Shutterstock started out in 2003 with 30 000 images, all from the creator, Jon Oringer.
After a few years, in 2006, the site had over half a million pictures for sale and was the biggest stock photo site around. In 2007 that number grew to 1,8 million. By 2010 that number had increased to 11 million. Today there are around 144 million royalty free images with around a million added weekly!For consumers this is great. Chances are high you'll find the images you are looking for. For the photographers however this is a growing nightmere! In 2003 there was 1 contributor, now there are over 500 000 active contributors.
What happens when supply is bigger than demand?
The prices go down and competition rises.
In order to make any decent money on Shutterstock
you'll need a kickass portfolio which stands out... and that portfolio has to be big.You'll also need to stay ahead of the curve, create holiday pictures well ahead of time, find the newest trends, always analyze what sells, what doesn't. This a lot of work and it might not pay off. It's extremely difficult for newcomers to step in.
My portfolio is relatively small with 540 active images. With half a year I've managed to sell 78 times, with the most popular images gathering 20 sales. In total I've made 26,80$. On Steemit I can make that money in a day as of now.
This is interesting.
In Shutterstock my images will keep earning money indefinitely while on Steemit I'll get paid in a week and that's that. These are two different models.
On Shutterstock it's important to keep building your overall portfolio which will increase your monthly income. Steemit on the other hand is an attention economy. You portfolio size won't matter. In both cases you need to keep adding new content regularly. Steemit will give bigger rewards per content, but in the long run Shutterstock should start paying a decent sum as well although thanks to the ever increasing competition that payout will become harder and harder to get to.
In Conclusion
I think stockphotography is moving fast from being someone's main source of income to simply a side-income due to the increasing amount of contributors. Steemit could provide a healthy alternative to amateurs that don't receive anything worth mentioning from stock sites, though it will never replace shutterstock in the long run. As time goes by Photographers have to get more and more creative in finding ways to sell their services/images.Let me know what you think!
Interested in photography?
Some of my previous posts!
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Feel free to use my images :)
Questions about photography are welcome!
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Have a great day!
