How to sell photos online in south africa
How to make money selling your photos online in South Africa
0:00 / 0:00
Timecodes:
hey what's up guys so today i'm going to
be answering a question that i get asked
all the time people have asked me this
since the beginning of time it's such a
frequent questions justin
how do you take photos of your wife and
dog the way you do
okay nobody asked me that question but
what they do ask is how do i get into
stock photography
how do i make all those photos that are
sitting on my hard drive into real cash
dollar okay well this isn't dollars but
after you convert it in paypal and
exchange it and it turns into this
money let me show you how
so i've been selling stock for about
five years now and i've actually
generated a consistent stream of income
through it
and if you're thinking hey i've got
loads of photos collecting dust on my
hard drives how do i put them to good
use
so i'm going to share with you some tips
on how you can do that so
tip number one is realistic expectations
this is not a get rich quick scheme
those things don't exist you're not
going to quit your day job doing this
but put in the time and consistency and
it does pay off
in the five years that i've been doing
this it started off making a few hundred
grand every now and again
but do it long enough and now i generate
around three to four thousand rand a
month
that maybe doesn't seem like much but
considering that it's a passive income
meaning
once it's uploaded and keyworded it
continues to make money even years after
it was taken
add that up over a few months or even a
year or two and that's some pretty
decent earnings for not doing that much
work
so it's important to understand what
your expectations are and what you can
get out of it
personally i think it's very worth it to
be able to generate something
off of work that i've done years ago but
even to this day
still pays off tip number two not all
photos are equal you have to be aware of
what sells
as beautiful as your landscape photos
are and your photos of flowers
they're not necessarily what's gonna
sell best the trick to selling stock
photography is to understand what the
buyer wants
most stock websites have blog authors
graphic designers marketing agencies
looking at the photos
so you need to understand what is it
that they're looking for and provide
that
images of people sell people are
attracted to other people we relate to
others doing things
so generally photos of people doing
things are more likely to sell
this obviously translates into thousands
of scenarios going for a walk playing
with your pets doing work in the office
those day-to-day activities are the
things that sell as a good relevant
example we all know in this pandemic
season
hand washing and sanitization practices
have become very important
so when that started i realized a lot of
people are going to start looking for
photos of this
and that's what i staged some shots with
myself and my wife so a real key to
selling stock photography is to
understand what's relevant and what's
relatable
and there are so many other things like
photos of objects or textures
browse some existing stock photography
websites and have a look at what's
successful and what sells
tip number three get permission
another key element is to get permission
for your photos you cannot sell
something that you do not have a model
release sign for
so sorry those photos of a stranger that
you took on a park bench or something
you don't want to use that because you
might get sued
nobody wants that so if there's
recognizable people in your photo you do
need to get it signed
you can get away with this by using more
obscure images of people
even silhouettes from the back and if
they're not recognizable that's a win
and you can sell that most stock
websites will have their own template of
what this looks like and you can just
download it and get it printed and
signed off by the subject of your photo
a good way to start is just to ask
friends and family if you can take
photos and get their permission to sell
it
tip number four is have variety have
lots of options
build a database of different scenarios
and types of images
go through that database and old
archives of photos the more options the
better
i have about 650 photos in my stock
portfolio but only 20 of those
sell on a regular basis so invest time
in creating a wide range of image
choices to increase
chances of regularly selling okay and
number five some more practical tips of
where to sell there are many stock
photography websites out there all with
different
sign up criteria and options the ones
that i found as a south african that
worked the best for me
are shutter stock contributor deposit
photos
2020 and adobe stock a quick google
search will take you to their websites
most of these have their own sign up
form where they have a bit of a review
process but it's fairly easy to pass if
you have a good camera with good quality
photos
there are obviously many others out
there but these are the ones that i find
work well for me and just creates
different avenues of income
tip number six learn good keywording
when uploading stock photos you need to
keyword things in order to help people
find them otherwise it's just going to
get lost in the sea of stock photos out
there
so learn to be very descriptive about
what's going on in the image as well as
what it looks like
for example let me show you one of mine
this is a photo of my sister that we
took out in some sand dunes that
actually sells pretty well
and some of the key words i used was
first to describe the environment so
things like
sand dunes um beach desert
sunset flair blue sky anything that
basically
explains the environment that they're in
and then also explaining
what's going on so it would be arms
raised
happy summer joy sun hat
and then also being very descriptive
about the type of person so in this
instance it would be
black hair african young female
anything that helps it be very specific
about what this image is and who's in it
be very careful that you don't make up
keywords that don't apply to the image
as this can disqualify you on some stock
websites
it definitely takes a lot of effort to
go through each image and keyword but it
helps the buyer to be able to find the
image that they're looking for and
hopefully it's yours and tip number
seven the big one getting paid
when you start generating sales you'd
want to get paid right you earn a
commission on every
sale that you make and the stock agency
retains the rest this is fair since
they're the ones bringing the clients
and building the platform
all you have to do is provide the images
the commission percentage changes from
side to side
but for most of them there's an earning
tier so the more sales you make the
higher up you go and the higher the
percentage or the higher the cut is you
get from every sale
so in time and with consistency it just
gets better payouts usually happen
through a payment processor such as
paypal
payoneer scroll and many others in south
africa our options are a bit more
limited when it comes to withdrawing
foreign currency
but most sales are earned in u.s dollars
so considering the exchange rate that's
quite a big benefit for the south
african tsar
if you choose to be paid via paypal then
you'd have to have an f b
bank account as they've got a facility
to withdraw paypal funds and convert
that to ran
i used to use that option but i wasn't
always happy with the service charge and
the time it would take to convert funds
so now i started favoring a fairly new
service called payoneer
a lot of stock websites actually support
them they are much faster in receiving
payments with a lesser service fee
and also they support a lot more banks
in south africa personally i bank with
net bank and whenever i make a
withdrawal i always see the funds within
one or two days reflect in my account
the benefit of being paid into a service
like paypal payoneer
is that you're able to leave your stock
funds there and wait for a favorable
exchange rate which then just helps you
get more out of your money
so those days when the exchange rate is
pretty high and the dollar is quite
strong
that's when you withdraw these are just
a few tips of getting into stock
photography there's obviously many more
but i hope it helps you get started and
just realize that it is a viable option
if you have any questions feel free to
message me and please share this video
with your photographer friends who feel
i could use this
thanks for watching happy stock selling