Thread: Selling Photos via iStockPhoto (and others)?

A friend of mine is a very talented photographer and is looking into earning money from selling his photos.

Has anyone any experience of selling photos on iStockPhoto? Or on any of the other sites?

Hi there

I've sold a few on fotolia. I put three or four pics up just to check it out and occassionally I get an email to say that I've sold a pic. It's these two here : Photo: inside a hot air balloon © Jennifer Farley #686385 , Photo: balloon and fields © Jennifer Farley #686383 ,in case anyone needs a picture of a hotair balloon.

In terms of money, it's crap, unless you sell a LOT. Even at that, these kinds of sites really do take advantage of photographers. Your friend might do better selling photography through his own website, maybe?

all the best

Jennifer

As jennifer said its peanuts you're getting from the likes of istockphoto ...

iStockPhoto pays 20%
Big Stock Photo pays mixed ammounts depending on size of the photo / license 0.50$ - 1$
Stockxpert pays ... 50%

Hmmmm... I'd love to see the guy making money from his skills, I just don't know how... I was hoping that istock or similar would be worthwhile, but it sounds like they wouldn't be

Does he have a website ? Is he working as a photographer or is it just a hobby ? ...

Does he have a portfolio ... ? ... webdesigners are always in need of photographers ... sure you can use istockphoto or whatever but sometimes you need a professional ...

Krystian Kozerawski Photo Blog is the site

oh **** his stuff is very cool I've seen a few bits and pieces before ... it also seems very non commercial for the most part ... which is a good and a bad thing ...

Bad because on istock or similar there won't be a high demand for his work ... still I reckon he should sign up ... the name of the game is contacts and you can build up networks on istock ... as well as requests for work which pays better ... at least they used do that ...

I wonder if there is anything like sitepoint contents for photographers ...

Really nice photos! *subscribes*

I think he'd have better luck selling on his own perhaps?

Originally Posted by Micky

I think he'd have better luck selling on his own perhaps?

I'd guess the thing to do is to contact the local papers papers ... find out about events that are coming up and to take photos of those events ...