Microstock Markets
I took this shot in Salinas, California. There is a beautiful restaurant there and I wanted to capture in this shot the range of the image grab that day. I noticed later that the website for that city had another restaurant listed there, and this architectural feature was shown!
Talk about a picture being worth a thousand words. I was able to quickly email the webmaster and email him how this website detail, on the very front landing page of his website, was inaccurate. This is one way to cement a relationship with a client successfully.
When people discuss with me my ability to earn money taking pictures they inevitable want to know who my customers are. Where do I find them and inevitably also where can they get the work? How do I get paid, how much does microstock photography pay, and how soon can they reap financial rewards?
The answer lies in what I feel is a unique ability to learn to sell yourself and let your finished product speak for itself. Online sites like Bigstockphot0 and Shutterstock depend on user members who submit consistently high quality shots. And there user bases are growing. That means more demand for unique pictures.
But meeting the changing criteria of these sites can be challenging. Just reading through the caveats when joining can take a significant amount of time. But the satisfaction of a job well done, on your own terms, is unmatched. Meeting that challenge is what makes an exciting microstock photography career.
 When the customer sees that you can render an image pleasingly within a minute or braod window, and deliver related images, and finish them with a consistent level of quality, there is indeed an online and oprint media market present to buy this work. But getting to the sale point doens’t happen overnight.
People who want to get into microstock photography need to assess their time contribution much like someone who wants to write a book or a novel, or someone who wants to lose 20 pounds or quit smoking. There are psychological and material disadvantages to changing lifestyle and spending time doing something different.
Microstock portfolio sales start with just one picture. There is no qualifying educational level or certifying degree. Anyone who can work a camera and upload the shot can attempt to sell their work. The Internet continues to be the great equalizer. Identifying your Micro market is key.
There are two perspectives to identifying your microstock market. One is to examine your photography portfolio and see where most of your picture taking success lies. Is your photographic forte exteriors? Buildings? landscapes? babies? Do your best images come from extended photo shoots, or quick compositions and still lifes?
Concentrate on building a core portfolio in material only you have access to, and then submitting this material in finished form to the websites that resell featured premium images.
