Who are some of the top photographers in the microstock industry in terms of performance?

I know of a few, like Lisegagne and Abu that are exclusively from Istockphoto (Lisegagne probably making more than $100,000 a year). Who else though?

If you follow some of the forums on the micro sites you'll get a few ideas. Photoeuphoria just posted on DT her success, but I'm not sure how it stands to others. They must work very hard for it.
It just bothers me that we only get paid so little, can designers really only afford one and two dollar images??? Surely they can afford to pay more. Sorry for the rant!

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Pick up the August edition of Popular Photography when it comes out...there will be profiles on several people, including Jaimie Duplass (Photoeuphoria), Laurin Rinder, etc.

You'd be surprised on the amount of people who are actually making a living out of microstock at the moment

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I see Andrer, Forgiss and Shatterlens feature in a few forums and I know they are doing it pretty much full time. Rinder does it as a add on to his existing photography buiness. There must be quite a few that get more from mircostock thatn the average thrid world wage. However, I see otehrs who want to earn $100k+. I am sure I could live of a fraction of that (wait a minute - I do live off a fraction of that)

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Hmmm, is that article going to be on microstock? If so, then that'd be pushing attention more to the mainstream of photography. Last thing we need is more long time pros coming in microstock...

Designers can afford more. Obviously Istockphoto is responsible for the further devaluing of photography... but that was already a trend, starting with Royalty Free Images and stock agencies cutting down royalty rates to 20%. We are basically helping lots of businesses increase their profit margins. Whereas before one would have paid at least $100 per image, now they can pay $140 a month on Shutterstock (which is not affordable to joe with his blog) and be able to use a ton of photos. The advent of affordable DSLRs and many more people being capable of taking good photos (thus a huge increase in supply of people willing to get less per photo) has also fueled this.


Now, from how I see it, Istockphoto has already let the cat out of the bag. I don't think it'd be easy to stop the flow of people who want less money per photo (though istockphoto has raised prices, not dropped them for 2 years in a row). You can either complain about whats happening, or you can be opportunistic and take your share of it.

That means getting down to business economics, planning, marketing, and operations management. You need marketing to, for instance, know what the people want, and accordingly to make photos that people will buy. You need planning and business economics to figure out how to be profitable and to make a lot of money within a certain period of time (this is not like working for a salary since your building an income stream.) You can use sales history data from your more successful pics to make sales predictions in certain types of photography. Finally, you need operations management because stock photography is an operation. The more photos you have online making money, the more money you will make. The only way that can happen is if not only you take lots of photos, but you also make sure that they all get prepared and uploaded (and successfully accepted) to the various websites, within as short period of time as possible (without sacrificing quality). Thus, what you want is akin to making a huge online store.

Now I can't say that I'm successful in this stock photography yet, but thats because I havent got the "operations" aspect running yet (actually shoveling the tons of photos to the various stock photography sites.) I hope to change that soon, as I'm taking this more as a business now.

Yes. There have been several articles on microstock in the past year, and competition has gotten tougher, that's for sure.

Ya think? That's kind of a broad statement. I am a graphic designer in a small town in a rural county and the economy around here is quite slow. But some enterprising businesses are trying to pull ahead, just eeking by, and I am designing magazines, ads, websites, etc. for them, using microstock photography which has been a God-send for them. It allows the small-time business to be able to afford to put stock images on their materials, and although the images are definitely second-class to Getty or Corbis, their businesses are second or third-class as well, not large corporations that can afford the expensive, RM images.

Microstock is also allowing me to be able to find images that I would NEVER have found on the macro sites, images that would not have been accepted there for their "not stock-oriented" or "not commercial" orientation; images that are so specific to their purpose that they probably only sell once or twice over their lifetime in stock.

I agree with the post that stated that as the equipment gets more sophisticated and as the microstock sites become more stringent in their requirements, the more amateurish and unwilling-to-learn photographers will drop off. I know you guys are the O.P.D. (Obsessive Photography Disorder) sufferers who are always looking to hone your craft and you will always be able to make a living, so what are you worried about? And if you are worried, pick up other digital creative work, like websites and video, like me.

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Thanks Stacey.

Always interesting to hear from a designer's viewpoint.

Did you switch to design from Photography? Or vice versa?

cheers,
ptlee

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