Hi All
I've been taking many photos over the years, and it's time to start making some money from my hard work so wondered if anyone had any advice on where to sell them, most of them I want to put on a stock library, others (my better ones) I'm not sure what to do with as I think they are worth more than stock. I shoot mainly landscapes and cityscapes, some macro. I've attached an example.
Thanks
Jason[attachment=19183:london_eye_feb_08.jpg]
For stock you could try alamy. They pay very good per license, but it takes some stamina and careful editing to actually make sales. You will only make real money there if you did shoot your pics specifically for the stock market with a good sense of what people might want to buy and what is missing in the alamy library. I have about 500pics (manly travel) online and made five or six sales in about 3 years. On average I made 200 Euros per sale. The highest sale came from a photo that was licensed to TIME Magazine.
For gallery type images you can try LUMAS (just google it) You can apply online via a pdf portfolio. Be aware however that they look for very specific kind of images and even if your photos are very good they may not want them because they dont fit their portfolio. ( Very generally speaking and with some exceptions, they look for desaturated, green tinted out of focus images that look like old school polaroid stuff.I have to admit that this is not my kind of thing.)
For nature images there are a few online poster stores that accept submissions by virtually everybody. Dont expect sales however, if your image is just added to some online library and burried there among thousands and thousands other presumably not so good images. If you make a sale through this kind of businesses profits are usually marginal and not worth the effort.
In essence: You can always do stock. If you want to sell art as in prints and your work does not fit into a gallerys portfolio you need to do self promotion. Try to sell prints locally directly to people. If you are successful you could set up a gallery. You will increase your chances to get into a gallery if your pictures have been published a lot and can be considered artistic or the very least decorative.
To be honest, these days people buy only three kinds of photos to hang on the wall: 1) photos taken by people who have a big name in the business 2) Photos taken by someone they know personally 3)Photos whose artistic quality is "certified" by a reputed art gallery.
Apart from that pictures only sells if they are fit for the particular purpose of the customer.
One last idea: If you dont mind your pictures being perceived as decorative items rather than art, you could approach a home decor store and ask whtether they would sell prints of your pictures. Again, your pictures would have to fit the stores style.