Hi guys,

So after having a rather inactive account in Shutterstock for about 2 years (with about 30/40 images, generating 100 dollars over the year mostly from a single photo) I've decided to step up my game and try to take this a little more seriously.

In the past 3 months I've uploaded roughly 400 new images, moving most of the earning to new photos and in December coming close to 10$ (9.52 so far). I'm also uploading to a few of the other sites (Fotolia, pond5, 123rf and dreamstime) - but they generated a total of about 4$ in the past 3-4 months (iStock seems too complicated as it requires a different upload process, and I can't figure out what to do with Envato).

I'm trying to figure out how well I'm doing, get some feedback on my photos and basically figure out where to go from here the goal is 100$ a month. What should I do next? I'm at around 450 images, aiming to get to 1000 in a few months (a lot of backlog needs keywording) but wondering what else I can / should be doing?

Shutterstock profile is - https://www.shutterstock.com/g/guyn

Hi guys,

So I've got a catalog of about 350ish photos. I've been completely ignoring editorial photos so far assuming there's less market for them. Am I right? Is it worth reuploading images that were rejected for commercial use (but can be used for editorial images?)

Cheers

I'm not sure if your stuff will sell, but i sure do like your photo's.

Thanks That means a lot
I really need to find some way to make some money out of this hobby as it's costing me a fortune and microstock seems to be the only way (I'm trying society6 for prints with 0 luck)

I'd be open for other ideas ^^

The coati images. By the way, I believe you misspelled coati in your descriptions. They say caoti.

Ah, yes there was flash in use and yes it's horrible, I'm just flushing some of my old photos in to try and increase gallery size. Also good spot on the spelling I think your right

Most of the images are newer and are of better quality / white balance it just seemed a shame not to use some of the old ones as well

I tend to agree with Sean because your work largely reflects my portfolio: Attention to detail but how many buyers will you find looking for street numbers or train tracks? I'm starting to stay away from general subject matter and paying more attention to themes relevant to today's issues: Environment. Religion. etc.

I just find it incredibly hard to take those photos as property / model release have become so aggressive that I can't get anything in that has something that might resemble a logo etc. this has been incredibly frustrating and even if I can challenge (and sometime win) rejections, its a very long process (weeks) and is usually not worth the effort.

Could you share your portfolio btw? Would love the inspiration

Hi guys,

I've opened a Shutterstock account a couple of years ago, uploaded a few photos and completely forgot about it.
Last month I came back and realised I made about 100$ which is not a lot but still a nice surprise so I've decided to give this another go.
I now have about 250 photos uploaded to Shutterstock, Fotolia and Dreamstime (and a few others). While I am making some money on Shutterstock I've made 0$ on all other services.
I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong and would love to get some feedback. I realise not all photos are great, but most of them (I think) are usable.

My Shutterstock gallery - https://www.shutterstock.com/g/gnesher

Any feedback (serious please) would be really appreciated.