Do you enjoy taking pictures?
Do people regularly compliment your photos?
Do you relish taking the perfect photo – either due to the subject matter, composition, or intrinsic beauty?
You earn money by uploading your photos to stock photo agency websites. The stock photo agency protects your image with a watermark so that nobody can use the image for free. When a person or company purchases your photo, the stock photo agency charges a fee, retains a commission, and pays you a royalty. The more photos you upload, the greater your potential to earn more a robust passive income. If your goal is to earn an income from your photos, stay away from the sites which provide free stock photos.
There are many online stock photo agencies, some of whom specialize in different types of photos. Do your research to determine where your photos would be the best fit. It can be a frustrating process to be accepted into a stock photo agency – you submit your photos and they are sent to photographic reviewers for acceptance or rejection. It may take multiple submissions before your photos are accepted by an agency.
Here are some tips to help your photos get noticed – and licensed – more frequently:
- Think like an advertiser and leave room for text.
- Take the same photo from different angles.
- Pick a niche – this will help you with return buyers and label you an “expert”.
- Review each stock photo company’s site to see what types of photos are most popular.
The top four photo stock agencies are:
Shutterstock: Produce high-quality images and videos for our customers to download. Upload your content with our easy-to-use platform, and get tips for success. Make money every time your content is downloaded by one of our worldwide customers. Earn even more by referring new contributors and customers. Over the last 15 years, we’ve paid out half a billion dollars to our worldwide community of contributors.
Adobe Stock: Gain exposure and sell content to the world’s largest creative community. Right inside their favorite apps. Add your images, videos, vectors or illustrations to Adobe Stock directly from Adobe Lightroom CC, Adobe Bridge CC and through the web. Plus our intelligent auto-tagging saves hours of adding keywords. Receive best-in-class royalties for your creative contributions. A dashboard lets you track sales in real time.
iStockPhoto: For more than 15 years, we’ve given our artists a platform to make money with their passions by licensing their stock content to businesses and individuals around the world for use in a wide variety of projects. Today we remain an industry leader and key destination for creative business professionals who want to make a big impact without breaking the bank. We believe that imagery has the power to move the world. We also believe that our customers deserve the very best stock content – that’s why we’re proud to offer millions of bold, unique stock images you can only get from us.
Getty Images: Applying to become a Getty Images contributor is the first step towards getting your photos, illustrations, and video clips in front of our 1.5 million customers in more than 200 countries worldwide – a reach no other company can provide. Apply now to join our international community of talented contributors and help move the world with imagery!
