Free Stock Photography as a Way to Gain Exposure
When it comes to the term stock photography, most photographers think photos that they sell from their website for various purposes. Others may think of the big sites like iStockPhoto, which allow amateur photographers to sell their work. Those sites aren’t just for amateurs however; they can also help professionals to gain exposure.
Offering free stock photography may help you to get noticed, and makes for a simple (free) way to showcase your talent to the world.
What is Free Stock Photography?
If you have never been involved with them, there are many stock photo sites out there that sell photos. Most of these sites focus on selling single user licenses for $0.99 cents or less. One of these licenses allows the purchaser to use a copy of a photo on a website, or for various other uses.
All of the big stock photo sites share one thing in common. To gain buyers they offer some photographs for free. Getting involved by offering some of your own photographs on these sites is an easy way to gain exposure for your work, your website, and in turn to sell more stock photos from your own site.
Free Stock Photography: 5 sites that can get you noticed
To take advantage, of offering a few free photos to gain exposure, you need to ensure two things. First you need a site that is popular enough that your photo will get noticed. Next you need to ensure that you can post a profile to link to your own site, and tell something about your own work.
There are literally hundreds of sites out there that will allow you to do this. To get you started though, here are five that offer both of the aforementioned.
1. iStockPhoto (http://www.istockphoto.com)
2. Snap Village (http://snapvillage.com)
3. Foto Search (http://www.fotosearch.com/)
4. ComStock Images (http://www.comstock.com/web/default.asp)
5. Acclaim Images (http://www.acclaimimages.com)
Once you have selected a site, simply build a profile. Ensure that you tell something about yourself and your work. Also be sure to link to your own site from within that profile. Once finished, submit an image to the free stock photography directory.
It may be worth submitting a few images to sell as well. Although you shouldn’t expect big returns, at $0.20 per license, it can help your profile to look more rounded and become more popular on the website. There’s also the chance that someone may actually pay for an extended use license (which does pay a half decent amount for a photo).
With a couple of free stock photos on the bigger sites you can expect more traffic to your own sales site. Free stock photography really is one way to gain exposure for your work!
