I hear this a lot from those looking into microstock to earn a full time living.  Questions like this come up frequently on microstock forums.  How many images will I need?  What can I make hourly?  Is building up a sizable microstock portfolio even worth the effort?

Now this article is not an article just to try and discourage people from giving it a shot, or attempting to discourage breeding my own new competition.  There are bazillion other blogs online where you can learn “How to make a living selling stock photography” and obviously there are already hundreds of thousands of contributors worldwide.  No one stock photographer or illustrator is alike, considering that everyone has their own style, their own work ethic, their own methods – to each his own.  Who am I to give my opinion?  I’m nobody special, just your average creatively minded computer geek.  I have been making a full time living for 2 solid years now.   My 2 years full time was built upon 2.5 prior years selling stock part time (approx 5-10 hrs a week) while working full time at a graphic design dayjob; the field I actually have my BA in.  So I’ve been in this stock business a solid 4.5 years… that’s not a very long time, but then again this biz is still very young.  4.5 years isn’t much less time than some of the top selling microstockers, either (ie: Yuri Arcurs and Andres Rodriguez to name a few of the top dogs).  In this short period of time, I’ve first handedly learned and experienced more in this business than I can even put into words in a Tuesday morning blog post.  With just a little over 5000 stock images, I still just consider myself a small fish in a big pond.

Here is my take on getting started in the business – straight up, no chaser.

If you’re just starting out right now… in 2010, I honestly think you’re going to need a prayer to initiate your momentum and to start earning enough images to make a living. I started back in late 05, early 06 – I was paying my mortgage by mid 07 and then went all out full time with the loss of my full time dayjob in mid 2008. If I waited until now, and transitioned from part time in stock to full time, I don’t think that I would make it. Things were much different back then, too.  It was much less difficult to get images approved (if you can’t get past that hurdle, you aren’t going to be able to sell them obviously) and it was much easier to get lots of downloads on simple subjects. It seems like every few years in stock it’s more of an uphill battle. In 06 you could submit a pile of crap, and still sell it like hotcakes. Technically imperfect photos, even. Now you’d better have your skills sharp and be able to hang with the rest of your competition just to get sales.

If you consider yourself an amateur and just want to make $100 a month just uploading a couple of new images each week, sure that’s definitely possible. If you’re looking to make $1000+ a month on a newer portfolio, you’re going to need to have a long road ahead of you, unless your work fills some sort of crazy un-touched niche with high commercial demand. Can you live off $1000 a month? Maybe if you live in India or Asia.  I wish I could.  In the US that won’t even pay the average mortgage or rent for the month.

Saying you want to sell stock is one thing – doing it and actually continually maintaining momentum in it is another. Putting up with the submission process, keywording, uploading (all the tedious parts) is another thing that stops 99% of people in their tracks. They realize all of the work in it, and are either too lazy or just get discouraged from lack of sales.  When it comes to stock – you either “get it”, or you just don’t. Some grasp at straws taking pics of churches, shooting fruit over white or zoo animals all day, while others create useful, commercial imagery. This is going to be the largest hurdle for most contributors, used to producing nice prints for their living room walls.

So here is what you need to make it:

- Self motivation (Are you a motivated self-starter? Can you stay on task without getting distracted while working alone from home? If not you might as well not even bother with microstock)
– Creativity… enough to choke a cow
– Business sense!  At least as much if not more than creativity
– Quality gear to accomplish whatever it is you’re shooting the most, I’d say an initial investment of $2000-4000 at minimum to cover most of your bases – computers/cameras/lenses/studio gear (don’t even waste your time with consumer point and shoots, unless you like getting over 50% of your images rejected for technical quality)
– Technical skills both in camera and off (Photoshop knowledge can make or break you in this business. If you’re lacking, you’d better hit the books or don’t bother uploading at all)
– Tons of regular uploads.  Take whatever you think is a lot to produce each week, and add 50 to that number.
– Good keywording skills (something that takes a lot of time to develop, for most)
– Ability to set and reach hourly / daily / monthly / yearly goals
– Lots of quality and variety
– Quantity quantity quantity in addition to high quality (a portfolio of 3000 images is the “new” 1000 – but 3000 crap images has the sales potential as a portfolio of 300 excellent ones)
– Patience, persistence, and a backup income before you get the stock ball rolling

Us full time microstockers are in the minority – I’d estimate there are probably under 500 in the world. Who knows?  I wish I knew the actual figures, but that would be a tricky statistic to pin down.  I’m not talking RM/ traditional stock sellers, but those that are strictly making their income with microstock, exclusively, whether they are working for one agency and an exclusive artist or they are using multiple agencies to sell their work.  We are a rare breed, and a lot of us are probably crazy for even attempting this feat   One thing you can’t expect from this business is to get rich off of it.  Gone are the days of making money from the snapshots laying around on your hard drive (heck, I myself even claimed that back in 2006 – because that was truly the case back then – but not anymore).   If you’re the type of individual that wants to earn a higher than average income, then you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree here.  It’s taken the seasoned pros years just to develop a portfolio strong enough, large enough, and good enough to consistently earn them a steady monthly income.  Don’t expect for this to be a quickly profitable start-up business without any sacrifice or years of “paying your dues”.

If you’re going to attempt this, you need to treat it like a start-up business.  40-60 hrs a week, working diligently and taking a stab at it.  After a few months you should then evaluate your time & cost vs earnings ration.  Time is money, so if you are seeing a decent return for all of your hard work right off the bat, then there is your answer whether or not you might be able to make it as a full time microstock contributor.  Otherwise, you might conclude that stock is a rainy day side hobby to dabble in whenever you’re bored or needing some extra cash for new gear or to take your wife out to dinner.  If you haven’t noticed, I don’t blog super regularly.  My blogging is highly intermittent.  I’m sorry, that’s just pretty much due to the fact that I’m too busy working, as a one-man operation.  I limit myself to a 40 hour work week, because money isn’t everything to me.  I work to live; I don’t live to work.  When you work for yourself you have to limit yourself; unless of course you want to be a burnt out workaholic that doesn’t have a happy family, spiritual, or any type of other life. I digress.

Do you already consider yourself a pro photographer, because you’re making a living in the wedding or portrait business?  Sorry to burst your bubble, but micro is an entirely different animal.  Please try not to go into it thinking you’re going to be all set and that it’s going to be a piece of cake for you, just because you’ve been a seasoned pro photog for years and years.  I’ve heard many stories of this happening.  You’re still going to have just as much learning curve as the amateurs will, just as any of us did back when we started.  The harsh reality of the nazi-ish microstock quality standards are enough to turn even the best of photographers away from this business.

Timing is everything, so I can understand why there are so many blog posts online explaining how the ship as sailed to be able to have a full time microstock living.  I respectfully disagree with that for those microstock contributors who already have their foot in the door with a large collection of images, established and already selling.  Given the continual move of buyers away from RM and more to budget RF images, as well as the continual movement towards digital media of all types in our daily lives.  If you are currently sell microstock part or full time, and are making a decent living, consider yourself a rare breed.  I wish everyone success in whatever creative field you’re involved in, and hope that my honest evaluation of the business in this article has helped those considering microstock as a career choice.  I’m tired of all of the nay-sayers and doom and gloom discussed about this business.  Remember too that there are a thousand ways to make a living in any creative field; it just depends what you want to set your mind to, and focus on in your own business.  If the microstock market tanks and us full time contributors can’t continue getting by, being forced to explore other avenues of income, then it is what it is.  Only time will tell.  In the meantime, happy selling!

Getty just put the axe on Stockxpert.com

We’ve heard that Stockxpert was a slowly sinking ship, but this week it has finally sunk.  It all began when stock image giant Getty recently bought out Jupiter, who had recently acquired Stockxpert from Haap Media, a Hungarian based company that owned both StockXchange as well as StockXpert.  It’s like a big square dance in this business… swing your parter round and round, with all of the buyouts.  It was announced a few days back that StockXpert will be no more.  What does this mean for stock contributors?  Well it means some of our images (not all) are now going to be listed on the new subscription based site Thinkstock.com and whatever revenues we were making at StockXpert are basically history.  Can we say pay cut?

I really don’t understand this move, killing a well established brand such as Stockxpert.  What does this mean for stock photo contributors? All we can hope is that the existing Stockxpert buyers move to the other agencies, and that the sales balance out.  Stockxpert was about 8% (a pretty big chunk of change) of my total microstock income, and that’s now gone.  Never a dull moment in the stock photography world! What irks me is that Stockxpert had around 4300 of my images, where istock has just under 600.  This is due to their higher rejection rates, and the fact that I can only submit 20 new images each week as a non-exclusive contributor.  The pressure to go exclusive is ever-increasing.  This is the exact reason why you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in any one basket in this biz.

I was thinking today about how incredible it would be to own a DSLR that was even 1/2 as good as our own human eyes are. Certainly cameras are just imitations of God’s wonderful creation and design, but have you ever really noticed how quick you can focus on any object? Talk about mind blowing; it’s practically instant. You don’t notice a delay, like you will on even the fastest digital cameras. They are getting better and better in time, but we can really appreciate how good we have it. Nature definitely did have it first.

Are you as sick of these cold winter months as I am? Brr…

Just me goofing around, but maybe I’m good enough to be used on an HVAC direct mail piece or web banner ad or something?  Ha!

That’s a question a lot of stock photographers and illustrators ask themselves.  People ask me how my images get used, and I usually just say, “in advertising and marketing materials”, just to keep myself from babbling and boring them with a long story (like I’m known to do with my flapping jabber jaw).  It’s even tough to explain to a normal person what a graphic designer does, and somehow people still end up thinking its CAD or something totally unrelated like that.

Anyways, back when I was a traditional graphic designer, I would horde as many stock images as I could whenever I had a stock photo subscription somewhere such as Photos.com or Shutterstock. That way, anything I had a feeling I might be able to use in the future I would be able to save on my hard drive and then use at a later date. This is something that happens a lot; so basically if you sell stock images, a lot of them are probably laying dormant somewhere on an image buyer’s hard drive. When you have a design position you begin to get a feel for which image themes and what type of imagery you go through the most, and obviously you can’t keep on using the same pics over and over again (unless you want to be a boring designer). I worked at a company that went through tons of sports, fitness, and medical related images in the custom magazines we produced for our clients.  I honestly think at least half of my image sales aren’t ever even used – but who knows?

How can you find some of the images you sell in use? Go to amazon and search for your name or username/that you go by on the micros. Also try google book search in addition to plain old google. Lots of books online even have previews, and sure enough you will find your name credited in at least a couple if some of your images were used. Here are some recent finds my wife and I discovered.

Our beagle is pretty famous (he earns his Pedigree dog food, that’s for sure).  Try searching for your own images if you haven’t already, and start a collection of tear sheets. You will only find a small random percentage of images actually in use, because obviously not everyone will credit your name in searchable text in each instance of use.  If you don’t sell stock, but you do buy it – make a microstocker’s day by emailing them a link, or dropping them an email about how you were able to use their image!  It only takes a minute, and you will no doubt put a huge smile on their face

Here’s my first impression on flick panning, a new feature added to CS4.  When you click, drag, and release, the image glides and slides all over the place.  ME NO LIKEY OKAY!?

I found the answer already, after I recorded the screencast, of course. It’s so easy – just go to: Edit->Preferences->General and then uncheck “Enable Flick Panning”

A great video tutorial by Deke McClelland on how to use the reset and purge functions in Photoshop CS4 to increase the performance.  Clean out Photoshop’s plumbing when things get clogged up: Reset and purge.

When life gives you lemons, as the the old saying goes…you make lemonade.  Make the best of a bad situation, and turn it around to be something better than it ever was.

I can highly relate to the experiences shared by these people…getting laid off in a slow economy during a time of recession back in early 2008.  It’s nice to know I wasn’t the only one going through this.  Share this with a fellow creative who lost their job, I think they’ll appreciate it.  This is a trailer for a film that I think is going to huge hit in the creative world.

Did you turn around your layoff and turn it into something better?  Maybe you made it full time as a photographer, painter, or freelance graphic designer.  I’d love to hear your story – feel free to comment below.

I thought I was pretty sure I was going to get the 7D as my next camera body.  Right now I shoot with an older Canon 20D which I love, but is starting to show its age.  I was originally decided on the 5D2, but when the 7D came out I was amazed my much of the response it was getting on the forums.  Here are the benefits of the 7D I’ve learned about from all of my hours of research:

- the AF is superior to the 5d2, more focus points, better servo mode than the 5d mkii

- it has pop-up flash (comes in handy once in a great while for fill or to trigger strobes) will mount EF-S lenses (I only own one, the rest in my kit at ED because I was planning on going full frame for a while now).

- it has wireless flash controls built in

- dual digic 4 processors (5d2 only has one)

- shoots video same as the 5d2

- very low noise up to iso 800, where the 5d2 then takes over

- a few more bells and whistles that the 5d2 doesn’t have like on-screen leveling

All of that is fine and dandy, but when it comes down to pixel peeping, I’ve been seeing a lot of softness from the 7D in the samples online.  Not just studio stuff – real world conditions.

This review scares me a little. http://darwinwiggett.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/the-canon-7d/
I think we have to wait until Adobe updates ACR and Lightroom more the handle the Raw conversion a bit better, in order to come to the proper conclusions. Right now the 7D is looking softer than everything, at 100% native resolution. Sure, you can sharpen, but if there’s a little ISO 200 or 400 noise that low noise camera suddenly turns into worse noise than ISO 1600.

The 7D also out-resolves the glass you mount to it, much more than a 5d2.  That means softer images, seeing that the glass can’t provide enough.  There is a great explanation of what that means in this thread http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73591 by my friend David Rehner.

In the end, either camera bodies are a world of a difference over my old 20D.  I’m going to wait and see, at least until Spring of 2010, before I start whipping out my credit card. I’m waiting until I am absolutely 100% sure about this.  I think I just might have to rent one of each for a week to do my own tests.  I’m in the same boat as many other photographers, with the 20D or 30D.  No doubt the 7D is 1000 times better in more than one way, but if I can make my daily photo editing a few steps easier by spending the extra grand on the 5d2 I think it might be worth it.  Downsizing is fine, unless you shoot stock and want to utilize the maximum resolution that you possibly can, in order to make the most money from your images.  If I’m going to drop even $1700 on a camera, it had better produce good enough sharpness and clarity at 100% at the fullest resolution.  If not, I might as well spend the extra cash on the full frame.

I came across a great Photoshop video tutorial today demonstrating how to properly use the liquify filter to enhance images of people.  This guy does a great job of showing a little about what each tool does, and how simple it is to use it.  I’ve stuck to the basics up until now, but this tut has helped me learn a lot.  You really can do anything to people with this tool…make their butt larger or smaller, their boobs, their arms and legs, eyes, face, twist their head, even.  Yes you can become a digital plastic surgeon!  Now, obviously we don’t all have this much time to invest into perfecting every single image.  In stock, buyers want what’s real as well, not just perfection.  Keep that in mind, but have fun playing with this sweet tool.

Video by imaging expert and award-winning author Deke McClelland

Below are a few other videos demonstrating how far you can go with the liquify filter.