Ok, lets admit it, we all have some EGO. After all, our photography is, well, pretty darn good. People need our work to sell their products and services. Without our talent these folks would go out of business, they would have no where to turn. WRONG.

I remember many years ago I approached a photo rep. I needed someone to help me in a career I was struggling to build. I remember his very first question, How old are you? I thought to myself, what a strange question to ask right out of the box. It didn’t take long to figure out he wasn’t going to work with me, but I would never had guessed it was my age. After all I was a young talented 30 year old with lots of years ahead of me to develop that talent. Needless to say, I wanted to know why he wouldn’t take me under his wing, but first my curiosity got the best of me on why my age was so important to ask as the first question of an interview. I asked and he answered.

His Reply

The rep kindly answered my question. Photographers in their twenties think their going to change the world, photographers in their thirties have an over inflated ego of themselves and photographers in their forties are interested in making money. I’m in business to make money and I only work with photographers who are like minded.

Don't over inflate your ego, you may end up in unknown places.

It took me years to understand his answer but I now understand it well. I ran into a client of mine this past week in a local bookstore and walked over to say hello and to say thanks for all the business he and his company gave me this past year. He went on to say, Bill, everyone in our firm enjoys working with you because you’re easy to work with, you listen to our needs and you deliver to us what we ask. He said this is becoming harder and harder to find as many photographers deliver to us what they want and are difficult to work with. When I hear him tell me photographers deliver what they want, what I’m really hearing is the photographer thinks he/she knows better that the client, in other words their ego is interfering with their business.

Ego is Confidence

It’s OK to have an ego, after all, an ego is confidence. If your going to do business as a photographer you better have confidence in your skills. It’s that inflated ego that gets you in trouble. Inflated egos can be obnoxious and it can lose you business. Here are seven tips that will help keep your ego in check:

• Don’t criticize your competition, especially with clients.
• Let your work speak for itself, don’t try to explain how or why you did something unless asked.
• Don’t think you should get every job you bid, of course you wanted the job but don’t be afraid to praise your competition.
• Do business because you love photography not because you want to beat someone else out of a job.
• Always take time to thank your clients for giving you an assignment after the work is complete. Let them know you appreciate them.
• Listen to your client and deliver to them what they ask. Don’t think you know better than they of their needs unless they ask you.
• You can be replaced. Nobody is so good that they can’t be replaced.

Keep in mind, your talent and a slick sales talk may get you your first job but its your personality and your ability to listen and deliver that will keep you in business. I wish you the very best with your photography and Keep Your EGO in Check.

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Photographers who find success in their profession aren’t always the most talented behind the camera. In many cases its the photographer who mastered the art of business management who find success in the industry. All to often, photographers think with their heart and not their head. It’s not hard to find talent but looking for talent with a good business sense becomes a little more difficult. Marketing savvy and business management is a process that takes time and could never be covered in a short blog post, but I’ll share a few ideas and key elements that have proven to  be beneficial for me in my business.

Develop a Marketing Plan

Put together a plan that brings winning results

Photography is a tough profession, I believe the key to finding success in the photography business is to be business tough (I don’t mean being tough to work with), develop a business plan and stick to it. A business plan is something that needs to be in writing. Your first business plan will be the toughest to write, after the initial one is written then once a year sit down and revise it as needed. A business plan is simply a plan or strategy of how you’re going to run your day to day, week to week operations. The most important things that need to be covered is a description of your business, budgets, management and strategy. There are many great websites throughout the internet to help you with your business plan. One of the most helpful I have found is Entrepreneur, it is well laid out and easy to follow.

Develop a Website

A website is a no-brainer, most photographers have some kind of representation on the internet today. I believe it is best to have an independent website, in other words you don’t want your only representation of your work to be placed solely on a community or directory website. It’s fine to market yourself on these sites but you want to have a independent site that is professionally created. Your website represents you. A photographer’s website doesn’t have to be filled with a bunch of text, after all, people who seek out your site are looking to see your style, what you have done and see if your work fits their needs. I don’t suggest putting hundreds of photos on your site, carefully select the best work you have done over the last couple of years that illustrate your talents. You want the potential client looking at your site to say themselves, “I want to see more from this photographer”. This gives them good reason to contact you and your opportunity to put your business/sales skills to work. You may want to have another gallery or web page available that is closed off to public view just in case that potential customer asks to see more of your work.

Design a Price Structure

Design a price structure that will lead you to success.

It’s going to happen, so be prepared. When you get that phone call and the potential client loves what they see, the question is bound to come up, “What are your rates/fees?” Be prepared and don’t fumble around or be shy of about your rates. When you hesitate or fumble around for an answer you come across as an amateur and an inexperienced business person. Pricing can be difficult, especially in today’s economic climate. Your prices will determine in many ways your success or your failure. If you over price for your talents you stand the chance of losing a job, if you underprice you’ll probably get the job but you also stand the chance of not meeting your financial needs to sustain your business. If I’m uncertain about a job I would rather overprice than underprice. Overprice gives you room to negotiate, underpricing gives you little to no wiggle room to work.

There will be times when your rates just simply don’t work within the budget of a project. This happens and there are times you have to turn a job down. Don’t compromise your rates, leave room to negotiate but know when to stop. Stock photography is no different, don’t let go of your work and talent for less than you believe it is worth. If you don’t think your work is worth more than a dollar than neither will anyone else. The photography business is like most other businesses, you have your low priced services and products and you have your high priced services and products. I often look at the success of companies like Apple and North Face (and many others) and look at how they control the prices from retailer to retailer and they are never the lowest priced items in their category but they are perceived as the best in their categories. As a photographer I prefer clients to refer to me as being a little higher priced but a good quality photographer who delivers, rather than a lower priced photographer who is simply Ok or risky. If you give it some thought, you’ll see the lower priced photographer has to work a whole lot harder than the higher priced photographer to make the same amount of money. Don’t under sell yourself, you determine your prices and don’t let some middleman decide your worth. Do not develop that, “If you can’t beat them, join them” attitude, it will put you out of business.

Build a Loyal Network

The most obvious of all networking is past clients. I like to keep all my past clients up to date on where and what I’m doing. Every year I send a personal letter and promotional material to all my past clients even if I haven’t done work for them over the past few years. I realize many of my clients don’t use photographers on a regular basis but when that time does come up when they need a photographer or photography my name is the first that comes to mind. Every business works with other businesses in some capacity. These people talk and when they hear of photography needs you want your name mentioned. Get involved in professional organizations that involve the clientele you market your services to. Become active in charitable organizations you believe in, you never know who you might meet, plus you are doing something good for your community.

Social networking sites can work but it doesn’t take long for these outlets to become flooded and hard to make yourself standout from all the others. The best way for these to work is if someone is looking for a photographer within a region. I don’t find these helpful in most cases. Many photographers use Facebook. Facebook is not designed to be a business networking site. If you’re trying to use Facebook as a business tool, it seems to me all you’re doing is revealing your marketing strategy and hard work to your competition. If your looking for compliments of your work then Facebook works well, (although it is not a place for an honest critique of your work), but if your looking to build your business its the wrong place in most cases.

Be Professional

I have a different take on professionalism than some, but it still encompasses the ideal of treating clients and potential clients with respect. I believe attitude also falls into the category of professionalism. A positive attitude is important when doing business in a world where there are so many struggling businesses and circumstances today. Building a relationship that allows open and honest conversation is extremely important. I believe business conversations should be carried in a positive manner but taking it to the point of sounding phony or less than sincere will more than likely yield a short term relationship. I like to deal with people who I can trust and that means I want someone who isn’t afraid to talk candidly with me. In other words, don’t tell a client something just because you think that is what he wants to hear.

Professionalism also means treating you and your business good. Most people I know go into business to make money. If you are going to run a photography business, do it to make money and don’t feel guilty about it. Your first years will be difficult but with a positive attitude, good business sense and learning from your mistakes will lead to success. Deliver what you promise, and don’t promise what you can’t deliver. If you screw up a job be up front with your client. They know you’re human and honesty always pays better than sorry excuses. Know your talents and your weaknesses, and build on your strengths.

I wish you all the very best, and wish you the very best in your business.

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Portrait photography was way down on my list for years, but with the need to diversify my resume I stepped out of my comfort zone.

For many years I have known the importance of diversifying my business, but it wasn’t until this year when that word had real meaning. I have had a lot of success throughout my career and most of it has been in stock photography and leading photography tours. Matter-of-fact, I had it pretty good. I was making a pretty good living just in the stock photography business alone.

I remember well when the hammer dropped. I was just finishing up a photo tour in Tanzania when my group was waiting in the lobby at the hotel to depart for the airport. All eyes and ears were glued to the CNN broadcast, “Breaking News” Lehman Brothers files Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Needless to say, that was a very long plane ride home. The start of the decline and not in the too far distant did everyone start feeling the effects, including the creative industry.

Diversity

Diversify has more meaning today than it ever has in the photography industry. Simply shooting outdoor or travel, lifestyle or sports just doesn’t make the mortgage payments today. Photographers are being forced to rethink their business and in many cases that means stepping out of their comfort zone. Fortunately, I had already made that diversity move before everything came tumbling down. The stock photography business has changed by leaps and bounds and unfortunately not for the good of the photographer. I do think things will get better but they’ll never rebound to what it was a few years ago. That’s another story.

Photographing people has its share of challenges but once I started I found myself enjoying the experience.

Photographer’s looking to succeed in today’s market will have to do some soul searching to find where they fit in. If travel and outdoor photography was your bread and butter then I know you’re seeing some tough times, but the truth is any photographer who specialized in one or two areas has found themselves working with clients with tight budgets. Designers and Ad agencies are being forced to recycle old images or purchase from low end libraries for most if not all of their projects. This puts photographers who rely on stock photography for their income in a difficult situation. Do you play the low price game or do you ride out the tough times? Either choice forces you to reach beyond where you have been comfortable for so long. How do you reach into a new genre of photography? Search your interests and practice, practice  and more practice.

Lets face it, if you have been making a living or any reasonable income from photography you have been doing this all along, you have been practicing your art which is why clients use your work in the first place. Now you just have to step outside of your speciality and find a some new opportunities to add to your resume. 20 years ago I started out as a nature and outdoor shooter but was never completely happy, therefore I started travel photography to add to my offerings to clients, a good move on my part and it did open up new markets for me. Travel photography put me in a situation where I was shooting a lot of architecture, which I truly enjoyed but wasn’t very good on my early attempts. I decided I wanted to shoot more architecture so I spent a lot of time perfecting my skills. There was indeed a learning curve here since shooting interiors was so much different than anything I have ever shot before. I knew early on that I wanted to do assignment work with architects therefore I had to learn skills that were really not a major issue in the past such as perfect color balance. Nature and travel are a little more forgiving than an interior designer who’s reputation is on the line not to mention my own.

Expand Your Business Into New Areas

Architecture was a good move on my part and one I’m glad I perfected. Even with this additional skill it still isn’t enough to replace my income losses from stock. I had been contemplating

Senior portraits is an area where I decided I could diversify my business and help make up for some of my financial losses from other areas of my business.

people photography for some time, an area I wasn’t very comfortable working in. About a year ago I started playing around with the idea a little more seriously and this year I started the educational process of shooting people and it has been enjoyable. I decided to settle on the idea of high school seniors. As with any area of photography I needed subjects to work. There was no way I could step up and charge these families money for something I wasn’t sure I could deliver, so I offered free shooting sessions. I rounded up the students and all were delighted the opportunity to play model and get their photos for free, at least mom and dad were happy. In exchange for the shooting session I asked all my models to give me an honest written evaluation of the photos. I needed to know what they liked and what they didn’t like. I also asked them if they liked my work to pass my name on to juniors who will need photos next year, but of course these will be paying customers.

As you can see I have been expanding my business into new areas most of my career but sometimes it takes an unfortunate  situation to get the ball rolling. I have several other projects in motion as well and hope to continue building on my expertise from past endeavors and new ones.

Kids are great subjects and when their having fun you're having fun.

Something that is very important to me is my reputation and I hope it is of you as well. When you step out of your comfort zone, before you start charging clients for your services, be confident you can deliver. If you screw up a project because you couldn’t deliver what you promised, you jeopardize your good reputation and that may prove to be next to impossible to regain. I have seen so many photographers over the last few years step into the arena and label themselves professional. Professional is a whole lot more than charging money for your photography but also a level of expertise in your field. These folks will be weeded out in time. Perfect your skills before doing business and a great reputation will follow.

My word of advice, Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Practice, Practice, and Practice. Good Luck to all.

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Note: If you enjoy my posts and think your photo friends might find my blog of interest, please pass the link on to them. Any help you can provide feeding traffic to this blog is much appreciated. Always feel free to leave a comment.

© William Manning: all material on this blog is the copyright of William Manning. No reproduction on this material is allowed without written permission from the author/photographer.

In my last post, “The Business of Photography” I promised I would write about making money with your photographs. I have given this topic a lot of thought and as with all my posts I don’t want to mislead or intentionally give bad information. Therefore, as I write this post I have decided only to share information based on my own experiences and share my opinion which in most cases come from my experience.

I want to first define in my view what making money (income) means to me. When I use the term making money, I define it as money I put into my pocket (bank account) after all my expenses have been covered from creating a group of photographs. In my post titled, “A Look at Your Photography Investment” I shared with readers my overhead from two photo shoots and the sales totals from each of those shoots. As I illustrated in two examples I define Thailand as a photo shoot where I made money and Croatia as a shoot where I lost money. I don’t believe one can call their photography business profitable until they bring more money in than they put out. I make this statement because I often read blogs and/or advertisements making claims or promising photographers they can make make money selling their pictures through …….. If only these claims were as easy as they make it sound.

Stock Photography Agencies

I will start with the most talked about and the most obvious venue for selling pictures, Stock Photography. Let me first say, microstock is not the answer for making money if you define making money the same as I do. Yes, you can recover a few bucks from what you spend creating your pictures and yes there are probably a few and I mean a very few who are making some money via microstock. Selling photography through stock agencies is tough but it can be done and it can be profitable. How? First, forget about the venues that pay you 30 cents to a dollar per sale. You’re traveling down a path of major frustration and disappointment if you believe a profitable business can be developed under this business model. If you want to sell pictures via stock agencies you will need to build a substantial library of consistently good photographs that are in demand, put in a lot of field (or studio) and office hours, understand your market, and be involved with the right agencies or with the right people.

Wall Street Sign in the heart of the Financial District in New York, New York

Selling a lot of pictures doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of money. In most cases it is the opposite. If I can sell one picture and make $30. it is 99 picture sales fewer than those that give me 30 cents per image. You have probably figured out where I’m going with this example. Alamy is a general stock agency that accepts anyone, providing their photos meet a certain criteria which is no different than what a microstock agency requires. Alamy represents millions of pictures which again is no different than any microstock agency. But, in my opinion, Alamy is a whole lot easier to generate revenue than selling through the many microstock agencies in existence. The same amount of effort is involved in getting your pictures into the marketplace through either venue but the difference is how your images fall into a search and the shelf life they have within that agency. Providing you have incorporated a good and accurate keywording strategy, you have a reasonably good chance of a photo researcher finding your pictures on Alamy. Regardless of which stock photography model to go after you need thousands of pictures on the respective site to generate enough revenue to create a situation that allows you to bank money after expenses are paid.

What does it take to sell pictures as stock? It takes a photographer who understands the market in which they are creating pictures for and an outlet in which caters to that market. It isn’t necessarily pretty pictures, it isn’t repetitive imagery, it isn’t the photographer’s name that sells pictures. It is simply having the right picture at the right time at the right agency. This is easier said than done, but this is why you need to know the market in which you create for and also having those images with the right agency. If your photos are consistently being used by text book companies than place your photos with stock agencies that market to these businesses. The same goes for sports, lifestyle, agriculture, nature, etc… Develop a style that sets your photos apart from the others. Think outside the box when you create and give the photo buyer a reason to consider your photos. They have to stand apart from the hundreds if not thousands that come up under a search. The photographers who succeed in this industry will be those that have the ability to change and adapt with the industry and those who participate as both a student of the marketplace and those that do business in a professional manner.

Money can still be made in stock photography but a well thought out business stradegy and an understanding of the industry and how it works will multiply your success. I will be conducting a stock photography workshop in New York in October giving participants a rare opportunity to visit Corbis Images and discussions and personal critiques by a Corbis photo editor. We will cover many areas of the stock industry and will be on the streets of New York creating images that sell. This workshop will be posted soon. Let me know of your interest.

Calendars

The Town Hall Clock also known as the Astronomical Clock, Prague, Czech Republic

Calendars is a market where I got my start and one that is still very much alive and doing well. This is a form of stock photography but it is one where you can sell directly and get hands on experience working with the client. I very much recommend photographers consider this market if you have a reasonable size library of images. Calendars cover a wide variety of subjects from cats, dogs, wildlife, national parks, landscapes, various countries, rainbows, doorways, outhouses, cars, airplanes, you name it and there just might be a calendar being produced of that subject. Where do you find the companies that produce calendars? The best place is a visit to the local mall or bookstore come October through the end of the year. Most malls have temporary calendar stores and if this doesn’t exist than try the major bookstores. Look over calendars that contain the subjects you think you can contribute too. Take down the company name and mailing address, in most cases the back of the calendar. Send a letter asking that your name be added to their contributor guidelines when requests are being sent for submissions. Each calendar company works differently and have submission windows at different times of the year. Some companies work several years out from the publishing date. This market is not the market for you if you need quick income. Most of these companies pay the year of the calendar publishing date which means it could be a couple of years before you get paid. That being said, once you get started and become a frequent seller you’ll see payments every year consistently.

Street Fairs, Galleries, Art Market

The art market is very popular and one not to be taken lightly. Like any business endeavor you’ll need a little patience and a body of good work. The art market

Lighthouse on Lake Erie, Ohio

may take a little experimentation depending on the region in which you sell. Summer street fairs, art galleries, coffee shops, etc… are all part of the art market in which I am suggesting. Before venturing into this market I suggest you visit a few street fairs, art fairs, galleries, etc… and see what other photographers are displaying and ask these artists what work of theirs is selling. Study the local art market before investing your time and money and honestly evaluate your work and determine if you think your work can sell through these channels. I have found local frame shops, (where they sell pre-framed posters and lithographic prints), to be one of the best ways to see what people in an area are buying. You may find, many art buyers are really frame buyers because they are willing to pay a couple hundred dollars for a frame but want to spend less than $25 on the work that goes into the middle of that frame. If you find this to be the case than maybe you need to frame your work and mark up accordingly. As with any business, you’re going to invest a lot of energy and capitol to get your business moving.

Specialities

Little league baseball player takes his wind up on the pitchers mound.

This is probably the most serious of business ventures for a photographer. If you have a special interest and are good at this special interest then this may be an area for you. I am talking about photographing high school seniors, sports, corporate portraits, real-estate, etc… In other words an area you have experience and are pretty good at. I shoot a lot of architecture and work with some high end clients and projects, but it all started years ago shooting for reality companies of homes going on the market and other small jobs. This is an area you need to take serious because you’ll have a lot invested and most importantly your reputation. If you go in this direction you might start with family and friends to get your feet wet. It would be silly and not very helpful for me to guide you in getting started in this short post because these type business decisions need to be well planned and thought out. If you are serious about offering your talents for hire in a particular area of photography to a paying client, research and ask lots of questions before you invest too much money getting your business moving. Keep in mind, don’t promise what you can’t deliver, you’ll have a difficult time restoring your reputation and this you can’t put a price tag on.

In Conclusion

I realize these business proposals are brief. There is a whole lot more involved than I explain. This post was designed to get you thinking and not as a guideline to your business success. Regardless of what area you want to focus on, they all require a serious commitment. To truly make money in photography it is going to require a lot of hard work, a lot of time, some capitol up front, and persistence. You will be rejected more than you are accepted but those who can brush off the rejections will succeed.

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© William Manning: all material on this blog is the copyright of William Manning. No reproduction on this material is allowed without written permission from the author/photographer.

How much is a photo worth? This is not an easy question to answer and in many cases we as photographers have little or no say on what price is placed on a photo sold through a third party. What we do have control over is either play the game and hope for the best or sell directly to the client and work assignments. There really is no easy answer. The advantage of selling through a stock photography agency is their marketing resources. They can reach a world wide audience with a wide variety of pictures for the client to choose from, where we as individual photographers will never have the ability to reach such a vast market nor do we have the image selection to offer a potential buyer. The other choice is assignment work, and the truth is these are hard to come by and in many cases don’t pay well (of course this depends on the type of assignment). What I suggest to photographers who want to make a living or generate a supplemental income from photography are two things, understand the market that will use your genre of photography and two, know what you have invested in creating your pictures and what you have invested in time to get your photos into the market place.

Lokrum Island and Cruise Ship off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic Sea. This has been a good selling stock image.

I want to focus this post on the investment we as photographers have in creating our images. I think it will open many eyes and I believe those that are serious about making money, it will help you in deciding on a direction for selling your work. Before I dive into this, I want to briefly take a look at business. I think we all can agree that as photographers, we take pride in the product we create with our cameras. Agree, if not than you’re probably not going to do well selling your work. If you’re one of those who take pride in your product then I want to share a tip with you, people and businesses all over the world who might use your picture also take pride in their product or service. Why is this important? Because we are all trying to make a profit or generate venue in a challenging market. When a business produces an advertisement, writes an article, creates a product, etc… they have invested money and lots of it, therefore they have to recoup this investment plus add a mark up. Often, I believe many photographers overlook their investment when selling their photos. If a company chooses to use your photograph to help sell their product, service or deliver their message than they saw something in that photo they felt will do exactly that, sell or at the very least attract a viewers attention. They like your photo, no different than the advertising agency they hired, or the graphic designer, the writer, or the media outlet. That client carefully chooses who and what will be involved in getting the word out about their company, and it all comes with a price tag.

Imagine advertisements, product labels, newspapers, magazines, websites, etc… with no pictures. How well do you think these things would sell? I would guess not very well, in fact online magazines are using many more visuals to tell a story because people are reading less. Pictures help sell and/or capture the attention of an audience. Are your pictures important? You better believe they are.

Costs of Doing Business

Let’s take a look at what we have in invested in creating our photography. The numbers I mention from this point on are real numbers (unless otherwise noted) that I compiled from my own records. I also want to state these numbers can and probably would change depending on the subject and also the outlet in which they are sold. Most of the sales numbers in my case came from Corbis with a much smaller percentage of sales coming from Alamy.

Before I (we)  can create a single image I need equipment. This list obviously will vary depending on the photographer. The following is a list of equipment I use on a regular basis with the exception of the Canon 500mm lens.

Camera Equipment: (some of these numbers may be a little conservative, but fairly close)

Canon 5D … $3500, Canon 1D Mark II … $4500, Canon 17-40mm … $680, Canon 24-105mm … $1250, Canon 100-400mm … $1300, Canon 500mm … $5300, Canon 24mm TS … $1050, Canon 1.4 and 2X tele … $325, Canon 550 flash … $300, Gitzo Tripod … $350, Really Right Stuff Ballhead … $500, Camera and lens plates … $400, Camera bag … $250, Memory Cards … $300, Laptop … $3000, Portable Hardrives … $300.

Total Camera Equipment Investment: $23,305

Office Equipment:

Apple G-5 … $4300, Apple 30″ Monitor … $1800, Calibration Software … $300, Adobe Photoshop … $699, Adobe Lightroom … $399, Photo Mechanic … $150, DXO … $299, Nik Software … $399, Wacom Tablet … $250, Multiple External harddrives … $800, Books … $150, Laser Printer … $460.

Total Office Equipment Investment: $10,006.

Items that keep my office running:

Web Hosting … $300, Website Software … $699, Business Stationary … $150, Shipping (stamps, FedEx, etc…) … $500-$600, Continuing Education (workshops, seminars, etc…) … $200 – $800.

Total: $1849. (using the lower numbers) These number do not include utilities, which I did not include because I have a home office, but it is still an expense in itself.

The numbers above will vary from photographer to photographer, but if you are truly wanting to generate income from your photography you need to take a real look at these expenses. The total from the three categories above total $35,150. You might say, “some of these are one time costs”. True to some extent, but you will replace equipment from time to time as new technology is developed or simple ware and tear on the equipment. Computers and hard drives go down and technology changes. Software updates every couple of years, this is also an expense that needs to be taken into consideration. Running the office has its costs. As you can see I already have a pretty good overhead before I create any photos. Now lets take a look at two trips of mine and put these into the factor.

Both examples below are locations I shot several years ago (Thailand 2006 and Croatia 2007). I choose these locations because they have a history on the market and I felt would demonstrate realistic numbers.

Example 1: Thailand

Thailand: The following are true numbers from a photo shoot I did in Thailand.

Income from sales: $7349, sold 23 times

International Flight … $1600, In-country Flights … $163.22, Driver … $873.71, Guide … $387.97, Fuel … $196.58, Lodging … $428.01, Meals … $337.60, Entry Fees … $87.50, Airport taxes … $47.87.
Total : $4122.46 (misc costs not included)

Time invested in processing images:

Thailand produced approximately 1800 raw images. After editing and complete processing I finished up with 280 images.

Editing: 4.5 hours, Processing (raws to tiffs): 6-8 minutes per image equals 28 hours, Writing descriptions and keywording: 3-5 minutes per image equals 14 hours,
Total Time : 46.5 hours (Total time is based on least amount of time per image).

I have only had three photos from my Thailand trip that has generated any money. Depending on the location and popularity of that location this can be typical, some photo shoots generate photos that sell more than others. The other two photos that have sold from this investment generated $1080. of income with 12 sales and the other generated $434.34 from 14 sales.

Breakdown of Thailand expenses and profits: Travel expenses … $4122.46, Income from sales … $8863.34, Profit … $4,740.88

Example 2: Croatia

Now let’s look at another situation with very different results, Croatia.

Income from sales: $872.50, sold 2 times

International flight … $1108.11, Rental car … $317.15, Fuel … $138.71, Lodging $684.96, Meals … $495.18, Entry Fees … $63.36, Parking and tolls … $81.39

Total cost : $2,888.86 (misc costs not included)

Time invested in processing images:

Croatia produced approximately 1500 raw images, after editing and complete processing: 235 images.

Editing … 4 hours, Processing (6-8 minutes per image) … 23.5 hours, Writing descriptions and keywording (3-5 minutes per image) … 11.75 hours.

Total Time : 39.25 hours (Total time is based on least amount of time per image).

The photo shoot in Croatia up to this point has only generated 3 photos that have sold.

The breakdown of expenses and profits from Croatia; Travel expenses … $2888.86, Income from sales … $1394.50, Profit … -$1494.36 (a business loss).

A Business Summary

Doing business is expensive and a risk. As you can see from the two examples from above, I invested a lot of money up front, one turned out profitable and the other did not. Obviously, I have come out ahead more times than not, otherwise I probably would not be writing this post, I’d be at another job doing something other than photography. I learned early on in my career that I had to learn quickly what my overhead was and what kind of return I needed from my photo sales to survive. Every photo shoot I choose was decided based on what I thought was a need in the marketplace. I treated every trip as a business trip and not a vacation. How did I decide where to go? If you recall from a statement above, I said photographers should know the market in which their genre of work would be used. In my case it is travel. I am constantly reading and looking at what travel industry professionals were promoting and predicting to be the next hot travel destination. In many cases my homework payed off and there were certainly other times it didn’t.

Regardless of what you photograph there is overhead. A check from your stock agency isn’t a salary until you deduct your expenses. To close, I would ask those photographers who are sincere about making money, to take a look at your investment and time and evaluate your options, you might be surprised to see what is available to you. It is not important how many photos you sell, what is important is how much you get for the photos that sell. I wish you well in your business pursuit. Until next time, Good Luck.

In my next post on “The Business of Photography” I will suggest where photographers can make some reasonable money with their photography.

New 2010 – 2011 Workshop Page is now On-Line – Stock Photography Workshop in New York, October 27-31

Note: If you enjoy my posts and think your photo friends might find my blog of interest, please pass the link on to them. Any help you can provide feeding traffic to this blog is much appreciated. Always feel free to leave a comment.

© William Manning: all material on this blog is the copyright of William Manning. No reproduction on this material is allowed without written permission from the author/photographer.

I remember well the days of making a reasonably good living or at least providing a respectable supplemental income selling pictures, especially compared to today. It took a fair amount talent, a good business sense and a little luck. That business model was called stock photography. Stock photography is still very much alive today but much of the business has taken on a slightly different term better known today as microstock. Microstock still requires a little talent, but business sense is debatable and a little luck has changed to an enormous amount of luck and a whole lot of hard work.

What’s the difference? For the most part it is the price for which these pictures sell. Just a few short years ago a stock photo could fetch anywhere from $100 to a few hundred dollars on average. Most of these were sold through a stock photography agency and the commissions were split between the agency and the photographer. In most cases 60% to agency and 40% to photographer, not bad when you considered the enormous amount of overhead the agency had invested to market and sell the pictures in an enormously competitive market place. But, not forgotten was also the expense in which photographers invested in creating those pictures.

The market was so competitive and promising at one point that the bigger players in the industry such as Getty Images and Corbis got into a buying competition gobbling up many of the smaller and promising stock agencies. This isn’t an unusual business practice when you look at other industries as this happens all the time, but in my opinion it created problems for the suppliers (the photographer). Unless you were already under contract it was nearly impossible to break into the stock photography business. Needless to say, there were a lot of hard feelings about the industry with literally millions of pictures piling up in hard drives all over the globe with few if any outlets to distribute these images. Not only were there plenty of pictures sitting idle but also the demand for pictures were increasing with the growing Internet industry, so came the new stock photography business model, microstock.

The Good News and Bad News of Microstock

Microstock was both good news and bad news to the photographer depending on what side of the fence you stood on. The good news was it opened the door to thousands of photographers and millions of new images to distribute in the market place. The bad news is the prices these pictures fetched. Buyers can purchase the usage rights of a picture from a dollar to a few dollars. These agencies work very much like the traditional agencies when it comes to working with the photographer; they split commissions in most cases about the same, roughly 25% to 40% going to the photographer. These sales typically bring in about .25 to .75 cents per sale for the photographer sometimes a little more. Not only are the commission payouts low but also practically anybody who owns a camera and has the time can sell through these agencies, which means millions of new pictures are uploaded on a monthly basis. The bad news continues, with so many pictures being uploaded each month the photos photographers uploaded a few short months ago fall farther behind in the database and therefore progressively becomes more and more difficult for the buyers to find. In other words, your potential sales from an image are greater within the first couple of months from its upload date and will diminish as each month passes. Therefore if you hope to make any substantial money from microstock, you’ll need the time and resources to upload thousands of new pictures every month.

There are claims throughout the internet of photographers making thousands of dollars each month through microstock sales. I can’t say if this is true or not, I simply don’t know but if I had to guess I would say there are no more than a handful from the tens of thousands involved. I will say I was intrigued by these claims for some time and had to experiment for myself. First let me say, I have been very much involved in the stock photography industry for about 18 years and have had a successful career selling through this business model. I would consider myself as being very knowledgeable about the industry and understand a good picture from bad and also what type of image might sell well for stock usage although no one can guarantee how an image will do in the market place.

A Market Test

Six months ago I took 100 images from my library, a diversified group of photos and placed the same 100 photos into seven different microstock sites. Each agency took a relatively high percentage of images from that 100. The best was 87 images from the selection and the worst was 46 images. The upload process was enormously time consuming as each agency had their own unique system. All agencies required keywords and descriptions as one would guess, some ingested the information and a couple did not but all did require a series of questions for each photo asking if it were a photo or an illustration and various other questions. This took some time as I mentioned. All the images went on sale in November of 2009 and here in April of 2010 I have had a total of 602 sales combined making me a grand total of $196.27. My November and December sales were the best and as each month passed the sales deminished considerably. I understand 100 images is not a lot of pictures but after crunching some numbers what it does illustrate to me is what would be required of me from month to month to make any real money from microstock. I also understand my numbers are unique to my images and these numbers will vary depending of the subject matter. I think it is also important to mention regardless of what you may read or hear, no buyer is going to purchase an image based on who the photographer is. Every picture buyer comes to a stock photography site with a particular need and no matter how much time you spent on creating that image or much money you have invested in creating an image it won’t change the buyers mind.

Put Together a Good Game Plan

I would like to encourage photographers to look beyond the numbers I post or any other photographer and take a serious look at what you have invested in time, talent and maybe more importantly what you have invested in creating your images and then ask yourself a question, “What is my time worth and what kind of return do I need from my investment”? I ask myself these questions almost daily. I also like to think about how my pictures might be used and in all cases I know my photos are competing among possible hundreds of the same subject from the same agency. I can almost guarantee the buyer will chose the image they feel will best sell their product, service or deliver their message. If my photo has enough impact to influence a purchase or promote a service that someone takes pride in then in my view its worth more than a dollar or two.

I am not suggesting a photographer stay away or get involved in stock photography, but rather suggest they make their business decisions based on a well thought out plan. If your a hobbyist looking for a few extra bucks I think you’ll still achieve greater financial rewards if you base you’re decisions on a solid plan. I wish all the best of luck.

Next month we’ll take a look at what it cost to do business in stock photography industry.

New 2010 – 2011 Workshop Page is now On-Line – Stock Photography Workshop in New York, October 27-31

Note: If you enjoy my posts and think your photo friends might find my blog of interest, please pass the link on to them. Any help you can provide feeding traffic to this blog is much appreciated. Always feel free to leave a comment.

© William Manning: all material on this blog is the copyright of William Manning. No reproduction on this material is allowed without written permission from the author/photographer.