I thought about doing Creative Commons work for Alamy too - but then realized I had hundreds, if not thousands of old slides my father took. I found a cache of Korean War photos he took and uploaded them instead. I've sold a few - not for a thousand, but one went for $100. As an added bonus my brothers appreciate that I've digitalized them for the family. Thanks for sharing your tips. I know it's hard to know if sharing is the right thing to do.
Those Korean war photos are a real treasure! Just to digitize and make those available is public service, even without getting paid. That's fantastic! I am going to have to dig around and see what I can find. Great idea.
Thanks for sharing, very generous of you. I have uploaded portraits from my family archives (late 19th Century to 50s) to Arcangel, one from the 20s has sold, but obviously not for $1000. I may look into the New York Public Library, any way congratulations and thanks again.
I was wondering whether this video would come out! Good on you and thanks for sharing. It was not what I was expecting, so very interesting. I might see if I can do a similar thing in Australia. Do you know why it sold for so much? High volume publishing rights or similar? I find photo licensing a bit of a mystery.
Hey Alistair. The license was for a billboard in NYC. Thats basically all the info I have on that part of things, so not totally sure. Hope you can find something similar in Australia!
I suppose that if, at least in one's mind, what one is selling is the editing work -then there's a justification for it. Of course, it could also be seen as someone selling the Brooklyn (Manhattan) bridge. I expect most of your viewers don't have the photoshop skills (or patience) to do what you did with the image. I wouldn't worry about a rush on the inventory! Was the $1000 sale Alamy's price, or your percentage? I'm fascinated by turn of the (20th) century images and see a lot on Wikipedia. Personally, the only way I would use these photos for sale is if I made them unrecognizable from the original, e.g. cropping out a piece of an old image to use in a composite. btw, a few years ago I sold an ordinary image of an ordinary fast food restaurant for $1250, my take, on Shutterstock. Must have cost the buyer about five grand. The next year I sold the same image and made $500. No idea why. I held my breath for weeks, sure it was a mistake. You work hard and have an amazing portfolio. Congrats. Michael
Hey Michael. $1250 for a fast-food restaurant? That's pretty awesome. I feel like big commissions on shutterstock have become pretty rare these days. With these images, I actually did the work on them with the intention of selling them on Etsy as prints so that's why i went to the effort of really working on the images and making them look good. I would never have done the work for microstock. I was selling prints regularly on Etsy but it was a pain so I shut down that store and moved on from that entirely. Just too busy for packaging and shipping prints. Alamy was just an afterthought since I had the files.
Hi Jeff, thanks for sharing and explanation, great idea, what fascinating me how good are the photographers at old days.
I thought about doing Creative Commons work for Alamy too - but then realized I had hundreds, if not thousands of old slides my father took. I found a cache of Korean War photos he took and uploaded them instead. I've sold a few - not for a thousand, but one went for $100. As an added bonus my brothers appreciate that I've digitalized them for the family. Thanks for sharing your tips. I know it's hard to know if sharing is the right thing to do.
Those Korean war photos are a real treasure! Just to digitize and make those available is public service, even without getting paid. That's fantastic! I am going to have to dig around and see what I can find. Great idea.
Thanks for sharing, very generous of you. I have uploaded portraits from my family archives (late 19th Century to 50s) to Arcangel, one from the 20s has sold, but obviously not for $1000. I may look into the New York Public Library, any way congratulations and thanks again.
Family portraits - fantastic idea. Probably lots of older images and even family video that could sell on sites. Thanks!
I was wondering whether this video would come out! Good on you and thanks for sharing. It was not what I was expecting, so very interesting. I might see if I can do a similar thing in Australia. Do you know why it sold for so much? High volume publishing rights or similar? I find photo licensing a bit of a mystery.
Hey Alistair. The license was for a billboard in NYC. Thats basically all the info I have on that part of things, so not totally sure. Hope you can find something similar in Australia!
Well done Jeff and thanks for the explanation 👍
No problem!
I will pursue.
❤❤❤❤❤
I suppose that if, at least in one's mind, what one is selling is the editing work -then there's a justification for it. Of course, it could also be seen as someone selling the Brooklyn (Manhattan) bridge.
I expect most of your viewers don't have the photoshop skills (or patience) to do what you did with the image. I wouldn't worry about a rush on the inventory!
Was the $1000 sale Alamy's price, or your percentage?
I'm fascinated by turn of the (20th) century images and see a lot on Wikipedia. Personally, the only way I would use these photos for sale is if I made them unrecognizable from the original, e.g. cropping out a piece of an old image to use in a composite.
btw, a few years ago I sold an ordinary image of an ordinary fast food restaurant for $1250, my take, on Shutterstock. Must have cost the buyer about five grand. The next year I sold the same image and made $500. No idea why. I held my breath for weeks, sure it was a mistake.
You work hard and have an amazing portfolio. Congrats.
Michael
Hey Michael. $1250 for a fast-food restaurant? That's pretty awesome. I feel like big commissions on shutterstock have become pretty rare these days. With these images, I actually did the work on them with the intention of selling them on Etsy as prints so that's why i went to the effort of really working on the images and making them look good. I would never have done the work for microstock. I was selling prints regularly on Etsy but it was a pain so I shut down that store and moved on from that entirely. Just too busy for packaging and shipping prints. Alamy was just an afterthought since I had the files.