How to Sell Stock Photography

The best stock photos illustrate concepts as well as specific items.

Selling stock photography online can be a great way for a new photographer to build a name for herself. By adding a little monetary incentive, the photographer is encouraged to keep shooting and try innovative ways to reach buyers. There are two web communities that allow photographers to sell their work online at decent rates, without having to go through a lengthy and difficult application process. Here is how to use these sites to sell your photos online.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Quality digital SLR camera
• Internet connection
• Adobe Photoshop or other professional image editing software

1. Start by going through your portfolio and picking out some of your best photographs, those that you think would be the best representations of a "concept." Stock photos are concept-driven; that is to say when a buyer is looking for the perfect photograph to illustrate a website, book or magazine article, they search based on a theme or idea.

2. Bookmark these two websites:http://www.istockphoto.comhttp://www.stockxpert.comBoth are stock photo archiving websites that allow purchase of stock photos from everyday photographers and industry professionals. Neither are too difficult to be accepted into, and both offer vibrant and helpful photographers' communities.

3. Browse the archives of each of these two stock photo websites, focusing specifically on which search terms you think might apply to the photographs you have chosen as your best. Compare the photographs on each site to your own. Do your photographs fall into the same guidelines as the bulk of the stock photos you see? One feature that sets stock photography apart from news or art photography is its use of extremely simple backgrounds, which serves to highlight a single subject.

4. Reevaluate your image choices based on what you see as the best stock photos listed on each of these two websites. Go out and shoot some more if you need to, or use Photoshop to clean up some of your images. You can even remove backgrounds in Photoshop or GIMP for a cleaner image, if you are experienced with image editing.

5. Fill out the applications for istockphoto.com and stockxpert.com. Stock.xpert is easier to gain entry to, but be prepared to give some of your images away for free in their free stock images website, stock.xchng, while you begin to build a name for yourself as a stock photographer. Istockphoto.com is more difficult to be accepted into, but not as difficult as such career stock-photographer services such as Getty Images. If you have a good grasp of photography, some persistence and a decent digital camera, you shouldn't have any trouble.

Tips & Warnings

• Giving some of your images away for free, which you can do on both istockphoto.com and stock.xchng, is a great way to build your name as a photographer. You may even gain clients who will pay you a much greater rate than what is typically offered through these stock photography websites.

• Be aware that when selling stock photos, you will need a model release from any person whose face is shown in one of your photographs. Because you are making money from their image, a model release is necessary to protect you from legal action. An example of a model release form is obtainable through the istockphoto.com website.

Resources

• istockphoto main page
• stock.xpert main page