The Value of Photos
There seems to be an emerging trend in the world of photography where more and more photographers are happy to give their photos away for virtually nothing. What I am referring to here is the emergence of more and more micro-stock sites.
It was just last week that I was invited to join another such site in New Zealand. The payout figure per image was less than $1 NZ, not really the way to make a descent living. To rub salt into the wound, what a lot of these types of sites do is have a minimum payout figure of around $100. So to make a measly $100 you need to have more than 100 downloads of your images, some photographers simply don't get there.
Don't get me wrong, micro-stock sites have their place, just not if you are a photographer. If you are looking for images to purchase they are great! You can get lots of images for your next web project or presentation very cheaply.
The mileage does vary though. Some images are of exceptional quality, while others, could have been taken by my 3 year old granddaughter. The suggestion here is, if you are looking for affordable images of high quality take a look at the more established micro-stock sites (but, you may pay a little bit more). These bigger sites tend to have better quality control and reject poor quality images.
As a photographer I tend to avoid cheap micro-stock agencies. The only people making any profit are the people running these sites. They are dependent on the hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of photographers who contribute stock, some of who never get paid as they don't reach the payout figure. Do you really want to be one of these photographers?
Over the past few years I have submitted photos to numerous stock sites at the same time I was establishing a niche NZ Stock Photo Site which I run (Not micro-stock). During this time I have made far more from selling directly from my own site than all the other sites combined.