Many residents of the CIS countries at least once thought about how to go to work abroad. But not everyone can decide on this. In fact, it is very easy to work remotely in Europe, and one of such methods is to sell photos on a photo stock. Remuneration, by the way, will be paid in their currency. How to earn a large sum on photo stocks will be described below.
Selling photos
Before you start talking about photo banks, it is worth answering the questions of all photographers. And the first one: what is a photo stock?
PhotoStock is a kind of online store that stores a huge variety of photos for any need. Most often, photographs are required for advertising purposes, for various designers, for news feeds or even magazines. Therefore, making money on photo stocks as much as possible is real. It is noticed that most often foreign companies buy photos.
Thus, the photo stock is just an intermediary between the photographer and the person who needs his pictures. For each frame sold, the owner receives a certain reward, basically it is not more than $ 5. But you can sell a photograph in this way countless times. Sometimes offers come from large companies to buy in a single use, which means that you need to sell a picture only 1 time. In this case, the amount of remuneration increases tenfold. That's the whole answer to the question of how to make money on photo stocks.
Who needs them?
The second question that arises among photographers: why would anyone buy pictures if they are in huge quantities in the public domain absolutely free? This is the answer to another question: why are foreign users buying more?
Post-Soviet countries do not treat piracy law properly. For the struggle for rights, for example, in Russia, a large budget and the necessary forces are not allocated. And in the West, in China, Australia, in America, buying a photograph is a common thing. There people from an early age know what photostocks are and how to make money on photographs.
The second reason is that companies do not want to spend a lot of time searching for the right material, it is easier for them to buy everything ready-made.
How much do you earn on photo stocks?
Another question that worries all photographers: how much will he receive money for his pictures? In fact, it depends on many factors.
First of all, which photo stock was selected and under which licensed program it is sold, affects the price level on the photo stock. After this point, everything else already depends on the photographer, on how many photos he sets every month, how many pictures are in his portfolio and so on.
Can I make money on photo stocks? Of course, this directly depends on how much effort is put into the work, how high-quality photographs are taken. To say that the photo should be presentable, it’s not even worth it, because now all the photo banks are moderated, and low-quality images will simply not be allowed for sale.
The most important thing is that you need to set a goal and upload at least 50 photos a month, then any photographer will come up with a pretty nice reward.
Sales revenue
You can calculate the cost according to this scheme: approximately 10% of photos will be successful and sold a large number of times. So, 1 picture worth 50 cents per year can be bought about 100 times, thereby bringing the photographer $ 50. And this is only on one photo stock. Now it’s clear how to make money on photos.
Tip: in order to improve your skills and sell more and more pictures every time, you need to monitor every month which frames in general in the photo stock are in demand. And shoot these categories first. So, for example, a greater demand for Christmas photographs arises in the fall, so you can dress up a Christmas tree in September.
registration
The first step to making money on photos on photo stocks is to register on all kinds of resources. It is recommended to do this as soon as possible, even if the photographer has not yet decided which photos he wants to exhibit. Due to the fact that most sites are foreign, in order to start working on them, you need to fill out a tax return and send it. All this is done in electronic form, but takes a lot of time.
And also many photobanks are asked to be tested or provide examples of their work. All this is best done in advance before the work is uploaded.
Good work first
If the photo was taken competently and beautifully, then, of course, it will sell better. To become a truly sought-after specialist, a photographer needs to practice and study theory all the time, as well as seek inspiration from famous authors.
An excellent result can be achieved if you learn to put yourself in the place of the one who needs these photos. For example, imagine what the designer needs and take a picture of it. Having learned this trick, each photographer will see the result in monetary terms.
It's all about quantity
Even if a photographer takes insanely beautiful and high-quality photographs, this will not bring him much money if he uploads pictures very rarely. One of the main rules - the more frames put up for sale, the more money will be earned. This should be taken into account when adding work. So, if there are about 100 photos, then it is better to distribute them for 2 months.
Do not give up
Failures, as in any other business, will certainly be. It is possible that on one of the photo stocks the photographer will not accept any work, but this does not mean at all that the other site will do exactly the same.
You should not take any blunders into your account, even if no one buys a picture in a huge amount of time. Most likely, it is not suitable for those people who buy photos. To prevent this from happening, you should read the advice that is written above. In no case should you give up, no matter what the problem may be. Everything is decidable and fixable.
Keywords are an important attribute.
Sometimes I don’t feel like filling out additional points, and the photographer, having uploaded the pictures, believes that this is enough. Not really. Since everyone who needs pictures is looking for them by keywords.
The photographer just needs to allocate time for a competent selection of a description that will allow any buyer to find a frame. First of all, you can view popular keys and a description of similar topics. Words need to be added at least 20-30 for one job. This will allow you to sell the photo as many times as possible.
Retouch allowed
A large number of photographers consider Photoshop a banned program. In fact, this is far from the case, but on the contrary - the more beautiful the picture and the better, the more chances that they will get it. It doesn’t matter to the photo bank whether the software was used, the most important thing is that the picture complies with the rules of the site.
Must look around
Very often there is a creative crisis when the photographer no longer knows what to photograph and put up for sale. To prevent this from happening, first of all it is worth not only practicing, but also studying professional literature. A great step would be to go to the photo club, and if this is not possible, you can visit various forums and not be afraid to take part in discussions.
Of course, all this will not allow traveling every month, so many photographers decide that they shot everything, and there are no more topics. This is not so, once again you should carefully look around you and find a huge number of subjects for shooting. A great exercise that will help you get out of your comfort zone: you need to take absolutely any item or site - yes, anything. And take a picture of the same object 50 times in completely different ways. If such a thing is repeated at least once a week, then the brain activity responsible for creativity will develop more actively.
The most famous photo stocks
Here is a list of stocks used by a large number of photographers both from the CIS countries and around the world. It also tells in detail how to make money on photo stocks, and provides training.
- Shutterstock is the first photo bank in the world in popularity, every day it is on it that a large number of sales are made, and the income on the site is higher.
- "Depositphoto" - the page is relatively new, so it only grows and does it quite well. Today, this platform is the best for beginners.
- Photoliya is the largest library of photographs on this resource, but the average price for them is lower than at competitive photobases.
- 123RF - the bank is also an excellent assistant for a beginner, since it does not have excessive requirements, and photos are rarely rejected. The Russian Federation does not mean the Russian Federation, it is an international site.
- Dreamstime is a photo stock without any exams or filling out declarations. Therefore, it is suitable for people who want to receive passive income through sales. True, the ratio of sales and prices is not very impressive if we talk about the TOP-5 photo stocks.
It seems that now the question of whether it is possible to earn on photo stocks has disappeared.