hello everyone Matt bills here and welcome back to my channel before I dive into today's topic I just want to First say thank you for 500 subscribers I I know I'm at the very beginning of sharing all that I've learned as a professional photographer so thank you to those who decided to join me early I do appreciate it and uh yeah on to today's video I asked for a few questions or topics over on my Instagram and I received several so thank you for that one of those questions was how do you feel about stock
photography and do you think it's still worth it in 20125 well the short answer I think stock photography is awesome and yes I do think it is worth it now for the much longer answer I have been making a number of my photos and videos available for licensing across all the big stock websites for several years in fact I I currently have thousands of photos for sale and to date I've sold over 10,000 licenses but before we dive into too many details I realize some of viewers may not be familiar with stock photography uh so
what is stock photography well stock photography is essentially shooting photos covering a wide range of subjects that are then made available for anyone to license for a wide range of uses so if I'm a person or business business that is producing some sort of product or content that requires a photo that's relevant to whatever that thing is that I'm working on but I don't have a photographer licensing a stock photo is a great option from a real estate agent working to products travel destinations animals almost anything can be a stock photo now there's a few
key things to keep in mind first selling stock photos is definitely not for the faint of heart no matter what anyone says it's not a get-rich quick scheme and the reality is it's really the definition of playing the long game the stock photo Market in the early 2000s versus 2025 are completely different worlds mainly due to the sheer volume of photos that are uploaded each day across the world the market is insanely saturated and you really have to make an effort to stand out when I started selling stock photos around six years ago I didn't
have any expectations I just thought hey if it makes a few extra bucks here and there why not I'm going to probably invest it back into my business anyway so let's just give it a shot I mean once the photos are published online for sale you don't have to do anything else with them I quickly learned that to generate sales on a regular basis you really need to not just have quality assets for sale but you need to have a lot of them you are one photographer in a pool of hundreds of thousands who upload
daily so the more photos you can make available the better your chances of standing out so if you're just starting and you have 20 photos uploaded don't get discouraged by a lack of sales keep building your portfolio next thing to keep in mind you rarely set the price for your photos when using the major stock photo platforms the royalty percentage may increase over time based on your number of sales but the initial price the photo sells for is usually determined at least in part by the stock agency that is all done automatically and is usually
based on the type of license someone is buying I'll be honest this is where the waters get a little MK uh it's not uncommon for my royalty on one photo to be 25 cents and then $100 for the exact same photo a few weeks later and it's my understanding that this is usually driven by the type of license that is purchased or in other words how the purchaser intends to utilize the image for example are they using the photo to a company and article that they're writing for a local news station or is a photo
going to be used in a major publication that will be in print and distributed tens of thousands of times this actually just happened a few days ago um I'm going to put on the screen an editorial photo I I took of National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC back in January of 2021 ahead of the Biden Harris inauguration it has sold several times for a few dollars and then all of a sudden last week I received a royalty payment for $277 but this is where having a large portfolio comes in handy uh you
know believe it or not daily royalties ranging from you know a few cents to a few dollars to even a few hundred dollars uh spread across multiple stock sites and thousands of images well that can actually add up pretty quickly for example I didn't really pay attention to my earnings for a few months and when I logged in I had $1,000 across two sites just sitting there uh you know I didn't do anything other than upload those photos and some of those photos are six seven years old now is it always like that no but
it was great and I actually put it towards yet another lens for the collection that's the cool thing there are some people who have portfolios that are 20 times the size of mine and who probably make a living purely on stock photos which is awesome uh you know for me it's the smallest of my photor related income streams but the fact that I can just set it and forget it and make a few extra bucks as a result I think it's pretty great and you know I'm a big fan of having multiple income streams and
between my wife and I we have five to seven income streams at any one time but that's a massive topic for a totally different video but uh so the next thing to remember uh stock agencies won't just blindly accept any photo that you submit for sale you know they want to keep their portfolio of millions of images at you know a certain level of quality and relevance because they have clients who are paying them to do so know I've personally had hundreds of photos rejected over the years it's just part of the game but you
eventually recognize the types of images that will make it through the quality assurance process and and those that won't uh you know this is also where paying attention to the stock agencies calls for certain content come in handy um you know most agencies will regularly post information about the types of content that are currently in demand you know based on everything that they're seeing on their end so that's super helpful information and you should take full advantage of it I mean it's right there so should use it now one of the most enjoyable parts of
stock photography I think maybe even sometimes better than seeing the actual sales is finding out where your photos are being used you know you don't really have control over that part of it but it's still cool especially when they get used by a recognizable brand uh that's actually helped my photography business you know especially when pitching a project to a new client you know I can actually make reference to a household name that has used my work and right wrong it brings a level of legitimacy to your work at least in the eyes of some
potential clients for example my photos have been used by Home Depot canva Business Insider Newsweek the Atlantic Forbes kayak Bankrate tons of local and national news agencies and really the list goes on and on and as a side note you generally don't get notified when your photo is actually used you get no notified when it's purchased but you don't get notified when it's used so reverse Google Imaging your photos to see where they landed is usually the best way to find out but if you know a better way of finding out where your images are
used please add it in the comments I would love to hear it so you might be saying to yourself at this point in the video got it thanks for the info Matt now tell me what photos sell the best so that I can do something similar well looking back to 2018 here are some of my top selling photos in no particular order I took this photo with my drone in Maui and as you can imagine it is often used by travel sites or anything related to Hawaii or just beaches in general uh this one has
been licensed over 300 times the next is actually a photo I took of my kitchen uh we remodeled pretty much our entire house a few years ago and the custom kitchen turned out pretty incredible and considering part of what I do is real estate photography I figured I'd shoot a few photos of the finished product uh this one and a few other angles of the kitchen have been licensed hundreds of times this next one is a house I photographed probably three years ago and it's it's actually been licensed over 2,000 times which I think makes
it my bestselling image but I'd have to confirm but I love the the vibrant colors and I'm sure that has something to do with it because it really jumps off the screen especially if you know someone's just scrolling on their phone here's another drone photo that has sold really well that is Downtown Omaha and you know I took this one several summers ago this one and a few others from different angles have together sold over 600 times easily then we have several others that have been licensed you know 9 10 20 30 times but like
I said earlier they really really do add up over time so yeah that's just a few quick examples but you really have to figure out what works best for you and what your approach will be should you choose to jump into the world of stock photography but no matter what patience is key and remember to have fun because if you're not having fun what's the point all right that's all I have for you today I hope you found this video helpful if you did I'd love to hear from you in the comments ask any questions
that you might have hit thumbs up and subscribing to my channel would be cool it's free come on do it have a great day everyone thanks
