istockphoto.com

[ericamcl]

does anyone have any experience with istockphoto.com ?

it was recommended to me as a place to look in to to sell photos, and i'm wondering if anyone has any reviews or feedback on working with them?

 

[KrazyPete]

I'm an iStockPhoto Exclusive Photographer. I think it's a good place to get your feet wet if you are thinking about getting into stock photography. The payout is very small per download. You would need a whole lot of volume to make a living at it. There may be other sites where you could earn more per download but they may not be able to give you the same exposure that iStock can.

They were bought by Getty, so your iStock account could earn you a big time contract if your photos get downloaded enough.

 

[rtphokie]

does anyone have any experience with istockphoto.com ?

it was recommended to me as a place to look in to to sell photos, and i'm wondering if anyone has any reviews or feedback on working with them?

I've been uploading to istockphoto.com for a year or so. It suits the kind of photos I take. I pretty much just use the earnings to download other's stock photography for my own projects.

The photos I think are going to be popular rarely are. The ones I upload on a lark, do the best. It's a good education if nothing else.

 

[MickeyCrazed]

I've never uploaded photos, however, I have download them for my website use. No problems thus far.

 

[matthew_hull]

I've been a photographer with them for several years, albeit not a particularly active one. If you are willing to participate in the discussion forums, and do not take rejection personally, it is a brutally efficient teaching instrument into the world of stock photography. You need to remember that they are a business, and they conduct themselves as such. Just because they reject a particular photo, for example, does not mean that the photograph isn't any good; it just means that they don't think they can use it. As far as "working with them", they still retain a bit of their home-grown origins, whilst becoming more and more of a professional business as the years have gone by. I think they work fairly with the amateur photographer. It is unlikely to be a money-maker for you, unless you can carve out a niche for yourself which is relatively untouched. The days of photographing your cat's eyes at shallow depth-of-field and making any sales on it (nay, even getting it accepted) are long gone. Instead, I would recommend it as a learning process, since they will tell you that your beauties are not good enough (and why) without flinching, and you will learn that great photographs do not necessarily sell as stock photos in the free marketplace. I really did learn alot by them. Also, the forums are pretty friendly and helpful; they are monitored by staff, with real penalties for misbehavior, and thus basically polite and professional.

Their "Photographer's Manual" can be seen at: http://www.istockphoto.com/tutorial_1.0_account.php and particularly http://www.istockphoto.com/tutorial_2.0_quality.php