With the lowered prices and relative ease of acquiring DSLR cameras these days, more people have acquired the ability to take quality, high resolution photographs. Back in the day, only pro photographers with expensive camera bodies and lenses were capable of producing images worth paying for. Even at the early stages of digital photography, with DSLRS carrying very hefty price tags, it was only practical for those in the photography business to purchase them. Now it seems everyone has a DSLR dangling on their necks and, though new to the trade, is able to take some pretty decent pictures. With the digital revolution one thing is certain: anyone with a midrange camera or a DSLR can now produce quality images worth paying for.

Aside from the usual paid studio shoots, weddings and other events, new markets are now available for photographers. This is where stock photography comes into play.

Stock Photography is simply displaying your photos online through a host site and earning money once your photo is bought. To give you an idea what stock photos are and why someone would use stock photos, please check out this article

After discovering how easy it is to earn money through your photos you must be pretty excited. I was too, until I read a stock photography site’s training manual. After reading the manual I realized that this is not just fun and games, this is a business. A photo that we think is good enough for our standards may not meet the standards of the company.

With that in mind, it is always good to be prepared, to be ready. So to be ready for stock photography keep the following words in mind:

• Quality
• Usefulness
• Legal requirements

Simply put: Your photos need to be quality work, they need to be useful to the customer, and you need your photos to adhere to the legal requirements of the company.

Each stock photography site has their own unique set of requirements, but the three most common factors are listed above. We will delve deeper and discuss the three factors more clearly in the next article. Now that you have a richer idea of what is stock photography, ask yourself: am I ready for stock photography?