Tech bytes for tea?

If you’re passionate about photography, why not submit your pictures to a stock photo agency? It might just make you enough money to pay for your next big lens.

iStockphoto workshop at the Canon Imaging Academy

Rather than let your photos collect dust in an old shoe box get lost and forgotten in the hard disk, try submitting them to a photo microstock agency.

The average contributor’s income may not be astounding, but it could be pocket money for that extra drink at the bar.

Canon Imaging Academy at Habour Front Place

I attended a workshop by Jumpei Matsuoka from iStockphoto last weekend at the Canon Imaging Academy (CIA) at Harbour Front Place.

CIA conducts photography courses, organises local outings and overseas trips, and provides free product training for photographers.

The 1-hour session was over-subscribed and the space had to be extended to accommodate almost forty photographers eager to find out how they could put their photos to work.

Jumpei Matsuoka, GM iStockphoto Japan

Matsuoka is the general manager for Japan and South Korea at iStockphoto.

He talked about how photography buffs can sign up as contributors on iStockphoto and make money from their passion for photography.

He also shared tips on what are the top selling images, the trends in the microstock industry, and how contributors can market themselves to potential customers.

iStockphoto is the world’s original source for user-generated, royalty-free stock images, media and design elements.

Its community of more than 7 million members enjoys access to a content collection approaching 10 million photographs, vector illustrations, flash, audio and video files on the site.

iStockphoto pays out US$1.9 million each week in royalty to its contributing artists.More than 50,000 files are approved each week from the site’s rapidly growing group of more than 125,000 contributing artists, with 5,500 submitting exclusively to iStockphoto.

Many iStockphoto artists earn a full-time living from iStockphoto, and many formerly traditional stock artists see micropayment stock imagery as an additional revenue channel.

I had a chat with Matsuoka after the session. The amicable fellow photographer conveyed a strong passion for photography and emphasised that a contributor should first and foremost possess this passion for photography.

With that as the backdrop, whatever income the contributor earns from submitting photos to a photo stock agency becomes an added bonus for the passion. On top of that, the contributor  actually enjoys the work.

My own feel from speaking with Matsuoka is that if you’re thinking of becoming a contributing photographer, don’t quit your day job just yet.

Start off small by submitting your shots to get a feel of the kind of income you can expect from the endeavour, and whether you have the eye to take photos that the agency will likely approve.

Photographers should know that the emphasis of stock photo agencies is to get photos that their paying subscribers can use – be it for business brochures or other publications.

It’s not so much the usual photo competition where there’s more emphasis on the artistic aspect of photography.

You would have heard wonderful success stories of a handful of contributors who earn big bucks from going full-time as stock photographers. But for the rest of us mere mortals, do test the waters first.

I have included some soundbites from Matsuoka about his perspectives on different aspects of stock photography. Check them out.

So dust out your old photos dig out those photos scattered all over your hard disks, and start shooting, you may just discover your ideal full-time job!