Anyone else trying to make it in the world of Stock Photography?

I like to know your experiences and talk about things you like / dislike .
Personally i have just started uploading pics, and i have about 30 aproved pictures. Sold even 1 .. But still, just one... Waiting to lift of haha.

The stock business can be a tricky one. Even more so in today's environment. Myself I have very specific ideas about stock and the industry as a whole.

Anyway, back in the pre-digital / pre-cumputer days the stock houses were a great thing for both the stock industry it's self and the photographers that contributed to them.

Typically speaking the stock houses took a 50/50 cut from all images that they licensed but they were able to do two things that really helped their contributors.

1) It would free the photographers up with more time to make pictures. Looking for potential clients and licensing images can be a time consuming job to say the least.

2) The stock houses were able to get the photographer's images in front of many more people than the photographer ever could alone in the pre-digital age. This allowed for more clients and more licensing and more annual income despite the 50/50 cut.

In return the stock houses had to maintain a large business with a large staff. They were responsible for maintaining a huge file of prints and transparencies. They were responsible for getting these images in front of potential clients and making suitable licensing arrangements that fit each photographers needs.

These days however what was a good thing for both sides as turned into a one way money making game with little or no profit for the contributors in the grand scheme of things. To top it off the stock houses are often taking a larger cut for cheaper licensing and no longer have the large overhead that they once had. (Of course large servers and people to maintain them cost a great deal of money but in the end over head vs profit is much less. Even so they are unwilling to share that profit with their contributors who they could not survive with out.)

The rapidly decreasing licensing fees that the stock houses charge, often for royally free images, has drastically affected the entire photography industry. Even in sectors outside of the stock industry. So much so that the public's over all perception of what we as photographers and the photos that we create are worth has not only declined but taken a nose dive. (Declining stock fees are obviously not the only thing causing this but that's another story for another time.)

The value of anything is no more than what it is perceived as. When a photo that was once licensed of limited use for $200 or $2000 or even more can now be licensed for near unlimited use, in some cases for no more than $10, with the photographer getting as little as 20% - 30%. Yes boys and girls that's a whopping 2 or 3 dollars.

We as photographers however can survive without the stock houses. We can and do license our own photos from our privet stock list and when we do we retain 100% of the profit without the middle man. It does however require more work and more effort. It also requires a clear understanding of rights managed licencing and fair market fees that are associated with it.  It requires being able to negotiate with potential clients and knowing when to give a little and when to say no.  In the end we don't want to screw our clients as that's just bad  business but we don't want to be screwed and taken advantage of ourselves.

Most of us that licence our own stock don't licence nearly as often but our return is much greater over all than those who play the shock house game. We also retain complete control over the licence and usage.

The most I have ever licensed an existing image for was for $15,000.  Trust me however when I say that far and away out stripped any other licence I have ever granted.  Nothing else has even comes close. That was back in 2007. Trust me, I really do wish that big money came all the time but in the real world it doesn't happen like that. Well, it doesn't happen for me at any rate. These days I very rarely get over a grand for an image licence but it will still happen occasionally. 

The lest I have licensed and image for was $165.  As you see the fees can be high or low.  It all depends on usage but basically speaking fair licensing just isn't going to happen when dealing with micro-stocks and often not with the stock houses. Big money or not so big money in the end we really can do better without the "help" of the stock houses

Licensing our own stock is not usually something we can count on as sustainable regular income. I certainly couldn't live off of stock alone. I may licence 5 images a year or 15 images a year.  In the end however my income from only five images is usually more than the average contributor to the micro-stocks makes if they licence 500+ images and they have absolutely no control over those images or how often they will be used in the future.

Though we can rarely live off of stock it is good extra cash and one of many things that we as photographers do on the side that add to our annual gross and it supplements whatever we shoot as our primary source of income.

As you can see when doing it our selves licencing fees may only be a few hundred dollars. In other cases it can, though very rarely these days, reach many thousands of dollars. It is however no walk in the park and requires much more effort that just uploading an image and hoping for good things to happen. There are some, but very few photographers who earn these type of fees with the stock houses anymore. The extra work is worth it from my prospective. We also have the satisfaction of knowing that we ourselves are not contributing to the rapidly deteriorating conditions of our profession.  Sadly adding to the problem or not, in the end we are all affected by it.

Thanks a lot for your explenation Barry, it's really appreciated.

You are so right, it's just absurd, the stockhouses are being very rude and selfish these day's, and to make just a bit of money, you need to sell a lot of pictures.
Also, because of so many people making good quality pictures these day's, it's becoming a lot more difficult to actually make pictures that sell. I mean, i can make nice pictures, but im not a professional. Just like another few million out there haha.
Yesterday i sold my first image, and i gues i earned $4 from it..... The stockhouse however, got $20. It's really not fair, although i must say i was very happy. It's also a big compliment for me, to have somebody paying money to own MY picture ;-).

Can you show me the picture that made you $15000? My gosh it's amazing amount of money, it must be a great picture. I'm not sure how i could licence my own pictures, and how to show them to the world. I gues people could easily look for a simular picture anyway on these stockwebsites, and just pay a few bucks for it.

It's funny though, we were driving through italy, and i saw a Fiat 500. I pulled over and ran to the car on my bare feet. Shott the car, and actually thát picture was going to be my first picture to sell. :-)

It depends on the level of morality of humanity these days.

To some cultures or individuals, the whole internet is one FREE stock library ready for harvest.

.