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Selling Stock Photos

Selling stock photos become a lot easier when you get your head around the fact that stock photography agencies are in the business of selling marketable images. The more marketable your images are, the better you will do earning money with stock photography.

Technical Requirements

The best images for stock are those that are technically strong, so make sure you know how to prepare images before submission to stock photography agencies. A photograph has to be well focused, with good exposure and color, even if you have to boost your saturation a little in post-processing.

Strive for excellence in your work and make sure that each photograph that you submit looks professional.

Conceptual Requirements

A conceptually strong image is a photograph that makes a visual statement. That excluses mundane snapshots of the neighbour's cat or a pretty flower in your backyard.

Choose interesting subjects with broad usage appeal. Try to imagine what designers and photo buyers might me looking for.

It's also important to be creative.

Generally, stock photography agencies are looking for:

* attractive images that look professional

* unusual images, poses, concepts or subjects or things that would be hard to shoot

* highly creative images

* well shot, high quality, eye-catching

* strong conceptual images

* colorful

* marketable / in demand

* properly exposed (not too dark/shadowy/hard to see nor too light)

Stock photography agencies are NOT looking for images that are:

* lifeless, boring, mundane snapshot-quality images

* boring images taken on a gray cloudy day that are lifeless looking

* dark underexposed images, or images with hard flash shadows

* images where the main subject is cut off abruptly

* badly focused, blurry or overly grainy images

* images that nobody needs / low interest subjects

* images with no particular subject.

What to Avoid when Selling Stock Photos

Copyright violations. The photo MUST be taken by you personally, and can't include company logos, recognizable people's faces (unless you upload a Model Release) or recognizable buildings/homes (unless you upload a Property Release)

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