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| Photo by Dennis Langerak |
What is microstock? Microstock
photography or micropayment photography is a kind of stock photography where
the stock photo agency sources their images through the internet. Microstock
photo agencies target a wider range of photographers unlike the traditional
stock photo agencies where they only accept professional and reputable
photographers.
Semi-pro, hobbyist or amateurs
are welcome to join the microstock industry and contribute photos for the
agencies to sell online. Images are sold at a very low price ranging from
$.20-$10 for a royalty free image.
Microstock all started when Bruce
Livingstone (creator of istockphoto.com) created a free stock photo site which
is now one of the biggest microstock agencies in the world---istockphoto.com. Over the years,
istockphoto.com has grown bigger and this led to the rise of other microstock
photo agency websites.
Microstock websites don’t charge
the photographers a fee to post their work on the site but they get profit
share from every photo downloaded from their website. Photos submitted by
photographers do not get accepted right away. Each photo is carefully reviewed
by a team of photo screeners employed by the microstock agency to ensure that
all photos in their database are of high quality.
Are you passionate about
photography? Why don’t you try shooting photos for microstock and earn extra
money? J
