Story of Small Microstock Success – Part 1, 2, and 3

by Saniphoto

I am not here to tell a ‘success story’ as can be the ones of Yuri Arcurs, Lise Gagne or Andres Rodriguez, or many others famous top microstock stars. I am trying to testify that anybody can reach a decent success in stock photography (as in life!) with a little patience, hard work, will to learn, lot of passion and dedication.

Saniphoto portfolio at Dreamstime

The Continuing Challenge: RM, RF or Micro?

by John Lund, Stock Photographer

I am in stock photography for the money, for the freedom and for the fulfillment of creating images that I want to create. Most of the stock photos that I make require a lot of work to think up, hours of Photoshop work to complete, and a fair amount of capital investment to produce. I know from experience that some of these images can earn just as much in RF as in RM.

Are You a Quality Microstocker Or a Quantity Microstocker?

Microstock Diaries

Most microstockers figure out the relationship between quality and quantity early in their careers. All microstock superstars certainly did. Success in microstock requires that you learn how to consistently create high quality (high selling) stock photos before you increase your volume of production.
…
If you want to be a quality microstocker, you need to get your RPI consistently up above $1.

Well, my recent RPI (return per image) is recently around $0.70, but it is growing. I calculate RPI in reference to my entire portfolio, i.e., all my pictures produced for microstock including rejected or not submitted ones.

Find Your Niche in Microstock

36 clicks on stock

It’s splattered all over the various forums of microstock agents: If you want to be successful in stock, build a large portfolio. Aim for a versatile collection of images, as that ensures a wide spread interest from buyers, designers, and such, and thus realises sales and generates revenues. All very well intended opinions, shared by the big names in microstock.

Is Microstock Still for Hobbyst Photographers ?

Microstock Experiment

Competition is fierce in the microstock industry not only between agencies but also between photographers. In this article, I will try to answer the following questions: who is responsible of lowering or raising barriers of entry for hobbyst microstockers and is there a scope for them to make some money?

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

1000 Downloads from iStockphoto – Sticky Note Mind Map

Marek — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:06:27 +0000

Sticky note mind map with questions on a blackboard

A little milestone in my microstock photography: the 1000th download from my iStockphoto portfolio. I have 652 pictures online there after 16 months of submitting. My total earnings from iStock are $1,055.52 which makes just about $1 per sale. I reached my 500th download 5.5 months ago.

Related posts:

Is iStock Waking Up?
The last 13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings: 2008 March | April | May | June | July | August |September | October | November | December | 2009 January | February | March
500 Downloads from iStock – River Dam Spillway in the Big Thompson Canyon
Reaching 250 Downloads from iStock with the Devil’s Backbone Picture
iStock Earnings and 7 Best Selling Pictures in My Microstock Portfolio
What Sells in Microstock? My List of Picture Bestsellers
My microstock referral links for photographers:
Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics.

Polaroid Transfers for Microstock?

Marek — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:38:29 +0000

My first month in microstock photography …

Actually, it is about 6 weeks, since I started submitting pictures to iStock in the middle of November. When I got accepted after a couple of iterations by iStock I started uploading to Fotolia and Dreamstime, and in the beginning of December to BigStock, 123rf and Lucky Oliver.

I had one failed initial submission to StockXpert and already two rejections from ShutterStock. In the first submission ShutterStock rejected 8 of 10 pictures with the noise as a dominant rejection theme and, in the second attempt, 5 from 10 with “poor or uneven lighting” as the main problem. I am not sure how I can have uneven lighting on small, single coins shot under diffusion tent, but see you next month. All 10 pictures in the second set were approved by iStock and two of them were sold there. Has anybody entered ShutterStock with fewer than three attempts?

Here is the status of my microstock portfolio at different agencies by December 31, 2007. In parenthesis, next to my acceptance rate, I am quoting average agency acceptance rate after Microstock Diaries.

agency	number of files	acceptance	downloads
iStock	30	41% (59%)	6
DreamsTime	32	51% (49%)	1
Fotolia	43	54%	1
Big Stock Photo	38	70% (72%)	0
123rf	49	98%	0
Lucky Oliver	49	87% (72%)	0
ShutterStock	0	0% (40%)	0
StockXpert	0	0% (67%)	0

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 like this old barn or gas pump below.

Abandoned gas station in a ghost town of Purcell in northern Colorado. August 1998.
4×5″ Polaroid image transfer on Fabriano Artistico cold press watercolor paper
from my Lost Colorado series.

And, the results of my Polaroid image transfer test are:

yes – in iStock, DreamsTime, and 123rf with some exceptions
no – in Fotolia, BigStock and Lucky Oliver with exception maybe for emulsion transfers which look more like photographs

5 from 8 of my sales were old Polaroid transfers, 2 – rather recent hot air balloon pictures, and only one – a macro picture shot specifically for microstock a week ago. My total income from the microstock is about $12 so far.

Polaroid transfers belong rather to a fine art print market, but, on the other hand, they are quite different than a typical microstock shot.

I am not setting any very specific goals for my microstock photography for 2008 yet. First, I am going to create a 100-200 picture portfolio and see for a while how it performs.

Microstock Photography Speedlinking – Tips, Tricks and Advice

Marek — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:16:38 +0000

I am building my stock portfolio, submitting pictures, experimenting, learning and dealing with rejections. I am also searching the web for all possible resources on how to sell photographs through microstock agencies. Here are links to my recent reading with more general tips and advice.

Microstock Photographer’s Guide
by Rasmus Rasmussen, iStockPhoto photographer and inspector. 14 articles or rather chapters of a book.

I am in the process of writing the first draft of a guide for people, who want to get started as contributing members of microstock sites. I focus on iStockphoto.com in particular, where I sell my own work exclusively and work as an image inspector and admin, though I do aim to give general advice, usable on any microstock site. The target audience is not professional photographers, but rather those who know the basics of how a camera works, and would like make a little money off of it.

How to Get Accepted as a Microstock Contributor
from Microstock Diaries.

I’m an amateur photographer and when I first started I had very little experience. I had to work harder than most to get through the process. I was rejected 3 times at iStockphoto, rejected twice at Shutterstock and rejected once at StockXpert. Here’s some advice from these experiences.

How to take photos which sell: Making the most of your subject
from LockStockPhotography.com

In Microstock Photogaphy, to sell photos online, every effort should be made to ensure each of your photos is the most appealing, best representation of your subject possible. The digital photographer should be able to manipulate ‘most’ photos to look substantially better than the subject itself in real life. The difference between a good photo and a Great photo is hundreds of dollars.

Ten Tips for Getting Started in Stock Photography

Six Tips for Making Money in Stock Photography

Microstock ABC. Guide to sell your pictures online
by Lev Dolgachov, one of microstock industry top-performers, selling over 120.000 pictures a year

Starting Microstock Photography

Marek — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 15:03:35 +0000

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.

Every microstock agency has a discussion forum and technical articles providing a lot of information. In addition, I have found the following sites and blogs very useful:
- Selling Your Photos. Microstock: Curse or Blessing?
- Microstock Diaries. For Photographers Selling Photos in the Microstock Market
- Microstock Group – A meeting place for microstock photographers

I will write about my observations and experience in the microstock photography market. Here are affiliate links to five microstock sites. They should lead to my portfolio or profile.

iStockPhoto … Fotolia…DreamsTime…BigStockPhoto…123rf