Stock Photography Sites

Today I thought I would tell you about the Stock Photography sites that I use. For some time I have been putting images on a site called Shutterstock. I have sold a few images through this site, but they sell for very little therefore I haven't made much money out of them. One thing I like about the site is that they are very strict with their quality control, so I can be confident that the images that are accepted are high quality.

Recently I have found another site called Alamy. I really like this stock site. They sell the images for a little more, and offer a higher percentage back to you. They also allow more artistic images, (eg; flowers with only the centre sharp but the edges blurred), whereas Shutterstock are only interested in images where the whole image is sharp. Their quality control measures are just as high as Shutterstock, which keeps me striving for the best quality images I can create. Alamy also allows me to set up a Portfolio to display my images. Click the link if you would like to have a look at it.

Both sites offer a non-exclusive sales contract and you always retain the copyright to all of your images. These are important considerations when looking at sites to sell your images from.

From reading blogs of other photographers who sell images on stock photography sites, the only way to make money from these sites is to continually add fresh images and to have a huge collection on there. The sites provide advice on what is currently selling so that you can target that market. I'm a long way off having sufficient images on either site to make money yet, but I'm working on it.

Now on a totally unrelated matter ... here is an image I took inside St Mary's Church in Warwick, Qld Australia, for your viewing pleasure.