Microstock Photography - the Biggest Growth Market for Your Photos

For nearly forty years I have been interested, or should I say obsessed with my camera and photography. For the past twenty five years I have been earning a small amount with my camera, shooting the odd wedding and portraits in my spare time. I have even sold my pictures to magazines. Now that was a confidence booster if you ever need one.

Then about three years ago I came across a website called iStockphoto. It was a Microstock Library. I thought then that it was called Microstock because of the poor payment for the use of your images. I didn’t take a lot of notice because there was no way that I was going to sell my photographs for twenty cents. I’d rather keep them on my hard drive, or so I thought.

A few months later I came across this site again. This time I was looking for inspiration in the form of picture ideas. What did surprise me was the number of photographers I thought were almost giving their images away. As I am a bit of a ‘Stat Master’ and like to keep a check on the figures etc, I bookmarked the site, going back and checking the stats everyday.

What really hit me was the number of images waiting to be reviewed. Then never went down, the total number of images that had been submitted increased each and everyday. I thought that it was time to have a closer look.

I browsed the photographs that were on file and thought to myself, I could take that or I have a better shot than that. Then it hit me.. In the past few months how many images could I have sold? If I had twenty files per week downloaded for the past six months at twenty cents each, I would have earned one hundred and four dollars. Not life changing but the money was for nothing. No fees, no costs and I already had some decent images sat gathering dust on my hard drive.

So I registered and submitted my images. As each image was accepted I couldn’t wait to upload more. It became my new obsession. Within a week my hard drive was empty of the images that I thought that were any good, or rather suitable to upload so I started to photograph anything and everything. If I went out for the day I would shoot images to upload. If I stayed in I would shoot images around the home to upload. I even took my camera to work with me.

So after three years of submitting to iStockphoto and over nine thousand downloads do you know which images sell month after month, year after year? Well it’s the photographs that I took in my own home. Forget the Yorkshire Dales or the Yorkshire Coastline, and as for my holiday in Florida, the photographs hardly sold. The images that I took in our home of the kitchen radiator, fire surround and our white w.c., outsell them all.

But that’s the magic of Microstock Photography. Almost any subject will sell if it’s different and the quality is O.K. The main subjects that sell will vary from one library to another so submit to them all. The secret is to make a start and submit some of you photographs providing they meet the specified guidelines. Then once you are accepted just keep submitting, shooting more images and keep submitting. You won’t generate a life changing income overnight. But over a period of time who knows?

To show you what I mean I’ve put the top six selling images on my website www.gbphotostock.com so you can take a look and see for yourself. And I guarantee that you’ll end up saying – I could do that or I have one of those. I also publish a market bulletin and you can get a link to a Free ‘Microstock Market Report’ from my website www.gbphotostock.com/stock. Take a look and become a part of the fastest growing market for your photography – Microstock Photography