Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 09:38 27-10-00 -0600, you wrote: >That hardly seems worth it. Think about all the time it would take someone >to amass enough good images to be able to make any sort of decent living >off of their stock photos. $1.00 per image seems hardly worthwhile. That >would mean that in order to equal my salary at my current job, I would >have to have at least 60,000 usable images in my stock photography file. >And, I don't think in 10 years I could even come up with 60,000 stock >images, and even if I did, after all the time and effort it would have >taken me to attain all of those images, I would not even break even... You have missed the point, I'm afraid. You are thinking like an employee. ...now I didn't say you HAD to have 60,000 images to make $60,000.00 per year. I said it is a general guideline for the industry for a general broad based stock file. An armature cannot make a living as a stock photographer. They just don't have the time, assignments or recourses to produce a sufficient library... unless it is a specialty subject with some exclusivity. Even for a working pro, income from stock sales is only part of his income. As I mentioned, I been at this for 20 years and only this past year did I make more with stock sales then assignment work. A working pro with good assignments, solid reputation and smart planning will make about 30% of his income from stock sales after 10 years in the business. A photographer with VERY GOOD WORK or of exclusive nature will make this with a smaller collection. Half of my stock income comes from less then 100 photos. These sell repeatedly over many years. Some are from recent assignments and some are from assignments I shot 15 years ago. On a good magazine or corporate assignment I could shoot over 200 rolls of film. That is 7200 frames. Out of that, approx 100 will be salable stock. Two dozen of these assignments per year and I have a stock file of 2400 images of 24 different subjects or topics. This doesn't include the day shoots of news, events, personalities, etc which can be valuable stock also. After 20 years of this I will have a minimum of 48,000 images. ( I actually have approx 75,000 images in my index and it is distributed through agencies in Canada, the USA and in my own agency) If that 48,000 images is earning its "$1 per image per year" then that is an income from stock sales of $48,000.00 per year. Where I come from that is a decent retirement income. Of course, I am still a active professional so I am STILL earning my "regular" income from assignment ... and generating NEW stock images EVERY TIME I shoot an assignment. What it comes down to is that being a professional photographer is not a hobby. It's a business and standard business marketing principles and business planning are required to succeed. Unless you are prepared to run that business as a full time venture and with sound business principles you will not succeed ie: make money. Greg Locke St. John's, Newfoundland locke@picturedesk.org PICTUREDESK INTERNATIONAL ...news pictures ONLINE 1-800-340-4970 / http://www.picturedesk.org - ----------------------------------------------------------------------