September 2014 Stock Earnings

Well September jumped back up again.

I could brag about best months ever etc. but then its not that hard to achieve those when your starting from such a low point and most of my portfolio are editorial images.

So what can I do to increase earnings, have already touched on people images, I havent made any moves on that yet. Getting access to objects at no cost is something I've already taken some steps with a local collectable store allowing me to photograph objects, although these will all be editorial, so just need to find some places where i can access objects which can be royalty free. Video is the third option, I just keep forgetting to charge the camera up and take it with me when I'm out.

July and August 2014 Stock Photography

Well July continued the upward trend, however in August while Shutterstock continued the upward trend unfortunately Istockphoto did not. Incurred a big dip in download numbers which obviously results in a dip in actual dollars earned.

I know from all the research I've done ups and downs are normal so I'm not concerned about it at this stage. Just keep plugging away.

Here's the graph

Also you should notice that unfortunately the graph shows that download numbers are increasing at a faster rate than the dollars earned. this is a worrying trend and quite clearly the result of the majority of stock photo sites pushing the price to the end user down.

Total downloads and earnings took a small dive for the month of August. I could spend hours trying to analyse why but will never really know the answer. I would assume though that it does appear that if you are not uploading regularly it effects your portfolios performance. The sites that I had previously mentioned I had stopped uploading to have all nosedived in August.

Would be nice to see at least one more zero before the decimal point but it appears that will take some time and perseverance.

Lego Minifigures

Recently posted an advertisement on gumtree offering to photograph people's Lego minifigure collection for free, unfortunately the only response was from a person in Canberra. Bit too far to go when there is no guarantee that i would make anything significant.

Maybe people thought there was a catch, there isnt!!! Plain and simple we will photograph your collection, provide you with copies of the images, which you can use for personal use and we use the images in our stock photography portfolio which is where we hopefully over time will get a return on the time investment.

So if you're in Adelaide let us know if you're interested.

Negative Feedback

In one way or another we all have copped some negative feedback regardless of what line of work you are in. Generally when it comes to the workplace this is usually handled privately, you are given the chance to discuss and resolve/improve on the situation.

However when working for yourself and with the rise of the internet you don't get that opportunity. With places such as Facebook and directories where reviews can be left without the right to respond you can really cop some very unfair representations of you and your business.

And the old wives tale where if people have something negative to say they will tell everyone but people with positive things to say generally don't share it unless asked seems to be very true.

I recently came across a negative review I was unaware of. This one negative review happened to be the only review on very high traffic site so I can only assume has been very damaging.

All the positive comments I've received,emails,letters and thank you cards would far outweigh this one negative review well you would think so but apparently not. 

Another old wives tale comes to mind here " There are two sides to a story and the truth will lie someone in between". 

Stock Photography Earnings for June 2014

Well a bit of a welcome spike in June 2014 earnings, still nothing to write home about but encouraging. I continue to work on my portfolio as really I dont have a lot of choice. All earnings from other forms of photography have taken a significant dive over the past 12 months. 

Its been an year of ups and downs, starting the financial year with the birth of my third daughter, then battling through the illness and eventual passing of my mother late February 2014. Then from early May have had some Family legal issues regarding access to the oldest two daughters which has taken its toll.

So haven't had as much time as I would have liked to work on my portfolio, I suppose the other issue holding the portfolio back is that I'm not keen on photographing people, particularly models who expect payment.


The sites I have images on are IStockPhoto, Shutterstock, BigStockPhoto, Dreamstime, 123rf, Canstockphoto, Alamy, Depositphotos, Fotolia and Mostphotos.

Unfortunately most of these sites dont provide with me enough Downloads/Royalties to bother reporting on. Hence the reason I now do not upload to 123rf, Canstockphoto, Alamy, Depositphotos and Mostphotos anymore.

The Graph

The above graph includes statistics from IStockPhoto, Shutterstock, BigStockPhoto and Dreamstime from May 2014 onwards, prior to that all sites are included.

I keep these statistics as it shows over time where I'm best to devote my time. Each of these sites have their own worksheets which include trendlines, so over a period of time i can quickly see where each site is trending.

For example Istockphoto is on a reasonable upward trend, Shutterstock is on a significant upward trend, Dreamstime is on an insignificant upward trend and Bigstock is on a downwards trend. Of course this is looking at the royalties only, you could analyze things to death but $$$$'s is really the only thing which counts. Istock and Shutterstock are on significant upwards trends for downloads, Dreamstime and Bigstock are stagnant.

Based on the latest review it appears that Istock and Shutterstock are the sites I should focus my efforts on and only bother uploading to the others if I have time.

After a big gap I have only started uploading to Fotolia again, so they are not included in the current stats but will be in the future.

So dont get sucked in by those ads that all of these sites run that give you the impression its easy to make money from your photos. Bottom line is that its not easy, the rewards are there if you have some patience and really put some concerted effort into what your doing but it will take some time. I'm not there yet! My first goal is to consistently receive a minimum of $1,000 per month from these sites, so I'm only about 5-10% of the way there.