today we're talking if it's still
possible to make a decent amount of
money
from stock photography if you're just
starting now
in 2021 and also i'll give you some
tips and tricks that will help you to
get started
[Music]
hey guys welcome it's nice to see you
in 2021 and even though 2020 was a great
year for me personally
i'm glad it's finally over because
it was a little bit weird here and also
bad for a lot of people so
i hope things will normalize a little
bit in
2021 and of course welcome back to
my channel and if this is your first
time here my name is luca
i'm a stock photographer videographer
and i'm making videos about
stock photography and videography gear
so if you like this kind of content
subscribe to my channel
so i got this question quite a lot
is it too late to start with stock
photography
and the answer is no definitely not
and let me tell you why and also stay
with me so you'll hear
what i would do if i started right now
and also watch till the end
to hear about my special bonus tip i've
been shooting
stock photos and videos for 10 years now
and if i would listen to all those
people who are saying that
it's not possible to do it anymore that
you can only make a little bit of money
and that you can't turn it into a
profitable full-time business
i would still be working in that water
bed company where i worked before
for not very good salary but because i
didn't listen to all those
negative people and instead i found
people who are doing stock photography
for living already and listen to those
people
now i make a decent amount of money so i
can travel
buy new cameras and other gear and in
the end of the month
i don't have to worry about balance on
my bank account
and i think you can do it too even if
you're starting in
2021 but let me tell you where the
catch is you just have to treat it like
any other business so in the beginning
you have to invest some time
and money into it and you have to be
consistent you have to
show up every day and work on it like
you would
if you open the store or a cafe
obviously you have
more flexibility with stock photography
and also
investments are a lot smaller but you
can just
shoot and upload hundred images and then
wait for a couple of months
that way you'll never turn it into a
profitable business
you just have to shoot upload and repeat
as much as you can and you need to be
prepared that you probably won't get
anything
in return in the first year or maybe
even more
well obviously there will be some sales
but you won't make
much money right in the beginning and
that's probably why
a lot of people give up and quit and
those are probably the people who are
telling you that
it's not worth it and that you'll never
earn money with stock photography
but don't listen to them i also didn't
have many people around me who believed
in me
that i could turn this into a full-time
business
but i proved them wrong and now some
people who were making fun of me because
i was
selling images for 10 or 20 cents are
also stock photographers and they just
regret that
they didn't start earlier also you have
to be prepared to
learn a lot even if you're a
photographer already
about legal stuff what you can and what
you can't shoot
when you need model or property releases
about trends
topics that sell and similar stuff
okay let me tell you how i would
approach it if i
started right now and give you some tips
first thing make a plan if you want to
get
seriously into stock photography you
don't want to upload
a few photos every here and there but
you need a plan
and you need to stick to it when you do
a plan
you're already ahead of 80 percent of
people who are
uploading to stock sites so plan as much
as you can
and let me tell you what this plan
should consist of
or how i think you should do it first i
think you should decide
how much time you're willing to put into
this
stock photography business and decide
what hours you'll
work on it for example when i started to
upload regularly
i had a job at this water bed company so
i was usually working from 8 am to 4 pm
so i was waking up every day at 6 a.m
or even before that so i could process
and upload some images before
going to work and then in the afternoon
or in the evening
i was working another two three or
even five hours on my stock images
because i just believe that i could do
this
full time of course i skipped some days
but
most of the days i was working in the
morning and in the afternoon
and of course if we plan the shoot we
usually did it on
the weekend because obviously that was
the only free time that i had
okay next thing you need to decide which
agencies you'll upload your
images to that can be a very easy or
very hard decision i personally only
upload images to istock and i'm an
exclusive contributor there
but you can also decide to upload to
multiple stock sites
i have a video about exclusivity on
istock so you can check it out to learn
about
pros and cons of being an exclusive or
non-exclusive contributor
and why i like to be an exclusive
contributor i will link it up
here and also down in description
but if you decide to upload to multiple
agencies
start with no more than three i would
suggest
i stock shutterstock and adobe stock
and that's it because for each agency
you'll have to learn about
uploading process keywording rejections
and i think three sites are more than
enough in the beginning
obviously you'll have to sign up create
an account
and on most sites upload a few sample
images
to be approved and after that
you can start you'll also need to decide
what will you
work on shooting editing looking for
inspiration
watching tutorials and so on
what i suggest you for the first
let's say month i would dig into your
hard drives
and find images that are already there
and
edit export and upload those
let's say 100 200 or maybe 500 images
and there are few good reasons for that
first one is
that you can actually make some money
from those photos
but i don't think that's the most
important reason
more important than that is that you'll
learn
a lot from uploading all those photos
especially from rejections uh
if you're like me or probably around 80
of people you won't go through all those
rules and
legal guidelines what's okay to upload
and what's not
although i strongly advise you to do
that
because you can learn a lot just from
those
guidelines but even if you do read all
that
you will still have to face some
rejections especially in the beginning
and of course it's much better to learn
all that with images that you already
have
then create new content with problematic
elements
and get images rejected for that and
that's why
in the beginning you want to upload your
old images
after uploading your old images i would
move to
actually creating new content and if you
want to be successful
you want to shoot lifestyle content so
content with people i will not talk
about why lifestyle content
sells better in this video but if you
want to know
i have another video where i explained
that a little bit more in detail and of
course i'll link it up
here and down in description at the
beginning you obviously don't want to
invest
a lot of money into it especially
because you're still learning so
to keep things on a budget you can ask
your friends
and family to be your models and you can
do it
outdoors or at home so you also don't
have to pay for
location i suggest you start with some
simple shoots maybe
people with technology people hanging
out and
similar stuff so maybe two or three
models in the beginning
and that's especially useful if you
don't have much experience with
those kind of photoshoots so you'll
slowly learn
how to shoot this kind of content
directing models and
all that but even with these simple ones
try to create a shoot plan in advance
and write down at least
some ideas or scenarios that you want to
do
also try to find some images for
inspiration
and add them to your shoot plan
i'm not very good at that
and especially for simple shoots i often
skip doing a shoot plan
but if you get used to doing that it
will help you a lot with
bigger projects later and one more thing
that i
recommend you to do at least in the
beginning of
every month is to plan how many shoots
you will do this month and
how many images will you upload that way
you'll have a goal in mind
and you'll push yourself more to reach
that goal
from my experience i'm more productive
when i
have a goal and even if i don't reach it
in the end
but i do a lot more than i would without
a plan
let me know down in the comments what
are your plans how many images you want
to upload this month
next month or this year after shooting
your friends and family
maybe you can find models in local
modeling facebook groups or
sites like model mayhem for example you
can definitely find
models that are willing to work for free
in exchange for some
images usually those are the people that
are just
starting out and need images for their
portfolio
and that way you don't have to spend
your money on models in the beginning
but probably those models won't need
images of them working in the
office or hanging out with other people
so
maybe you can do a part of the shoot for
them and
they can tell you what kind of images
they want and the other part
you can do it your way another thing
that you can do for free is
to walk around your neighborhood find
some small businesses
and ask them if they need images for
their business
you can create some images for them in
exchange for science
model and property releases so you'll
both get images
for free so it's a win-win situation
and there are a lot of small businesses
that are not willing to put
money into hiring a photographer
especially if they're
just starting out with their business so
they will be very happy with
this kind of compensation so after a few
months of working i think you'll start
to earn some money with your images and
what they suggest is to invest all that
money
back into your business and also after
seeing some sales and seeing that you
can make some money from that
if you can it's a good idea to invest
some more money into the business
for buying new equipment lights
buying some clothes props hiring
different models more models
locations and similar and
what you want to do when hiring paid
models is to find
actors not fashion models because a lot
of times
fashion models won't be able to show a
wide range of
emotions meanwhile most actors are
capable of showing
a lot of different emotions and i'm not
saying that
fashion models are bad but if you're
searching on a modeling agency
find people who are smiling in at least
some of their images
that way you can see how they look with
a smile because
you will need happy smiling people
for stock photos and i
think that's enough information for you
to start
but let me give you a bonus tip which
can
help you a lot and that is don't do
everything
by yourself find people in your area who
are
also stock photographers or people who
are like you and
want to be stock photographers and work
together
with them for example i pretty much
always plan shoots together with
other people usually with my brother and
often also with
two or three other photographers and
there are
numerous benefits of that first one is
that you can learn
a lot from each other even if you're
both beginners
second thing you will encourage each
other and also
compete with each other about how many
images you uploaded
how much you earned and similar stuff
third benefit
together you have more resources so
maybe you have an uncle who runs a
barber shop and
your friend has a wife who's a dentist
or something
and you can turn all those locations and
jobs into stock photos or you can gather
your two families and
shoot an outdoor picnic scene fourth
thing
it's much cheaper when you split
expenses for the shoot
especially when you're paying for models
and location
so for example if you're for
photographers
paying 250 dollars for a shoot instead
of
thousand dollars for a shoot is quite a
difference
don't you think and uh fifth benefit
you'll share ideas on the shoot so
more people will have more ideas and
usually that's great
especially in the beginning when you
don't know exactly what to do
what to shoot how to direct models and
so on
there's probably more to that but i
think that's it for now
let me know what's your opinion about
stock photography
will you give it a shot have you learned
anything new today
and if you want to learn more about
stock photography click on this playlist
right
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next video