The question is: where will the buyers go to look for bird photos?

And: are you planning to make more rare bird photos so that you have a collection that you can present?

Have you researched if there are maybe specialised wildlife agencies that might be interested in your image (and then they redistribute their collection via Getty or other places)

One single image is hard to sell. A collection is more interesting.

Good luck.

There are several stunning photos of Gyps indicus on Flickr, btw, some of them cc. (tell me about it!)

I recently read of someone who had used 'Creative Commons' images in a book. With permission. Only to discover later that the person who uploaded the shots did not own them and had no business granting the permission or redistributing the images as CC. Buyers are best sticking to using agencies which provide a clear legal guarantee complete with compensation etc. The agencies could do a better of spreading the word re these sorts of issues.

If the photo is cc probably no point quoting a high price. But on another note I sold spotted owlet for credit at IS. There would be even more of those cc on flickr if I am not wrong. Sorry can't take amazing shots of 100 critically endangered species. The thought makes me faint with joy and grief. It would take ten years and a bank robbery per my analysis

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Of the micros, iS is almost certainly your best bet, though with subs, that's not so clear. If you're indie, just send them wherever. My main interest is also birds/wildlife, but you'll never be rich. A lot of wildlife photographers gift their images to wildlife charities, Arkive or give them CC. That's what I currently intend to do if/when I stop being iS exclusive (not CC as they'd probably get used commercially).

I was at a talk on wildlife photography where the speaker showed a photo of a Hen Harrier (not so very rare bird; rare, fantastic and beautiful photo) and explained the process of getting the photo over two years, including making several pieces of photo equipment without which the shot would have been impossible. A lot of that time was working out what he'd need to make the image, working out how to make the equipment, then months waiting for the wild bird to be in the right position and hoping the light would be at least good when the bird was there.. He got two clicks, one perfect, the other OK. I have no idea how much he has made on the image, but it certainly gets him bookings as a speaker!

Shadysue the only money he gets is probably from being a speaker he he . And this is only a hen harrier, whew. He should have tried the critically endangered birds for that effort. Atleast something for people to remember them by. Hen harrier can wait.

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Shadysue the only money he gets is probably from being a speaker he he . And this is only a hen harrier, whew. He should have tried the critically endangered birds for that effort. Atleast something for people to remember them by. Hen harrier can wait.

Interesting guy. He was always mainly interested in wildlife, but had a career as a wedding photographer. Realised after years that he was happiest when he didn't have a booking for a while so that he could go off and shoot wildlife for the love of it. Now he has taken a big pay drop to be the staff photographer for the UK's biggest wildlife charity. He has to do all the 'corporate events' stuff etc for press releases, but he also gets access and insider information not available to other people.

Do you get the BBC wildlife TV programmes where you live? Nowadays, they often have a ten-minute segment at the end showing how the footage was made, whereby I realise that I'm such a dilettante. For one of the Madagascar programmes, the film-makers were stuck in a tiny tent on a platform in a tree for four weeks while it poured, bored silly and playing cards (I'm sure they came down at night!). Anyway, they got the footage when the rain stopped, I think it was about ten or fifteen seconds as shown.

^^What Gannet says.
Also be aware also that serious wildlife publishers don't buy from micros as they need guarantees that the birds are fully wild and the photo hasn't been altered other than dust spot removal and a bit of levels.
If you check through e.g. on iS, you'll see that micro buyers often prefer a 'lovely photo' taken in a zoo than a more natural 'wild' image, even if it's perfectly obvious that the animal is in a zoo.

All of my birds are wild and...... photoshopped im sorry but without photoshop my mom won't buy it

Stick to micros, then.

Colour is strictly not allowed. I know I know. I've seen nat geo pics and i've seen those same birds a thousand times. If they aren't photoshopped i'll eat my shirt

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Colour is strictly not allowed. I know I know. I've seen nat geo pics and i've seen those same birds a thousand times. If they aren't photoshopped i'll eat my shirt

The places that bloke who did the talk sells his pics to ask to see the original RAW file as well as the .tif.

That's right its probably so that place can do a better photoshop and have full control.

No, it's to make sure there have been no changes to the original.
Also he has to sign guarantees to that effect.

A rare bird photo should be sold as RM and not RF. It is unlikely to get many sales but if someone does want it, there will probably be few photos to choose from. Therefore they should be forced to pay a decent amount for such a photo. This kind of photo is wasted on micro. Leave micro for very popular animals that sell over and over.

Can you suggest RM agencies, other than Alamy, mentioned above, which would accept one image?

Not sure how scarce photos of this vulture are but they seem common on some nature sites

http://www.arkive.org/indian-vulture/gyps-indicus/image-G12929.html

Maybe this site?

http://images.sciencesource.com/search?function=query&gallery=8&key=Indian+Vulture

Interesting. I wonder how well that site sells. Surprisingly, I notice it doesn't have any pics of some localised species I just searched for.

Quote from: pkphotos on June 02, 2014, 08:04

A rare bird photo should be sold as RM and not RF. It is unlikely to get many sales but if someone does want it, there will probably be few photos to choose from. Therefore they should be forced to pay a decent amount for such a photo. This kind of photo is wasted on micro. Leave micro for very popular animals that sell over and over.

Can you suggest RM agencies, other than Alamy, mentioned above, which would accept one image?

Yes sorry, that is indeed the problem, finding where to put it. It's wasted in Alamy, so perhaps a science/nature type agency like the suggested link above

Honestly, if you say it wouldn't be accepted on SS, it wouldn't be accepted on any of the serious specialists. Like I said, most of them require at least 100/200 to get started, of species or behaviours they don't have already on their files, and lots require a commitment of so many new files in a certain period, like 100/3 months, or whatever.

I'm exclusive for RF on iStock, you can't opt out certain genres, and I sell RM on Alamy, but my sales are low there (I don't have much wildlife there).

I had a look at that ScienceSouce site's submission guidelines and contract, and they were very vague, though you had to direct them to a 'portfolio', which I'm guessing would be more than 'a few'.
I wouldn't worry one iota about its Alexa rank. There is hardly likely to be a flood of new people visiting specialist wildlife agencies. If they're any good, they'll be targetting only the specialised buyers, responding to want lists etc. They do say they send out lists of what's wanted.

I do see a lot of the UK specialist magazines. A lot of the articles are either written and photographed by the same person, providing a package, or a writer and photographer have collaborated on an article.
The bloke I mentioned before mostly submits directly to magazines (the strict ones that have to see the RAW file). I don't know if he writes, submits on spec, or if he is commissioned to take photos to illustrate already-commissioned articles. I have seen his pics published, but never anything he might have written.
I have to say also that a lot of these (not all) are published by wildlife charities and their photos are donated or bequeathed (they don't go out of date!) by supporters or taken by staff.

Thanks everybody, for all your helpful suggestions. I will upload the gyps on IS. On another note, I just wrote pied cuckoo on SS. HA, gotcha ! My shot is a 100 times better than the lone one on SS Though I don't think it's gonna sell a lot Not like there is a huge demand for pied cuckoos

Likewise for Mangrove Cuckoo: http://tinyurl.com/p6jg2th

Getting anything unique is just about impossible nowadays.

Quote from: ShadySue on June 03, 2014, 16:36

Likewise for Mangrove Cuckoo: http://tinyurl.com/p6jg2th
Getting anything unique is just about impossible nowadays.

Quite right. Which is why I shoot wildlife for the pure joy of it. Yep, I confess to being one of those infamous "hobbyists" (ie, retired after decades of doing some other job) that the "pros" around here get huffy about.

I'm sure most wildlife photographers do it for the love of it - they need the 'day job' to fund the equipment!

Looking at that page of Mangrove Cuckoo shots, I found a few that look exactly like mine. I take too much pride in my work to publish something like that in my name, even for an extremely rare species.

Guess we won't be seeing any of your work on #wildphotofail:
https://www.facebook.com/BBCSpringwatch/posts/654589081301270

Quote from: ShadySue on June 03, 2014, 18:17

Guess we won't be seeing any of your work on #wildphotofail:
https://www.facebook.com/BBCSpringwatch/posts/654589081301270

LOL!!! Nope. I have made plenty of shots exactly like those, Sue, but they quickly disappear into the trash. Not quite sure what the point of that page is, but...

Springwatch is a very popular UK TV programme and they have little fun items in their Springwatch Unsprung 'loose-format' programme afterwards.

That FB page is too funny. Love it!

You got that right, Shelma! And here I thought all my blurry outtakes had no possible use. Shows what I know.