Stock Photography Today

Amateur photographers in today's world are able to supplement their incomes by submitting their stock-worthy photographs to numerous micro-stock websites. Once these images have been approved by the stock site's in-house designers and photographers, the site posts and sells their photos as stock photography, and shares a portion of the profit with the photographer. A professional photographer, in most cases, would not benefit from this process, as he can generally make larger amounts of money per photograph than what these sites offer. However, for those who enjoy photography as more of a hobby or who want to learn more technique and fine-tune their photographic skills, they may find these sites the perfect way to do so while earning supplemental income along the way.

There is a market for many kinds of quality, high resolution photography: Sports photography, wildlife and nature photography, landscapes, portraits... all are in demand. Even specialties such as industrial, automotive or medical stock photography have consistent buyers. Many micro-stock photographers find themselves making anywhere from a $10-$300 a month on these sites, based on how committed they are to adding to, and the management of, their stock photography portfolios. Incomes can also vary depending on how many rights they choose to allow for their photographs, such as the right to print a downloaded photograph in mass quantity, or even allowing the purchase of "full rights" to the photograph.

Some benefits to photographers selling stock photography at these sites are:

• Message boards - where an amateur photographer can learn through a community of photographers about the latest photographic equipment, hone their technical skills, post their images for peer review/critique, and generally voice or read opinions regarding a broad variety of topics.
• No overhead for marketing or advertising of photographs - the individual site takes care of that. Most sites also allow the photographers to utilize as many of these sites as they would prefer, or photographers may instead choose to sell their images exclusively on one site for a higher profit.
• Supplemental income produced by images that may have otherwise sit on a hard drive, or in an album or portfolio, rarely to be seen.

Some benefits to those looking for stock photography at these sites are:

• Message boards - where one can post a request for a specific image, and photogrpahers can respond by posting images that might suit the request. Some sites even offer a service that allows one to request a very particular image to be photographed, and photgraphers can place bids on pricing to shoot the requested scene.
• Inexpensive stock photography at prices much lower than images often found at traditional stock photography sites. Images can cost as low as $1 per download, compared to hundreds of dollars per image on a purely professional site.
• Exposure to a unique selection of images one might not otherwise have come across.

Popular stock photography sites:

Company:	Dreamstime.com
Cost per Download: (To Image Seeker)	$1 Downloads, or 'Subscription' price, which allows for multiple downloads over a select amount of time (1 month, 3 months, etc.)
Profit per Download: (To Photographer)	$.50 - $1.00 per average download, up to $100's per download with special rights allowed per image
Unique benefit:	Dreamstime offers options to create 'collections' of images under a particular subject, or there is also an option to create a 'lightbox' that may be shared with clients, etc.

Company:	Fotolia.com
Cost per Download: (To Image Seeker)	$1 Downloads, or 'Subscription' price, which allows for multiple downloads over a select amount of time (1 month, 3 months, etc.)
Profit per Download: (To Photographer)	$.33 - $.99 per average download, up to $100's per download with special rights allowed per image
Unique benefit:	Fotolia offers numerous free images for download every day

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