Sell To Stock Libraries

Even in a saturated market, if you can come up with the right shots, there’s money to be made selling stock images

The idea of simply uploading a bunch of images to an image library and waiting for the money to roll in sounds great, but it’s not the reality of how to make money from stock photography. The market for stock images is more about shooting images for specific themes and ideas, rather than simply ‘pretty’ pictures.

The market for stock images is always changing, and it is worth looking at images already on the various sites. However the best way to make your images work is to make them relevant to how images are used by companies and the media, rather than copying existing ideas of what makes good shots.

There has been a shift towards images of ‘real’ people, rather than perfect models in artificial poses illustrating themes like ‘business person’, although there’s always a market for good-looking subjects. There has also been a shift towards experiences, rather than places and things, although great shots of beautiful locations can still be saleable on these stock libraries.