So, how’s it done?

Well, first you need to put together a collection of stunning photographs. I recommend that you do not approach an agency until you have at least 200. Make sure they are perfectly focused, perfectly exposed, nicely composed, and that at least half of them contain people: people sell pictures. If you have even a single doubt about any of them, discard them.

DO NOT submit even one sub-standard image.  Do all the necessary work: write a caption for each of the images you intend to submit, catalog and number them (each image should be listed by category  construction, sports, industry, castles, etc. – and numbered accordingly), create the low-res jpegs, and then put them on a CD ready to mail.

Next you have to find an agency. That means you’ll need to do some shopping around. Go online and Google stock photo agencies. That should bring up a list. Pick maybe three, read their guidelines, make sure you can supply what they need exactly as they need it, and then send them a query.

The query should go to a named individual (call and find out who you need to send your images to  never submit images to the editor; one that has authority to make a decision. In the query, you should explain who you are and what you do. Be sure to mention that you are a professional photographer looking for an agency to represent your work.  That you have images ready for them to consider, and would it be alright for you to submit them. Also, let the agency know that you are ready and able to submit images regularly. If you query by email, do not attach any files until you are given permission to do so.

If you are given the go ahead, do so quickly. You will get only one chance to make a good first impression.  Don’t blow it. If you are fortunate enough to be offered a contract, be sure you are willing and able to fulfill the obligations therein.

Model Releases?
Yep, you’ll need to get them. No image with a recognizable person or persons in it can be sold for commercial purposes without them having given permission in writing. These are not difficult to obtain. I carry a few around with me wherever I go. If I shoot what I think might be a saleable images, I simply approach the person involved and introduce myself as a professional photographer.

Then I tell them I think I’ve just shot a nice picture of them and that I would like permission to offer it to my stock agency for publication. I also tell them if they would be so good as to sign my little piece of paper (I get the name, address and signature), I will send them a copy of the image/s. Invariably, that does the trick. Just don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s not difficult.

Online agencies
These days there are any number of on-line stock photo agencies willing to take on new and inexperienced photographers. This is a good thing, and you should try to take advantage of the opportunity. It will give you experience in the professional world and it will provide you with a by-line: my work is represented by They will not pay you very much for your images, but when you are a beginner, who cares? It’s the thrill of knowing someone other than yourself likes your work. That’s what counts. Check them out, give them a try.

To fee or not to fee? That is the question
There are also some on-line stock photo agencies that charge an annual fee for their services. It could be as little as $50 and it could be as much as $250, maybe even more. DON’T GO THERE. These people are interested only in gathering fees. The take every photograph submitted by every poor wanna-be that ever held a camera. They do NO marketing at all, and you will sell not a single image. Be warned.

Okay, there it is then. I wish you every success in your venture into the wide and wonderful world of the stock photo industry. It’s certainly been good to me. Have fun, but above all: please continue to enjoy your photography.

Blair Howard is freelance photojournalist and the author of 29 books, more than 600 articles and 3,000 published photographs. His work has appeared in PHOTOgraphic Magazine, Delta Sky Magazine, Popular Woodworking, Peter’s Hunting Magazine, Country Accents, The Mail On Sunday, Golf Illustrated, The Walking Magazine, and many more. He also teaches Photography for Publication, and Creative Writing.

RESOURCES:

Microstock Photography: How to Make Money from Your Digital Images

Digital Stock Photography: How to Shoot and Sell

Photos That Sell: The Art of Successful Freelance Photography

2009 Photographer’s Market

Shooting & Selling Your Photos: The Complete Guide to Making Money with Your Photography

SellPhotos.Com: Your Guide to Establishing a Successful Stock Photography Business on the Internet

I made the switch not too long ago. I can thank my friend Rich Wagner for that (Rich is a professional fine art photographer). When he and I talked, just before we met at one of our photo workshops in Paris early in 2005, I was still a died-in-the-wool 35mm film photographer. Never, I said, would digital photography replace film. That gave Rich a real big laugh.

He then proceeded to persuade me to make the change. So convincing was he that I did. You’ll laugh when I tell you, though, that I lugged a complete 35mm outfit all the way to Paris along with my brand new digital outfit. That 35mm camera never saw the light of day, and it hasn’t seen it since. But, again, I digress.

Digital images require no less work that do 35mm slides. In fact, they require even more work. In addition to cataloging, numbering and captioning, each image has to undergo several more processes before it can be submitted to the agency  bummer.

1. The images have to be shot first in RAW format (all the detail is retained, and none is lost during conversion to jpeg format. This is the largest possible file the camera can generate.)
2. Next, a low resolution jpeg file must be generated from the raw image. This is the one that submitted, on CD, for consideration. This file should be no more that 250k in size.
3. Once the agency has made its choices, you will be notified which of your images have been chosen for inclusion in the library.
4. Now for the good stuff. Each image must be regenerated, again from the original raw file, this time in high resolution format. These new images must also be in jpeg format, but at least 50 mega-bites in size. This can only be done in Photoshop, the industry standard.
5. The requested images must then be resubmitted, on CD. This is where the agency gurus take over – thank god for that. They do their own cataloging, adjust the colors just a little where they think it will enhance the images, and then they upload them to their website.
6. Once all this has been done they can begin marketing your work.

Whew. And then you have to do it all over again, and again, ad infinitum. Not a bad life if you don’t weaken.

So, what can you earn?

Well as a general rule of thumb, you can estimate your potential income from you stock agency files at, on average, $1 per year for every image you have on file. That, I know, doesn’t sound like a lot of money. But figure it this way, if you have 10,000 images on file, that’s $10,000 per year, every year. Very nice. Yes, it takes time. But it takes time to do all of the other things we love to do too.

I have heard there are people out there with more than 100,000 images on file. Yes, that’s a huge number, but the efforts of the past (all that work putting such a huge collection together) have made it possible for them now to do nothing else but build those collections. And they do: every month they grow exponentially. They give themselves a raise every time they submit new images: awesome.

How Much Will The Agency Earn?

You can expect the agency to take between 40% and 50% of the gross sale of your images. That may sound like a lot. It’s not. If you are lucky enough to find a good agency they will more than earn their fees.  Don’t forget, they will do all the marketing for you, leaving you to do only that which love: to take photographs.

In the next issue I’ll explain how you can go about breaking into the wonderful world of stock photography.

Blair Howard is freelance photojournalist and the author of 29 books, more than 600 articles and 3,000 published photographs. His work has appeared in PHOTOgraphic Magazine, Delta Sky Magazine, Popular Woodworking, Peter’s Hunting Magazine, Country Accents, The Mail On Sunday, Golf Illustrated, The Walking Magazine, and many more. He also teaches Photography for Publication, and Creative Writing.

RESOURCES:

Microstock Photography: How to Make Money from Your Digital Images

Digital Stock Photography: How to Shoot and Sell

Photos That Sell: The Art of Successful Freelance Photography

2009 Photographer’s Market

Shooting & Selling Your Photos: The Complete Guide to Making Money with Your Photography

SellPhotos.Com: Your Guide to Establishing a Successful Stock Photography Business on the Internet

If you remember, I ended by telling you I was about to submit some 30,000 images to my newly contracted stock photo agency. No problem, I thought. All I had to do was sort them and submit them, right? Well, not quite.

Imagine this: before I could submit anything, I was told, every slide had to be stamped with my copyright; every slide had to have a mini-caption printed or written on it; and every slide had to be cataloged, numbered and captioned. These captions had to be typed, numerically and by category. And all of this had to be done by me, and I also had to labor under the handicap of being told that they would probably not accept all of them, only the images they thought they could sell.

Do you have any idea what 30,000 35mm slides even looks like? Daunting is not the word for the task that lay ahead – there is no word to describe it. Never-the-less, I decided to go ahead – I am after all a professional photographer this is what I do, right? Hahahahaha.

I tell you folks, three weeks later and only 500 slides cataloged, numbered and captioned and I was ready to pull my hair out. Would it surprise you to know that more than 25, 000 of those original slides, plus maybe 5,000 more, still lie forgotten in those now tattered three-ring binders? I ended up cherry-picking a few of the best. Those I submitted, and about half of them were accepted.

It was at that point I decided to start over and do the ancillary stuff as I shot the images: better, but still very tough work. To cut a long story short, I continued to submit my images on a fairly regular basis  not the 100 per month I’d contracted for  and I still do today. Although, these days, I have made the switch to digital

Ah hah, you say: digital. Now it’s easy, right? Wrong, but I digress; well get to that in a later issue. Anyway, I now have slightly more than 8,000 images on file, and that number continues to grow by maybe a couple of dozen or so every other month. How do I get away with not meeting my contractual obligations? Well, my friends, I think maybe I’ve earned the right. Let me explain a little more.

First of all, I don’t send them any garbage. I will not send them a single image unless its perfectly focused, perfectly exposed, and nicely composed. Even so at least 60 images out of every 100 I send are rejected. Not because they are not good, but because they HAVE NO NEEDS FOR THEM. Where, I wonder, have I heard that before?

Second, I am easy to work with. They know they can contact me at any time and give me suggestions and I WILL LISTEN TO THEM. Yes, they know what they want photographically, but they also want people that are easy to work with.

Finally, they can and do sell my images. And that is, after all, what they are in business for.

Ok, that’s it for this issue. In the next issue I explain my transition from 35mm to digital imaging, and how that was and is received by the stock photo industry.

Blair Howard is freelance photojournalist and the author of 29 books, more than 600 articles and 3,000 published photographs. His work has appeared in PHOTOgraphic Magazine, Delta Sky Magazine, Popular Woodworking, Peter’s Hunting Magazine, Country Accents, The Mail On Sunday, Golf Illustrated, The Walking Magazine, and many more. He also teaches Photography for Publication, and Creative Writing.

RESOURCES:

Microstock Photography: How to Make Money from Your Digital Images

Digital Stock Photography: How to Shoot and Sell

Photos That Sell: The Art of Successful Freelance Photography

2009 Photographer’s Market

Shooting & Selling Your Photos: The Complete Guide to Making Money with Your Photography

SellPhotos.Com: Your Guide to Establishing a Successful Stock Photography Business on the Internet

1. Do you have a stock agency that sells your photographs?

As I always answer that one in the affirmative, the next question, often preceded by the statement, Yes, that’s where the money is.

2. How can I find a stock agency for my pictures?

Everyone who ever seriously picks up a camera sooner or later gets the idea that the stock photo agency is The answer to the eternal question:  How can I make money shooting pictures?

I lead photographic workshops in exotic locations all over the world. Inevitably these same questions are asked by not one, but the majority of the people attending them. Many are only taking their first, tentative step in the photographic world, and some use only small digital point and shoot cameras, but it makes no difference.

They have all heard about the wonderful world of stock photography, and they all want to jump in feet first. No matter that it can take many months, if not years, to become proficient enough in all of the skills required just to shoot a saleable image.

True, there are some online agencies that will take submissions from almost anyone, and I’ll get into that in a little while. For now though, just let me say that there are no livings to be made from online stock photo agencies.

So, having said all that, is stock photography a lucrative business? The answer again is two-fold:
1. Yes, is the short answer, but only if you pay your dues.
2. It is NOT a short-cut to a beginning photographer’s entry into publication.

I guess the best way to explain the stock photo industry is to draw upon my own experiences. My work is represented by one of the top three photo agencies in the world. They represent literally hundreds of some-time professional photographers in as many different categories as you can imagine.

They have stringent rules and requirements and, by and large, they tend to stick to them. The require minimum monthly submissions (I am supposed to submit 100 images per month); they have standardized submission rules (a long list of exactly how the images are to be submitted and in what form); they invariably require almost all images to be model released; and they will require you to sign a contract..

But can I earn any real money? I hear you ask. Once again, the answer is two-fold:
1.      Yes, you can
2.      But only if you are prepared to make a real commitment in time and patience

I signed with my stock agency in August, I think it was, of 1996. At that time, and for many years leading up to it, I too was under the impression that the stock photo agency was the way to go.  I already knew that it wasn’t easy to break into the industry the competition for the few openings at that time was stiff, to say the least. I had shopped around, sent out queries, and generally beaten on a lot of doors until, finally, one of them opened. Now I was made, right? Wrong?

The first thing they told me was that I couldn’t expect to earn much money until I had at least 5,000 images on file in their library. No problem, I said, with a grin.  I have at least 30,000 slides sitting around my home in three-ring binders. All I had to do is sort them out and submit them, right? Well, not quite.

And on that note, I’ll close for now and continue on in the next issue.

Blair Howard is freelance photojournalist and the author of 29 books, more than 600 articles and 3,000 published photographs. His work has appeared in PHOTOgraphic Magazine, Delta Sky Magazine, Popular Woodworking, Peter’s Hunting Magazine, Country Accents, The Mail On Sunday, Golf Illustrated, The Walking Magazine, and many more. He also teaches Photography for Publication, and Creative Writing.

RESOURCES:

Microstock Photography: How to Make Money from Your Digital Images

Digital Stock Photography: How to Shoot and Sell

Photos That Sell: The Art of Successful Freelance Photography

2009 Photographer’s Market

Shooting & Selling Your Photos: The Complete Guide to Making Money with Your Photography

SellPhotos.Com: Your Guide to Establishing a Successful Stock Photography Business on the Internet

It is only good business practice to find out where you are in the market place. If you are running a service business (wedding, portrait, industrial) you need to find out what the local competition is. You also need to find out what the National and International norms are. I know of wedding and portrait photographers who have built themselves a fabulous reputation and one that takes them far from their studio to shoot weddings or portraits around the world. Don’t  sell yourself short!

Start by finding out what the norms and standards are by using one of the many software or online packages that can help you price your photography. Here are a few:

HindSight  Photo Price Guide 2 (version 3 is coming soon) This is a direct quote:
HindSight’s Photo Price Guide 2 brings new ease to properly and consistently calculating fees and granting rights for stock usage. Even though extensive pricing data is preinstalled, you’re given the ability to completely customize the numbers and can change any or all of the data. Use it as is or totally make it your program. An extensive pricing database is installed, covering an extremely broad range of usages, many of which are found in no other guide to professional photographic pricing.

This is a very well thought out pricing package which has received consistently great reviews by some of the top industry names. I like the fact that you can view the authors pricing guidelines and create your own guidelines. This is especially relevant for service photographers whose local markets differ significantly from the norm. The price is definitely right at $99. http://hindsightltd.com/products/PriceGuide.html

Cradoc Bagshaw has been a major force in the stock photo market for as long as I can remember. His software PhotoQuote used to be just for stock photographers, but now includes a module especially for pricing assignments. He includes a feature that helps you price for both larger markets and for small markets. http://www.cradoc.com/

While you are there be sure to check out PhotoBiz. This is a full management package for freelance photographers. FotoBiz creates over 100 documents, forms, labels and reports. You can track assignments, develop estimates and quotes, track stock submissions, issue invoices  and more. http://www.fotobiz.net/

Full Spectrum is another photography business management software. It has an estimating module which includes images and personnel. It comes with a hefty price tag  and a demo version. Personally I’ll  be checking out some of the lower cost packages first!

http://www.robinroadsoftware.com/index.html

PhotoByte is a free program (suggested $100 donation if you keep it) is an integrated back-office system specifically designed for photographers, by well know photographer, Tom Zimberoff. It includes a Copyright Composer module that writes the licenses for a wide range of uses, a Virtual Paper Trail that keeps track of your paperwork for jobs and fees, and a client contact manager. Good deal! http://zimberoff.com/photobyte.htm

When you sell stock, you are selling in an International marketplace and local research generally won’t give you any additional information. If you are selling your photo services, it is a different ballgame. Your location will definitely make a difference in your pricing strategy until you establish a reputation that allows you to compete in the International marketplace.

If you live and work in New York City or Los Angeles or Toronto your marketplace will be vastly different to someone who works in Saskatchewan or Vermont. You will need to get on the phone (or get a friend to help out) call and visit the local competition. Find out what their day rates are or what their packages sell for. You could also join a local association so you can ask rather than spy! From the information you get, determine where and how YOU want to price your services and packages for your local marketplace.

Again, I would caution you against selling yourself short. There is no glory in being the cheapest on the block.
Here are several useful book references:

ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography, 7th Edition

Digital Stock Photography: How to Shoot and Sell

Photography: Focus on Profit

2009 Photographer’s Market

Melanie Rockett
© 2009 Proof Positive Productions Ltd

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