Make Money with your Camera - Shutterstock

I am not a professional photographer, at least I did not consider myself one when I was trying to get into stock photography. I also still have yet to get a Digital SLR camera. I have a nice point and shoot digital camera, but it limits me often. However, I was still able to get into Shutterstock. That means it's possible for nearly anyone!

If you have been looking around trying to break into micro stock,  you have probably heard of the agency Shutterstock.  They are considered the top agency in the stock photography world.  They are also one of the hardest to get started with because they require a photographer to submit 10 photos for review and then at least 7 must be approved in order to start submitting and selling photos here.

You may very well wonder if it's so hard to get approved, why should I bother with Shutterstock?  In fact, it's possible to have a successful business of selling your photos online by submitting to the other stock photo agencies.  You may very well want to get your feet wet with some of the easier companies first.  Personally I sold quite a few photos on other sites before I was accepted to Shutterstock.

So then why do it?  Well, first of all, they are the top stock photo agency, meaning they get a lot more traffic and have many clients who use only Shutterstock.  That means that you will get your photos in front of eyes that would otherwise never see them.  This gives you more of a chance to sell your photos of course!

Shutterstock also has a subscription plan for serious clients so they can download 25 photos per day for one monthly fee.  This means, they might be as picky with what they download - they might download a few and then choose the one they use for their project.  They might as well download their full 25 per day right?

The last reason is security.  Shutterstock is here to stay.  You will not need to worry about uploading hundreds of pictures only to have the company go out of business before anyone gets to see them.  Talk about frustrating!  They also pay every month that your account reaches the minimum payout level, no hastles.

I'm pretty much assuming that you are at least interested in pursuing an approval at Shutterstock.  So first you should sign up for a free contributor account if you haven't already.  You can follow the link here:

Then you will want to get busy taking pictures.  A good reason to sign up for  your account at Shutterstock right away even if you aren't ready to submit a photo yet, is the forums.  I have found so much valuable information on those forums.  They are my favorite place to learn about stock photography, equipment, what's selling, what's not, how to, Photoshop, you name it.

What to take pictures of?  You can see my page about that following the link.  But it might be helpful to take a look on Shutterstock and see what's selling.  This might give you some ideas.  But if you have an idea, don't hesitate to try it.  It might not sell, but then again it might.

The photos on this page are some of my photos that were approved by Shutterstock, many from the first batch and that have at least one download, meaning someone bought it.

Here is the sometimes tricky and frustrating part.  It actually took me, I am embarrased to say, a full year to get approved.  In my defense, I was only working at micro stock very part time (read hobby) and pretty much gave up on Shutterstock after getting rejected the first couple time.  I thought I could never get approved unless I had an expensive camera.  I still, as of the time of this writting, do no have an expensive camera.

So, as I learned more and more about my camera, and grew my photography skills, I decided I would give it more of a genuine try.  After getting serious I was rejected two more times and then approved.  The last time I was rejected I had 6 photos approved, and it would have been 7 but I uploaded the wrong photo by accident.  (Don't do that - it takes a full month before you can upload again.)

Here are a few things to watch for so you don't get so many rejections.

First of all, don't take a photo with a copyrighted logo in it. And if you have a photo with a person in it, be sure you have a signed model release.

Noise. Make sure you view your photo at 100% so you can see the noise. The reviewer will be looking at this size, so make sure you do to. I have to really watch out for noise with my camera. I shoot at only 100 ISO which is the lowest setting on my camera and I have to really watch my lighting. Play around with it, but get to the point where you can blow up your photo and see the noise or lack of it. Also be very cautious about noise reduction software. I do use Noise Ninja, but only sparingly. You can often actually create artifacting by overuse of noise reduction tools.

Poor Isolation Techniques.  Ok, Photoshop is my favorite photo editing software, but poor editing techniques are worse than nothing at all.  If you need to clean up the background by all means do so, but practise, use the forums to find techniques and tips, and make sure before you submit, your photo looks good at 100%.  If there is a halo around your object, don't bother submitting it.

Lighting/ White Balance.  Ok, I still have a hard time with this one.  You might not want to use the auto white balance setting on your computer.  I usually take a photo with at least two different white balance settings and then I also end up tweaking the color with editing software.  As far as lighting goes, Shutterstock specifically will reject anything with harsh shadows.  So make sure if you use natural light outdoors the sun is either not shining directly on your subject, or you control the shadows.   Of my photos that have actually been approved by Shutterstock so far, only two were even taken outdoors and it was a bright day but the subject was in the shade with natural light bounching off a white wall, creating ideal lighting conditions.  The rest were take in studio where it is much simpler to control the lighting.

The last thing to understand is that you WILL get rejected at least once.  It's almost as if they reject you a few times just to see if you are serious.  Just pay attention to the photos they approve, and the reason they reject each one.  It's ok to resubmit the ones that got approved the next time, though you might just want to try 10 totally new pictures and see what happens.  It's totally up to you.

Once you do get the approval for your account, each individual picture is generally easier to get approved.  Though I have days where they reject everything I submit and then days that I get accepted photos I thought for sure wouldn't make it.  We will just call that whim of the reviewer! :)