Getty Images

Working with Stock Photography

During the last six months, whilst in lockdown I have continued to work on my stock photography portfolio.  This mundane task involves editing and uploading thousands of old photos to the Getty Images portal.  Once on the portal you spend a further number of hours filling in titles, descriptions and adding numerous keywords.  I am now back in the UK after spending the majority of the year in Mexico City.  At home I have several more hard drives dating back over ten years providing me with thousands of additional travel images to keep me busy with this endless task.  

My Current Stock Photography Portfolio

My first experience with stock photography was around ten years ago.  Back then I was a new photographer and avid user of Flickr.com, one of the original photo sharing sites.  Around this time a handful of my Flickr images were hand picked by Getty to be licensed by them through a deal the two companies had together.  For years nothing much happened and due to having a full time office job at the time didn't really do anything about it.  Without any guidance or need to make any money through photography I only started to take stock photography more seriously around two years ago.  Here's the first blog I wrote about the ins and outs of stock photography back in 2018.  Back then I had around one thousand images on my Getty portfolio.  By the end of last year I had over five thousand of my travel and art images for licence via getty and wrote another blog about my experiences.  In February of 2020 I had over seven thousand images for sale on the portal and wrote about that month's sales in this blog.  That month earned me just over $300 with forty of my Getty images being licensed, at the time my best stock photography monthly income to date.  The following six months saw the travel industry and the rest of the World take a big downturn due to the Worldwide Covid-19 pandemic.  The majority of my stock photos are travel related and with lockdowns around the world and the majority of flights suspended the tourism industry ground to a halt.  For me, that unfortunately meant less of my images being sold, with little or no tourism there was no need for companies to buy travel images.  Being in a lockdown myself for those months I used the time productively to continue expanding my Getty portfolio and now have over 12,000 images. After a string of bad monthly payments during these months, my September sales saw an improvement and my best monthly payout to date.  In September 2020 I licensed over fifty images with an average sale price of 6.29 bringing me a monthly income of $350.  Click through the slideshow to view my top five selling stock images in September 2020:

What helped my overall monthly income in September was three big sales each of close to $100. This ensures the overall photo sale average is higher as you also get a large number of sales bringing in less than a dollar per image after Getty take their cut! My top five sales in September included: a silhouetted image of people climbing the famous sand dunes in Huacachina, Ica, Peru. An abstract soft focus image of the Costa Verde in Lima, the Capital of Peru. And one of my best selling travel images of a llama in front of Machu Picchu in Peru. None of these images contain recognisable people or property so do not require model releases to license them. September’s sales have given me the confidence and encouragement to continue my stock photography quest. Whether stock photography is worth it or not is down to your individual circumstances. The process is monotonous and extremely time consuming, the trick to succeeding is having a good workflow in place and regularly uploading instead of letting the years years pass before you start! I wish now I had started years ago, but as always hindsight is wonderful thing!

In addition to having a potential income, Getty gives you an element of prestige as a photographer (although arguable when your images sell for pennies…).  In addition it provides your photography with another channel to be viewed on the Internet.  Hopefully the upward trend of sales will continue and my efforts this year will eventually pay off. You can view my stock photography portfolio on Getty Images here.  If you would like to buy any of my travel images directly please contact me via my website.  More of my travel photography and abstract art photos can be found on my Flickr and Instagram accounts.  For any more information about my photography send an email to: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Enmarcar un Marco: Una útil técnica de composición en fotografía

¿Qué es un 'Enmarcar un Marco'? 

En fotografía 'Enmarcar un Marco' o un 'Marco dentro de un Marco' es cuando el fotógrafo utiliza algún objeto dentro de la misma escena que está presenciando para enmarcar a su sujeto principal. De esta forma, un segundo marco es creado dentro de la imagen: un Marco dentro de un Marco. Esta técnica de composición puede mejorar tu imagen de varias maneras: Primero, lleva la atención hacia el sujeto ayudando a aislarlo de distracciones dentro de la imagen. Segundo, añade profundidad o capas a una imagen que de otra forma podría resultar plana y aburrida. Finalmente, un Marco dentro de un Marco puede crear misterio o intriga llevando al espectador a detenerse a explorar la imagen con más detenimiento. 

Puedes hacer clic en la siguiente presentación para ver algunas de mis fotografías de viaje usando el método de composición 'Enmarcar un Marco':

¿Por qué deberías Enmarcar un Marco? 

La composición es uno de los aspectos más importantes en fotografía. Una correcta composición puede transformar una escena ordinaria en una gran imagen. A diferencia de ciertos elementos fotográficos como la iluminación, no se requiere ningún conocimiento técnico para lograr una composición exitosa. Al final, cualquiera puede crear imágenes usando esta técnica. No importa el precio, marca o modelo, cualquiera con una cámara o un teléfono móvil puede salir e intentarlo hoy mismo. 

Oportunidades para Enmarcar 

Las oportunidades de usar marcos son infinitas, pero muy a menudo pasan desapercibidas. Por ejemplo, la naturaleza nos provee un vasto número de marcos naturales, tales como arboles, nubes o flores. Adicionalmente existen muchos objetos creados por el hombre que también pueden ser utilizados. Entre estos podemos incluir: ventanas, arcos, puentes, edificios, etcétera. Entre más fotografías de este tipo tomes, más potencial descubrirás en las situaciones cotidianas.

En la presentación de arriba se incluyen como ejemplos de Enmarcado: arte moderno en Habana, enmarcado natural en Lima, enmarcado frontal del Taj Mahal en India, la icónica Sagrada Familia vista desde los arbustos, la vista de Budapest y el arco de un palacio en Madrid. 

Los fotógrafos de bodas, viajes o fotografía callejera regularmente utilizan el método de composición Enmarcar un Marco. 

Puedes encontrar más de mis fotografías de viaje en mi página web, Instagram, Página de Facebook, y mi cuenta de Flickr. Si estás interesado en comprar alguna de mis fotos impresas o en alguna colaboración, envía un email a: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.

Geraint Rowland Photography on Getty Images

For the last couple of months I have been going through years of old photos and adding them to my Getty Images account.  It’s a very laborious and time consuming process but hopefully one that will bring in some financial gains in the months to come.  You can view some of my photographs available via Getty images in the slideshow below:

I was originally invited to join Getty images around seven years ago when they joined a partnership with Flickr.  Several of the photos on my Flickr account were chosen to be part of the Flickr collection on Getty including: this travel image of a cat in Chefchaouen, Morocco and this street photograph of a bicycle locked up in London.  I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time and only made a couple of sales over a twelve month period.  If I recall correctly it was only images that they invited from your Flickr account that could go on to the collection at that time.  

In 2014 Getty ended their partnership with Flickr but maintained the user’s contracts.  Therefore if you were an existing Flickr contributor to Getty you could continue on the platform.  In fact they began inviting those contributors to upload more photos to Getty images.  It was around this time whilst travelling in Peru that I met a couple who made their money through stock photography.  They encouraged me to get on board but it did sound like a lot of time and effort at the time, especially whilst travelling. 

How to sell photographs via Getty Images

The upload process for all stock agencies is time consuming and monotonous.  In addition it is difficult to discover concrete information about how stock photography agencies work (especially with Getty) and there is also a lot of competition.  A search for ‘Travel’ on Getty images will produce over four million results, and that is just one of many stock agencies.  So what do you have to do?  Well firstly you have to have sellable, high quality images.  Getty seems to favour artistic imagery more than some of the other agencies but the photos still need to be technically correct with regards to focus and composition.  Next you have the upload process, this involves uploading the images to the Getty platform and adding information to each image.  This information includes: Title, Description and up to fifty key words.  Although you can attach this information to a batch of uploaded images this process takes a long time!  

After submitting your images you then have to wait for the Getty employees to review your work and either accept it, decline it, or send it back for revision.  This waiting period used to take a very long time and could be weeks before anyone even checked the images.  This was another reason I used to tire of the process and gave up trying.  Another is the two month delay in royalty payments and a third issue is their outdated, difficult-to-use upload system.  However, Getty have drastically reduced the waiting time for this process and in my experience images are accepted (or returned) much faster now, often in a 24 hour period.

As I have been finding out there are several reasons for rejecting an image: Getty will not accept images with children under the age of 18.  Images that have recognisable people or property in them need a signed model release form or they can only be sold under an Editorial License.  Certain famous buildings and landmarks in the world are copyrighted and therefore need further information added to the description field of the image.  This is true for the City of Arts & Sciences buildings in Valencia.  Any recognisable trademarks or branding will also be rejected or returned and asked for a revision of the image with the logos removed.  Getty also seem to reject images with street art or graffiti, presumably due to fear of trademark or copyright themselves.

Is it worth it and can you make money via stock photography?

The couple I met in Peru were making around $1000 dollars a month when I last spoke to them around 5 years ago.  They had been in the stock photography game a long time and treated it as a full time job, researching the trends thoroughly and uploading a lot of photos.  Even back then I remember them telling me that it was becoming harder to make a living via stock photography.  Recent feedback I have been receiving from other members on the Getty forum has supported this:  The average price for images sold seems to be constantly decreasing whilst the struggle to get your images seen amongst the huge collection increases daily.

In addition, Getty take a huge slice of the profits, around 80% of the sale, putting a large amount of photographers off using their platform in the first place.  However, Getty is the largest stock agency in the world, and as such they are far more likely to sell the image than you are.  Once the initial time consuming task of uploading the images is completed, all you have to do as a photographer is sit back and wait for the money to roll in (or not as the case may be!). 

If like myself you have a large amount of photos on various hard drives that you are doing nothing with, why not have a go at stock photography?  The key to making it work in the least painful way is to make regular uploads to the stock agencies as and when you take new photos.  Instead I have delayed it for over five years, with tens of thousands of disorganised photos making the task far more complicated than it should have been.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing. 

I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with Getty images or one of the other photographic stock agency companies.  It has been a steep learning curve for me and I am still trying to figure out the system.  At time of writing I have over one thousand images available for license on Getty images (double the number I had six months ago).  I still have several years of travel photos to plough through and upload in the new few weeks.  The images I have available for license via Getty images can be found here.

My Getty collection of travel photographs can be viewed here. More of my travel photography can be found on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook Page and my Flickr account.  If you would like any more information about any of my images please send an email to: geraintrowlandphotography@gmail.com.