Stock photography, is it for you?

Monday 9 April 2018, 15:30 by Tromp Willem van Urk | 14,732 views | 13 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Everyone knows what stock photography is. You sell your photos online. But how exactly does it work? And could it be for you? This article, and several that follow, looks at those questions.

What is stock photography?

Literally translated, a stock photo is a 'photo in stock', meaning a photo that can be sold. This is done by special stock agencies that offer photos for sale online.

A holiday photo, taken during a walk along the Moselle
The buyers are companies that want to use the photos in a newspaper, magazine, advertising leaflet, website and so on.

Anyone who wants to can sign up with a stock agency and start selling photos. Sometimes you first have to submit a few photos for approval before you are accepted. Once you are registered, you can start offering photos. And then it is a matter of waiting for your first sales!

Pf Cochem travel guide

And this is how I saw my photo on the front of the Consumentenbond Travel Guide

The earnings

The proceeds from a stock photo sale are relatively low. Most photos sell for less than one dollar. Occasionally, you get an outlier that brings in a few dozen dollars.

With such low amounts, you might quickly think that stock photography is not worthwhile. Stock sites are used by lots of buyers every day to source photos, though.

Lots of companies no longer employ their own photographer and only buy stock photos. And there are hundreds of thousands of them worldwide every day!

And so it can happen that your photo is sold not once, but sometimes a hundred or a thousand times. Then all those small amounts soon add up nicely!

But before you get that far, you mainly need to persevere. It takes a lot of time to edit your photos, give them titles and keywords, and submit them. And you have to accept that your earnings will only build up slowly. Stock photography is a long-term game!

But once you have a successful portfolio, it will keep going. Photos you have submitted will continue to generate income without you ever having to do anything else.

Wind turbines in Flevoland. A photo spot less than five kilometres from my home that I visit regularly

But it is simply fun too!

So it takes a lot of time, but it can also give you a great deal of satisfaction. Once you have sold a few photos, it can suddenly happen that you see them somewhere. By doing a bit of Googling, I have already found quite a few of mine.

But I also regularly see my photos in all kinds of magazines. I have even seen quite a few of them in adverts on television. It is always a surprise when you suddenly see one of your photos again. And it is simply fun!

Stairwell in an office where I often work. I had already walked past it regularly before I saw this photo in it!

Why should you take up stock photography?

I find it difficult to answer the question of whether stock photography is for you. You should not do it if you want to earn a lot of money quickly. The earnings build up slowly, and you need to be able to deal with that. But perseverance pays off. Over time, you will sell more and more.

And if you also occasionally get 'the thrill' of suddenly seeing your own photos again, it becomes really enjoyable! It is now up to you whether you want to get started.

In the following articles, I want to go into more detail about how it works, what it involves and which stock agencies you could start with.

Studio photo made especially for stock photography. It can be used for themes such as bribery and black money

A few examples

To get you a little more enthusiastic, I have included three successful stock photos of my own above as illustrations. All three were made in very different ways.

I had already taken the first one, the wind turbines, before I started with stock photography. I only took the second one, the stairwell, after I saw a stock photo in it. The last one, bribery, was 'composed' in a studio as a genuine stock photo.

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About the author

Tromp Willem van Urk is een enthousiaste hobbyfotograaf die een aantal jaren geleden met stockfotografie is begonnen. Op zijn website Kruwt.nl Stockfotografie kun je daarover lezen en blogt Tromp Willem regelmatig over zijn eigen ervaringen.

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13 comments

Paul wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 13:05 | reply
Leuk stukje over stockfotografie. Ik ga er -als enthousiast amateurfotograaf- eens verder over lezen. Bedankt!
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Leo wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 14:20 | reply
Leuk om eens te lezen hoe het gaat met stock fotografie, was het al lang van plan.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Fred Noomen wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 16:21 | reply
Willem is één van de meest deskundige fotografen op het gebied van stockfotografie.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

guest wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 16:51 | reply
Ik heb me er nooit in verdiept, maar ga er na het lezen van dit stukje in verdiepen.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

guest wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 17:04 | reply
Welke stockfotografiebureaus/sites zou je vanuit jouw ervaring het meest aan bevelen?
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Pieter Quist wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 18:25 | reply
inderdaad, is een leuke manier van de druppelende kraan. want hoe ontstaat een plas?
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Van Nerum Jean wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 18:54 | reply
Heb er reeds veel over gehoord. Ga er toch eens op ingaan en enkele van mijn foto's toevoegen. Wie weet...
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Peppersreflection wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 19:17 | reply
Ik heb inmiddels een zeer lange adem. (die opraakt) De foto's goedgekeurd krijgen was niet zo moeilijk, maar om mijn persoonlijke acccount omgezet te krijgen naar een zakelijke is bijna onmogelijk. Net de laatste poging gedaan om te bewijzen dat het inschrijvingsbewiijs van de kvk echt van mij is. En dan die moeilijke formulieren W-B-BEN-E en bij adobe stock weer een andere SS-4 die je in moet vullen en waar moeilijk hulp voor is te vinden. Dus tips over het invullen welkom.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Tromp Willem van Urk wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 20:59 | reply
Hallo allen,

Bedankt voor jullie reacties. Veel succes als jullie ook gaan beginnen. En de volhouder wint altijd!

@gast: Er is niet één beste stockbureau. Maar als ik er een zou aanbevelen is dat Shutterstock. Maar in een volgend artikel behandel ik nog de nodige stockbureaus. Welke zijn daarvan de bijzonderheden en ook hoe meld je je aan.

@Peter: leuke metafoor van die druppelde kraan. En als hij lang genoeg druppelt heb je zelfs een bad vol

@Peppersrefelection: Jammer dat het moeizaam gaat. Ikzelf heb als particulier maar één formulier in te vullen, en dat is het W8-Ben formulier. Daarmee verklaar je geen Amerikaans staatsburger te zijn en wordt er bij de Amerikaanse bureaus geen tax op je uitbetaling ingehouden. Uiteraard moet je je verdiensten wel in Nederland opgeven.
Ik heb ooit lang geleden dat formulier eens ingevuld (met voorbeeld vanaf internet) en hoef het nu alleen maar eens in de zoveel jaar te vernieuwen.
En als je begint met stockfotografie dan wordt je dat na verloop van tijd vanzelf door het stockbureau toegestuurd om in te vullen.

Wat jij wilt, omzetten van account, heb ik dus nooit aan de hand gehad. Waarom wil je dat? Met een gewoon stockaccount kun je je opgave in Nederland toch ook onder KvK nummer doen? En bieden de helpdesken van de genoemde stockbureaus geen hulp?

In een volgende blog ga ik dus ook de stockbureaus behandelen. Ik zal kijken wat ik hierover als informatie kan meenemen.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Peggy wrote on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 21:06 | reply
Heel interessant stukje over stockfotografie. Ik denk dat het op termijn wel iets is voor mij. Nu wil ik eerst mijn niveau opkrikken.

Step by step. Hou deze mogelijkheid zeker ingedachten.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Evert Jan wrote on Wednesday 11 April 2018 at 09:04 | reply
Interessant artikel. Ik heb me deze week even verdiept in het aanmelden bij Shutterstock en Adobe. Klopt het dat je bij aanmelding je ID bewijs moet uploaden? Dat maakt me wel wat huiverig...
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

charles wrote on Wednesday 11 April 2018 at 09:34 | reply
als ex leraar fotografie lijkt dit mij een toffe voorzetting van wat eens mijn beroep was.

Charles

This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Tromp Willem van Urk wrote on Wednesday 11 April 2018 at 21:39 | reply
@Peggy: wie weet is je niveau al goed genoeg. Nee heb je en ja kun je krijgen .

@Evert Jan: Bij de aanmelding moet je je inderdaad identificeren. Lijkt me ook logisch want het gaat ook over betalingen. Ik heb indertijd een kopie paspoort opgestuurd met daarop mijn BSN nummer onleesbaar gemaakt. Is toen zonder problemen geaccepteerd.

@Charles: Leuk. Weer eens anders met je foto's aan de slag!
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

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