Photography is often seen as an active profession—booking clients, traveling to locations, and spending hours editing images. But what if your past work could continue making money long after the shoot? That’s where licensing comes in.
Stock footage can be an intriguing way to earn passive income if you’re a filmmaker or videographer. By uploading clips to the right platforms, you can create a steady revenue stream with minimal ongoing effort. Is it worth the initial effort, though?
There is a lot of bad advice online on how to make money as a photographer. Truth be told, I followed much of it and made a big fat zero. This is not because such advice is wrong, but rather because it is out of touch with what the market is in 2024. In this article, I will shed light on one of the worst ways to make money with your work.
It used to be that if you were good at it and could invest the time, you could make a decent living from stock photography, but in recent years, the industry has evolved in what has very much been a race to the bottom in many ways, and it is a far less reliable income source than it used to be. Is it still worth the time and effort in 2023? This great video essay features an experienced commercial photographer discussing his experience with stock work in the past year.
While there's been much ado about the death of stock photography in the wake of AI-based imagery, there are still many photographers earning passive income from the trade. Just how are they doing that, though?
One of the biggest questions for many is how to make money from photography. There are many ways of doing it, such as photographing weddings, pets, portraits, or even products, but there are also ways to make money, such as stock photography. In this article, I discuss my experiences of using stock photography websites.
Selling your images online can be a hassle, as companies are constantly changing their pricing and payout structures, making it difficult to know where to devote your time and efforts. This excellent video breakdown takes a look at a large number of stock services, how their pay structures and demand have evolved, and where the best place to devote your time and energy is in 2023.
The demand for images is higher than ever, and yet, the security of many photo jobs is in more peril than ever. One of the hardest-hit genres of the last few decades has been stock photography. Is AI going to kill the genre entirely?
Stock photography is often viewed as a form of "passive income" for photographers that have a low barrier of entry. But just because that's the case doesn't mean it's easy. A seasoned stock photographer shares some of the mistakes she made when starting.
While very few photographers make a full-time living shooting stock photography, it can be a decent way to supplement your main work and provide some additional financial security by diversifying your income streams. This excellent video goes in depth to show you how two photographers sold $47,000 of their photos on stock services.
While most of us are not full-time stock photographers, the idea of selling some of our work online to earn some passive income on the side is quite appealing. That being said, there are literally dozens of places to sell your work, so which is the right choice? This great video takes you through a photographer's earnings on many different sites throughout 2021 so far and discusses his experience.
Passive income, the Holy Grail of personal finances. Who wouldn’t want to make money from all those old photos without having to lift a finger? With that in mind, I’m going to share with you my own experiences as a casual photographer selling my existing back catalog of digital photos online. It’s been an interesting experience to say the least and I even made a little money.
In this video tutorial, watch as Dean Samed gives you the low down on all things stock image related. The video is from the perspective of a photo manipulator.
Magnum Photos published a code of conduct on Thursday, January 14 after previously refusing to release its existing code on the grounds that it was confidential. It comes as 647 photographers sign an open letter to Magnum demanding greater accountability and less than a month after David Alan Harvey announced legal proceedings against the agency.
Without a doubt, 2020 has been brutal on a lot of photographers across all genres, and as the year comes to a close, many of us are still looking for ways to diversify our income streams and increase our financial stability in 2021. This helpful video features a photographer discussing some of his side earnings in stock photography in November of this year and what a variety of stock photo sites are currently paying.
Three months after announcing an inquiry into its archive, it emerged that Magnum Photos was still selling sexually explicit images of what appear to be children through third-party websites. An image of a half-naked child playing with their genitals was also available for purchase. Further images described as “juvenile prostitutes” were still for sale on the Magnum website itself until they were removed on Friday.
The BBC and Getty Images are combining forces to create and curate a library of images and videos of children and families around the U.K. to better reflect diversity in the population.
Free stock assets are becoming more common, with stock behind large paywalls and one-time fees falling out of favor. Adobe have now launched a library that plays into the budget friendly option.
With the onset of the pandemic and slowdown in production, income from stock photography has become an increasingly important source of revenue for many photographers. Getty Images and iStock have recently announced a new program to provide grants to emerging photographers interested in entering the stock photography market.
There's a new political ad out from the Trump campaign that is slickly produced, with a large number of seemingly average people artfully showing their distaste for Joe Biden's vision of America should he become president. Or is that actually the case? In what's an epic takedown of the ad, a former Obama spokesperson digs up every clip used in the video to show that not a moment of it is real, raising the question of whether such uses of stock footage have a place in ads that can easily sway the electorate.
Magnum Photos is continuing its investigation into David Alan Harvey’s body of work, “THAILAND. Bangkok Prostitutes,” but has stated that the subjects featured in the photographs were adult dancers and bar workers.
A girl, perhaps barely in her teens, stands alone in a dimly lit room, her hair obscuring her face. She’s naked from the waist up, the front of her torso is visible, and she wears little more than socks from the waist down. The caption labels her a child prostitute and lists her hometown. Until this week, this photo was available to purchase from Getty Images.
In the early hours of Friday morning U.K. time, Magnum took its entire archive offline. Later that day, it released a statement explaining that it was reviewing its practices following revelations about some of its photographs. Difficult questions still need to be answered and the sequence of events shows how, despite Magnum’s crisis management, they’re not going away.
Getty Images appears to have images of children being sexually exploited available for licensing on its website. Many of the children are identifiable.
The archive of Magnum Photos features numerous photographs of child sex workers, many of whom were photographed without their knowledge. Several of these photographs are sexually explicit, featuring nudity and encounters with clients. These images may constitute acts of child sexual abuse.
The payouts for stock photography have become something of a joke to many photographers, but is there a better way to look at things? I’ve changed how I’ve approached stock photography, and in doing so, came away with a refreshed view of photography as a whole.
Shutterstock sent an email to its contributors recently and informed them about their new earning structure. As you might guess, it was shocking and disappointing for the vast majority of contributors.
Photojournalism is perhaps the most emotionally rewarding type of photography. But the financial reward can sometimes be more elusive.
The coronavirus pandemic has left a lot of photographers very unsure of how their finances will change over the next few months. One genre that still has at least some demand, however, is stock photography. This great video takes an honest look at what you can expect to earn from stock photography right now.
Every week I get many messages asking where I get my stock images from, so here you go.
