Any Full-Timers? You think you could if you had the time?

thesupe87 · #1 (**permalink**) 07-31-2006, 10:30 PM

After about 6 months of this "micro-stuff" I'm finally about at the point where my online portfolio is kind of sustaining itself. This month I made about 75% of what I make during months where I actually submit new photos (10-20 a week) This month I barely submitted any, only a handful.

Do any of you guys do this on a full-time basis? If so, are you making enough to support yourself? If I compare what I'm making to the time it's takes each month, it's an awesome figure. The only thing is, it took me 6 months to get to where I am (portfolio size) and I still only have a relatively small portfolio compared to many others. Search for me on any of the sites, and you'll see.

What are your thoughts? I personally think it might be possible, but it would take a really long time to get to where you'd want to be. The larger portfolio is, the more downloads you're going to get - it's just simple math. If you can upload at least 100-200 new shots a week, by the end of the month you'll probably have about 200-500 new shots that were accepted on each site. Now take that and factor in that it's taken me about 6 months to get that far, seeing that I've only been working on this about 1-2 hours a week.

I think if I did this 40 hrs a week I'd go mad...keywording sucks. But, it's nice to know I have something to fall back on, and to help with monthly expenses. I'm trying to buy a house, and when you're on a tight budget with a mortgage, every little bit helps.

Gracey · #2 (**permalink**) 08-01-2006, 10:06 AM

I don't think I'd WANT to do stock full time - it's just not my greatest joy

There are a few who do it on a full time basis and make more than most people who work at 'regular' jobs. Andres for one, and I beleive Forgiss was also.

You do actually have to consider it your job/career though, and you have to work at it to become good enough at it - you also have to love it, and some of them do.

Keywording doesn't bother me much, but then I don't do hundreds at a time.

I suspect that if I were to "put my mind to it" (as my grandma used to say) that I could earn a very nice living doing this, but it just doesn't hold that much interest for me, compared to some of the other photo jobs I do.

Bobby Deal · #3 (**permalink**) 08-01-2006, 05:41 PM

The truth is making a career of Stock Photography is as viable as any other career. As a general rule returns will be proportional to the effort expended. If you treat it like a full time job it will pay you like one. Provided of course that you can produce high quality content that is viable and desirable as stock.

If you spend all your time shooting over done themes i.e. flowers, butterflies, generic landscapes etc. the returns will be less then if you produce highly sought after themes such as business people or object.

Key wording, uploading and indexing is just all part of the work flow and with experience you learn ways to minimize the time you have to spend at it and to best utilize the tools provided by the agencies you deal with.

Batman2000 · #4 (**permalink**) 08-04-2006, 11:04 PM

In the old days of stock I would have done it... Today... It is a different game. My portfolio has not grown a single photo in over a month and now I have a steady $10-12 bucks a day on average, without doing much at all. So I calculate that to make a living from it I would have to multiply it many times over... Not realistic.

But I found that if I take into account that those small daily earnings are about 3600 dollars a year and that is about the interest I would earn over a 100000 dollars deposit at 3.5%. So all of nothing my portfolio is earning the same as 100K bucks in a bank!

So, yes, I will put on more effort on it, but at my pace, since I don't expect to live out of it, but those 3600 dollars are a new 5D each christmas, even with a decent lens... Those are not dollars coming out of my income (the main one) but money made from photography going back into photography.

By the way, I sold recently a photo of a turtle that was rejected by all but one of the micros. I sold it for 260 bucks... Obviously, I deleted it from the only micro it was on. So, maybe there is life out of the micros and us, microstockers, should start looking into it.

alexh · #5 (**permalink**) 08-05-2006, 11:29 AM

I'm sure it is possible, but as suggested it may not be right for many people. The work required crouched over a computer would exceed the time you spent with a camera in your hands, and the appeal could start to drop!

I think a better approach to getting 'serious' is to look at microstock as one branch of a photo business/career and develop other sources of work/income, such as traditional stock / work for hire of one form or another / contributing material diectly to markets. Micro stock can make a nice regularly ticking over base from which to develop higher earning endeavours.

Bobby Deal · #6 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 01:23 AM

Don't you just love threads from people asking real questions and then having the OP not bother to respond when people take the time to answer their questions?

mattb · #7 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 02:50 PM

Hey Supe, how do you manage to crank out that many Photoshop images in only 1-2 hours a week? I do some every now and then and it takes me forever although I spend most of my time experimenting, plus I tend to be a perfectionist.

Karimala · #8 (**permalink**) 08-11-2006, 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Deal

Don't you just love threads from people asking real questions and then having the OP not bother to respond when people take the time to answer their questions?

Eh...Supe is probably on vacation or getting married or something...he'll be back.

Glad to see you here though, Bobby!

There's no reason why stock photography with a focus on microstock agencies can't become a full-time job. The only thing that will prevent it from happening is the individual photographer himself/herself...whether by choice, or lack of motivation, or the inability to see the big picture (all depends on how you look at it).

If I had to go through the rest of my life spending 40 hours a week as an administrative assistant processing paperwork, I'd shoot myself. Ain't gonna happen.

I'm working towards the ultimate goal one step at a time. My first goal is to consistently earn enough money to where I can decrease the hours of my full-time day job by 10 per week before taxes. Right now, I'm 1/4 of the way there. After I reach that goal and can safely drop down to 30 hours per week at my day job without a loss of income, I will work towards the next 10 hours by adding those newly freed hours to my current photo work/study schedule. And so on and so forth.

thesupe87 · #9 (**permalink**) 08-11-2006, 03:04 AM

Sorry for my absence, I've been slowly losing my mind :roll: I have been negotiating buying my first house, and boy are there a lot of hoops you have to jump through when making such a large purchase. Now that I'm closing the deal on my new house, I can worry about the engagement and THEN the wedding...I'm literally losing weight from all of the stress I'm going through right now! haha :lol:

Anyways, Bobby - I apologize for not replying sooner. Welcome to the board! Don't worry, I'm not offended or anything for your comment - I too can't stand when people start threads and never return to them.

You all have made a lot of good points. It's such a blessing and a privledge that we've all seemed to come upon such a nice little industry, where we can put as much work as we want to into it, and still watch it grow in big and small ways. Most of us are generally already in a creative type of full-time job, and this stuff lets us express ourselves in different ways, aside from the whiny & demanding clientelle we might deal with all day at work.

Batman: I am in the same boat as you. We share the same mentality.

Mattb: I don't know...I've been using photoshop for at least 10 years now (since I was 13) so maybe I've gotten faster at it? Who knows. I just do a little at a time here and there. I never whip anything up during the time I'm at my full-time job, but sometimes while I'm at work I do upload & keyword new pics.

Gracey: I don't know if I could do this full-time either. The keywording would make me want to punch myself repeatedly in the face. I'd have to think up a better system, using same similar sets of keywords for different types of images. Then again, maybe that's why I do so well with such a small portfolio - I always add custom keywords to each and every image. This way I can guarantee maximum exposure when someone is searching.

Karimala: I agree with you - I would rather do this than 40 hrs a week of a lot of other jobs (cashier, administrative assistant, construction worker, landscaper, plumber, or other tradesman)

Who knows guys. Maybe if we all stick to this stuff, in 5-10 years we'll be making 23-60% of our incomes from it, alongside our dayjobs

That would be sweet. This industry might change up so much, or get so inundated with photos, that we are going to be glad we got into this as early as we did - this way we have a decent sized portfolios already, apart from the new ones that come along. Or, standards could become so strict that the big guys reject everything you submit, like iStockphoto.

:P

Batman2000 · #10 (**permalink**) 08-23-2006, 02:52 PM

Some say that it is going to become sort of a pyramid scheme, the early adopters and suscribers will have the upper hand and the last to arrive will have to work extremely hard to reach payout (dillution, saturation, etc. will all play a role in the long run for the newers photographers).