Stock Photography - an online method of making money out of your Photography

Its been a long time I am seeing few of friends are earning decent money from Stock Photography. Before I move on to how, where and other things, I would want to touch upon the basics about Stock Photography.

Anyone who needs photograph, may not be interetested in finding out a photographer and ask him to click a particular photograph. Because this will be along process and money expensive as well. Hiring a Photographer, asking her/him to click a particular type of photograph and then selecting the best one. In the end, the client may not be very satisfied with the results. All in all, when I need to buy a photograph for any usage I would prefer to see lot many options to choose the best. This has became a new trend and of-course it proves more effective for the buyer.

On the same lines, there are lot many online portals which allow Photographers to upload their photographs with appropriate details. Buyers some to these portals and look for the  best they want. This whole system of selling and buying photographs online is called as stock photography.

Why its becoming a trend ?

Actually its a win-win situation for Buys, Online Web Portal and the Photographer.

- Buyer is getting the best without much overhead of loacting right Photographer and make him click photographs.
- Buyer has unlimited options online.
- Cost effective for buyer because hiring a good Photographer for a photoshoot should be much expensive than getting a good quality photograph. (Depend upon the purpose of the use of this Photograph)
- Photographer need not worry about marketing.
- Photographer need not to find clients.
- Photographer has freedom to choose interesting subjects of her/him own choice and make them available to various types of clients online
- Web-Portal is of-course getting money for providing this platform for sellers and buyers.

Many of Photography enthusiasts who are not actually Professional Photographers are also earning good money through Stock Photography. Of course it is not as simple as it looks. One needs to produce very good photographs and the quality is judged on some specific parameters.

There are lot many website which provide Stock Photography platform online and everyone has different cost mechanisms. Also everyone has different quality measures.

Few Popular names which come to my mind are :

PHOTOLIA
SHUTTERSTOCK
DINODIA
ALAMY
DREAMTIME
CRESTOCK

etc...

I also want to try it but don't find much time to initiate the process of locating right website for me... Let's see how it goes in next few months and I would surely update in case I get some chance to do something here....

What is Stock Photography and what all a Photographer should focus for this?

Stock Photography is a modern way of generating revenues through your Photographs.On web there are many website where you can upload your good photographs with good resolution and find clients to use them by paying some amount. These websites charge some comission on sale and some may charge some fixed amount. So its very important to read all these conditions in advance for deciding the website you want to use for this. There are many Stock Photography sites these days like Fotolia, dinodia, Shutterstock, crestock etc. Just find out more and explore which is best for you.

Stock Photography, a way to generate revenues and clients on web don't care who you are, they are just concerned about the Photographs you have. So you need not to struggle for proving that you can do better than Professional Photographers in a particular area or other.


Its not a fast way to earn money and may take 5 Years to establish yourslef on these websites to earn decent money. And all this also needs significant time for shooting, editing and uploading. So need to give suffiecient time for this and with appropriate content as per market needs.



 Stock Photography needs market oriented Photographs with good compositions and creative ideas... Will add more on same blog about the areas one should focus for Stock Photography, in terms of genre, color compositions, resolutions etc...