Photographers, what do you consider the best platform to sell your stock photos, and why?

As soon as digital selling platforms became available, I checked them all out. I think that was about a decade ago. Six years ago, I put this article together for a marketing group that I was in and update it once a year, and updated it for posting here:

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I stated in a recent thread that I was making a little over $2,300 from selling my work. That resulted in me getting 11 private messages and emails inquiring about how I do it.

First let me give you some background about me.

I just turned 60 in March, which means I have been taking pictures in some form or fashion for 49 years. I got my start in 1966 (sixth grade) when the principal of the elementary school went around to all the classes asking for volunteer school photographers to document the school year. No experience necessary. The school provided the cameras, had its own darkroom, and provided all the paper, chemicals, water, electricity, and trash service for the darkroom. When she said that volunteers got into all school events free, well, she won me over.

The first time I got paid for my photography work was in November 1973 as a freshman at Texas A&M University. A graduate student paid me $60 to document his botany dissertation via pictures, ten pictures each Wednesday afternoon for six weeks.

The first time I sold a picture was in March 1978. On May 4, 1976, I had front row standing room at the Houston stop for the Wings Over America tour by Paul McCartney & Wings. I had two pictures that I was immensely proud of, one of McCartney playing his bass and one of him playing acoustic guitar singing "Yesterday." I sold both pictures to a Beatles memorabilia dealer at a Beatles convention in Houston. He paid me $100 each, but he required the negatives, too. Sadly, I didn't even save a print for myself. I would love to have those two pictures hanging on my wall right now.

I never tried to make a living from selling my work until March 1, 2012. I didn't want to keep any inventory, though, so I checked out the print-on-demand services: Zazzle, SmugMug, Fine Art America, Esty, and probably a few others whose names escape me because they didn't make an impression on me.

My decision was greatly affected by two things:

First, the majority of my income for the previous 13 years came from being a home inspector. I loved being a home inspector because it's kind of like Christmas morning every day of the year—You get to see how fast you can destroy something.

Second, for the cover photo of my home inspection reports, I would place a heavily modified picture of the home.
One Client asked me if he could buy the picture.
Sure.
How much?
Not wanting to scare him away, I told him $100 for a digital picture of 5184x3456 pixels at 100 ppi. He was thrilled.

Second, I had lost my health insurance on January 1, 2004. Ten years later and my knees, ankles, and shoulders were complaining about me crawling under houses and up in attics. They wanted out, and since I had no health insurance, I needed to pay attention rather than just going to the doctor and getting pills, cortisone shots, etc.

Since I have been in real estate for as long as I have been a photographer, completing my first landscaping project at the age of 11, a couple of other factors let me into photography as a way to get out of home inspections. I realized that people who have lots of money and buy McMansions usually are in love with their homes, their yachts, their cars.

Yachts and cars don't thrill me anymore like they once did. Been there, done that. McMansions, however, still provide that thrill, so I started an Excel spreadsheet of all the McMansion cities  in San Diego County (Rancho Santa Fe, La Jolla, Coronado, Encinitas.) and McMansion neighborhoods (Mt. Helix, Heritage Golf Estates, Sunset Cliffs.) and decided to take pictures of McMansions, heavily modify them, and see if I could sell them.

Well, who is the most likely person to buy a picture of any specific McMansion? That's right! The home owner. So I took the modified pictures, created custom postcards which included the modified picture, and sent the postcards to the home owner.

I got my first sale out of the first batch of 10 postcards I sent, a $300 sale. I figured I could make this work.

My second batch of 10 postcards included a castle-like home. Sadly, the home is so big that only a fish eye lens could capture it. I don't like fish-eye pictures of real estate. That's when I discovered Photoshop's Photomerge function, so I went back to the castle, took 32 pictures, and merged them. However, the only modification I did to the picture was to remove trash cans and green debris. Otherwise, I thought the panoramic view of the home would be adequate. Indeed, it was.

The home owner bought a metal print that was 119 inches wide by 34 inches high for $6,000. My cost was $2,331.28 but I had a $3,000 deposit, so that wasn't an issue.

So with a $3,669 profit on that one picture, I could create a marketing budget for my fledgling enterprise and see what would happen.

Marketing has been an avocation of mine since 1984, so I thought it would be rather easy to market my work because I could identify five very well-defined target audiences: home owners, Realtors, title agents, escrow agents, loan agents. Note that they are have something to do with real estate.

With Realtors, title agents, escrow agents, and loan agents, I could market my work as close-of escrow gifts and home-buying anniversary gifts. And for those people who themselves understand marketing, they probably would also use my work as gifts for births, birthdays, weddings, graduations, first communions, etc. I was right about that.

Since everyone with a phone now considers themselves a photographer, I had to figure out a way to differentiate myself from the masses. Do I buy new equipment or make do? After becoming an expert at Photoshop and many plug-ins such as Topaz and Redfield, I decided to make do.

My walk-around equipment at that time was a Canon 550D (Rebel T3i if you bought it in the United States,) and a Tamron 28-300 mm lens. For what I do, it's far more important to get the picture than it is to wait for the right conditions.

With my Photoshop expertise, I can take many "throwaway" pictures and make something special out of them. I call my work Photographic Art and my tagline is "Taking pictures, making art."

Before the pandemic I was making a little over  $10,000 a month, so it can be done, even in today's world.

Some other things that I do which are unique:
I used 4x6" pictures of my Photographic Art as advertisements in and of themselves. I use SnapFish, Costco, Office Depot, and Walgreens to print them. Whether or not they are exactly what I would have printed for myself is not a concern because the very nature of my Photographic Art makes it discernable as to the fact that they are not mere pictures. On the back of each picture is a little notice glued with Rubber Cement. The notice says: "Used by people throughout the world for special events—close-of-escrow, birthday, marriage, anniversary & more! THIS PICTURE WORTH $50! Contact Russel Ray Photos at __________ or __________. I also do custom work using YOUR photos."

I mail those pictures to home owners, Realtors, title companies, escrow companies, banks, and loan companies. Very well-defined audiences and very easy to get their names and addresses. I love the Internet world!

Some other things that I have done to make sales: When I saw several Harley-Davidson motorcycles in front of a house, I created a poster-sized montage of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, created a postcard with the montage on it, and sent the postcard to the home owner. The home owner bought it and also passed the postcard on to a Realtor in Austin, Texas, who bought a poster for her Client who was a past president of the Austin Harley-Davidson club. So I marketed some of my Harley-Davidson Photographic Art to Harley-Davidson clubs in Southern California and got six sales so far in the first month.

I go to the two air shows here in San Diego each year and leave my air show Photographic Art picture advertising on cars in the parking lot.

I go to Fleet Week and leave Photographic Art advertising on the cars there.

Lastly, I like to walk, bike, and drive through neighborhoods as I explore San Diego County. If I see a house with landscaping using lots of birds-of-paradise, I"ll make a note of the address and send them a Photographic Art bird-of-paradise postcard.

There's more to selling your work than just creating an account at Fine Art America, Etsy, SmugMug, ArtPal, or any others. You still have to market yourself.

Don't depend on those sites to do your marketing for you because they have been up and running for years. That means that someone got there before you did, and if those people knew how to market their work, the sites will give preference to them because of their numbers of sales.

One photographer commented that it"s a Catch-22 because in order to be seen, you have to sell, and in order to sell, you have to be seen. That's only part of the equation. You don't have to be seen in order to sell. You have to let people know who you are, what you do, and how to order your product in order to sell. Then, once you sell, you can be seen, and everything builds upon itself.

Lastly, I do make my Photographic Art available as digital files only because many people like to shop locally. When that happens, and it happens about 50% of the time, I let them know where they can go to get various prints made, whether it's a little 4x6 or huge metal, acrylic, or framed prints. I sell my digital files for $99.
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I do not consider ANY of them as good. In recent years they have changed their payout systems such that a photographer get's paid pennies on the dollar for their work. You are far better off working to license your images yourself. Don't fall for it...

I’m using Shutterstock.  My images, maybe 8-10, have been on there for probably 4-5 years.  I consider it as passive marketing.  It hasn’t been changed over that period of time and generates around $50-75 per year.  I consider it free money (although Shutterstock doesn’t reward the artist with a generous split).

I use Fine Art America.  I can't say enough good things about them.  www.charleshite.com

I am represented by Getty Images and over the years have put less and less work into Stock as they took more and more of the earnings. It's very frustrating, although I still make money from Stock. It's just not worth the effort it once was.

Stock photography websites are more work than they are worth. Some may be better than others, such as Stocksy that Garfield mentioned, but I decided a few years back not to sell stock photos. 

Licensing your images directly to companies needing what you create is a better idea, although there is a learning curve. I am an architectural photographer and can frequently license an image to multiple companies. For example, selling kitchen photos to faucet and cabinet manufacturers. 

A friend of mine sells photos and videos of current events to news platforms. He doesn't make his living from it, but it is a whole lot more than simply posting the photos to Shutterstock.

Stock photo services are not much of a viable income source. There was a time when a photographer could generate some income but I overwhelmingly pull in .25 cents per digital download of my photos. That’s all. Additionally, there’s the problem of some anonymous person somewhere who gets to accept or reject the photos I submit. There’s no regulation of this. It’s entirely subjective. I’ll have photos rejected one day that are accepted another with no changes made to the image. I believe there was a time when stock photography was good to the photographer but I think those days are gone. 

Because I do weddings, portraits, real estate, etc. I have found Pixieset the easiest. I even moved my website from Square to Pixieset just to make it easier. I do hope to sell images in the near future and move away from weddings (or stick with elopements). I am not sure if Pixieset will be where I stay at this point or not, but having it together is useful and actually cost effective with the website.

Maybe someone has figured out a system but I believe the best selling tool is showing your work in a gallery , coffee shop or indoor and outdoor markets  People want to connect in person I find and when you show your work that people connect to you will sell more and your client takes home a piece that will be a great memory .

Your best bet is to try Stocksy, it’s by invitation only. Also Adobe stock and getting into the “Vetta Collection” of istock. You get nearly guaranteed monthly sales, and a better cut. These are the only three I’d recommend, having been with the top agencies back when you could actually make a steady income stream from stock. Those days have long passed and the industry model has changed to subscription, and micro-stock, and royalty free based, mainly. If you specialize in an area, you might find good success. The main tip is, “lifestyle” sells more than anything else. Be conceptual and plan your shoots well.