5 Beginner Stock Photography Mistakes to Avoid

In this video, I talk about 5 mistakes beginners tend to make when they first start selling their photos and videos on stock photography platforms.

00: Intro
00:59 Saturated Content
03:00 Portfolio Size
04:29 Sponsored Message
05:42 Inconsistency
06:50 Over-editing & under-editing
08:44 Bad/few keywords
10:03 Final thoughts

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#stockphotography #passiveincome #photographybusiness

[jamiehenry]

Man. I had my flower pics ready to go. Lol

[AdventuringDave]

Thanks for this video, Nicole! It's because of you that I started contributing to Pond5, after I watched your initial experience video of them mid-2020. I signed up with them then, and have had some pretty nice video sales, in fact, my biggest payout on a single sale of any platform I'm on, $50 for an osprey video. So far, I'm finding your prediction to be coming true, keep consistently uploading, and the average sales seem to be getting more frequent. Keep up the good work!

[BrettHondow]

All very good tips and true. As for editing, I found Adobe Stock will only accept overexposed images. Anything correctly exposed is met with rejection, it's weird. They also don't like copy space for some reason.
Word Hippo is also a good resource for extra keywording when you're stuck, otherwise I surf Wikipedia.

[ridderus]

Leaving wedding and familyportrait photography and starting a new photography adventure. One of the adentures is stockphotography and i'm thrilled about it. So thanks 4 this video Nicole!

[mullexwing]

Great video. We are really glad we found you. We have a couple of YouTube Channels, but I always wind up with so much extra footage, and a lot that I never use. I've been contemplating going down the stock footage path. Your videos have been so helpful, thank you.

[FinancialTutor]

Great video Nicole! Would be interested in in doing a quick interview for a video on my channel about your experience with selling stock photos, how much money you made, and if you'd recommend it to other viewers as a side hustle? If so, please let me know when works best for you to talk and I’ll send over a zoom meeting invite.

[WaseemKhan-]

Congrats Nicole for the baby ❤️❤️ hope you will continue uploading videos soon ❤️

[stehume]

Great video, thank you.
If I record a video upload it to pond5 or any other platform am I able to use the video myself my own YouTube videos or not, thinking of it I guess I would not be able to as the platform that I have put it on to sell problem own the photo?

thanks again for a great video

[RandomHartz]

Great tips Nicole! I have also experienced the 80/20 rule with agencies as well as images. 80% of my earnings last year came from just 21% of the stock agencies and platforms i contribute to. Glad to see your family is doing well.

[samm]

Nice video..:) The Bear in YS, my group was sitting just on the other side of the Lady standing up with the Canon 400.. I sat there for 9 days and took 10K pictures..:P

[theadventuringzebra]

Hey Nicole! Just found your page. I've been a photographer for 13 years and am just now doing my research on how to get into this. Question, how do I differentiate between my work that I want to charge more for because it's more valuable/rare versus something less valuable like iPhone content which I've heard is more popular on stock websites now since brands want to use more realistic content? Also you mentioned not over-editing -- for video, I shoot in LOG to be able to color correct but I imagine selling LOG footage is not viable and I shoot color correct it before uploading?

[Sutterjack]

The big question I have is RELEASES - I've found stock companies are nazi on releases. I don't see how you can sell any stock images of a public gathering without individual releases. Also stock images of architecture - sometimes you're required to have a building release to sell an image of a particular I building. Thoughts ?

[cretivity]

I like the shots of the “Red Rocks” in this video. I spent a few days out in Sedona, AZ last summer.

[dacekundrate]

Hi, Nicole! It's funny about flower photos. When I started selling photos on Shutterstock, I hadn't really researched tips and tricks about stock photography. So I uploaded 10 photos, they were accepted. Then after a while I was sad that nothing was selling. I had only those 10 photos. :D But after a month or so a photo did sell. And it was a flower photo. :D Although, it wasn't too generic. More like fine art style. But looking back at my start, I think I was really lucky to get that one sale.

[helenawoods]

This is so great Nicole! I'm going to send this video and your channel to my friend who is getting started with stock photography 🤗

[abidhossen]

Thank you so much for the informations ❤ it’s really helpful to me as a newbie to sell stock photo.

[italogiardina]

For ordinary subjects then gear can help like advanced on lens flash for flowers and a third flash with radio receiver

[jiteshshine]

Great information 👏, can you suggest best mobile editing video app for stock fotages ?

[manasublime]

Aloha, mahalo 4 the amazing & thorough video & information!

[John-Shutterlyphotos]

Consistency is so important, not to down play the other 4. I started in 2012 and did some studio photos of just about everything. One shot I took was of a joint with pipe a few matches and some marijuana. Within a week of being accepted the photo sold on A+%^#y for £400, I got half if that. It has sold a few times over the last 10 years but I have not been consistant as I should. This is a great video for us to get out and upload more content "consistently" Thanks Nicole!