I finally made it
It’s been four years since I picked up my first DSLR camera with a view to starting making videos, and two years since I decided to start selling footage and photos on stock websites. We’re near the end of 2020 and I can safely say that I finally made it! Or, something among those lines.
The paparazzi years
I was always fond of cameras of all shapes and forms. From using cheap one-use film cameras you could buy at your corner store, to admiring professional photographers and their big ass lenses. There was a time in my life where I used to carry a small, cheap, point & shoot digital camera with me everywhere I went. It was a mighty Sony mirrorless compact camera, smaller than my mobile phone, that perfectly fit into my back pocket, to the point I forget I had it with me.
It’s main purpose? To document my nights out with friends and pass it around at parties for people to take their own so we can capture a more spherical view. I would end up with more than 300 pictures every time, with having taken less than 100 to be considered an unsuccessful night. I would wake up the next morning, most times hangover, grab the camera and start browsing through the photos, filling in the gaps from the night before, or reliving some of the greatest moments.
Most of the pictures were random, out of focus, not properly framed, or even unusable altogether. There were others, however, that looked like those photos paparazzi take at nightclubs when a celebrity ventures out, documenting their night out for the world to see. I loved those pictures! Some rather embarrassing, others a great representation of what was going on, but every single one of them served its purpose to the fullest. Immediately after I “reviewed” them, I would either upload them on Hi5 (yes, that’s how old I am) and Facebook, or share them with friends directly. No editing, no cropping, no white-balance adjustments. I was shooting in auto with the flash on after all.
Getting serious
The weird thing about my early years with photography was that I rarely took my camera with me to trips. I just didn’t like taking pictures of my adventures. Stupid, I know, but I didn’t want to carry a camera with me on top of everything else, even if it fit into my back pocket. All the pictures I have from old trips are either from other people’s cameras, or my 0.6-2 megapixel phone.
It was not until recently that I started seeing things in a different light. A few years ago, I got into making videos and documenting my life. At the time, my wife and I were travelling quite a lot, doing weekend getaways in beautiful European cities. So naturally, I wanted to document these travels and make travel videos. However, I didn’t want to do this with a GoPro, so I bought my first Canon DSLR camera. Ever since, every time we pack for a trip, I pack a 40L camera backpack, stuffing in as much gear as I possibly can. Different lenses, bodies, filters, drones, the works.
Photography and cinematography are quite expensive “sports”. Every item you add on your gear list, it’s a significant dent on your wallet. At some point, I decided to stop buying new gear until I either use the current one to its full potential and wear it down, sell items to buy new, or try to find a way to make some money out of this hobby to buy more.
So I decided to start selling existing footage and pictures on stock websites.
Am I a stock photographer now?
After doing some thorough research on various stock websites, I decided to go with Pond5 and exclusively sell my footage and pictures with them. I started by uploading anything that i thought it could be used by others in whatever shape or form. I researched best practises for selling stock footage, ensured that I was selling all the right portions from my clips and only editing them slightly, enough to make them enticing to my target audience.
One thing that every stock photography site recommends you do is to project the next trend and purposely shoot footage with the intention to sell them. But this is my hobby and I didn’t have the intention to become a professional stock photographer, so I wasn’t going to shoot footage with the sole intention to sell it afterwards. I did, however, start paying more attention to the details when filming my videos. The more videos I’d upload on Pond5, the more hopeful I’d become that the latest video will sell. Two years went by and I’ve had 0 purchases, until earlier this year.
The sweet taste of success
I woke up one morning in October of 2020 to an email from Pond5. Being used automatically delete all promotional emails, I instantly went for the “trash” button. To my surprise, this wasn’t just another promotional email. The title of the email read “Congratulations, your media was purchased on Pond5!”.
My heart started racing. I opened the email to find out that one of the clips from a year ago was recently purchased by someone. I was ecstatic! Someone, for whatever reason, wanted to use my clip in their project. Big or small, I didn’t care. I had just made my first $24! It’s a tiny amount, but it has the sweetness of a first sale which makes it all the more exciting!
Soon, I found out that I would probably never see this money in my bank account. As it turns out, I didn’t qualify for the minimum payout of $25. I better forget about the money altogether and keep that feeling of success.
Two months in, and I woke up to another similar email from Pond5. “Your media was purchased on Pond5!”. Wait a minute. Really? Did I just get a second sale? I certainly did. And this time for even more. Which also meant that I qualified for the minimum payout which I received in full a few days later.
Have I made it? No. Is it enough for me to invest in more gear? Certainly not. But it’s this sweet feeling of accomplishment that matters, similar to the one I had when I got my very first pay-check from my first job. For what is worth, I’ll keep uploading.
You never know. One day I might write a story about how I purchased my first lens with the money I got from selling stock. You could even say that you contributed to that if you want ;-).
Until next time…
