Like any photographer with an online presence, I wanted to be able to sell prints of my images online. I have a number of images that I think are worthy of hanging on the walls of homes and businesses (corporate art I guess), and I also have portraits that I have done of various people (mainly my daughter’s senior pictures and the Lakewood High School Cheerleaders). In either case, it is the ultimate convenience for my customers to be able to review their images online, tell me if they want any of them retouched, then be able to order the final versions in whatever dimensions or on whatever material (canvas wrap, coffee mug, etc) they want.
I took these things into consideration when I started looking for an online gallery source. I could have done it myself, using Gallery2 or similar software, but I honestly didn’t want to handle the back-end pieces of fulfillment. A one stop shop was a good idea. So I researched the different sites out there. Smugmug is widely regarded as the market leader. The there is Zenfolio and a bunch of others.
I have friends on Smugmug, and I never really liked how the sites looked. I know customization is possible, but I was hoping to avoid that. Zenfolio, however, had a nice, clean interface. The ordering process was straightforward. They let me do coupons and all that sort of stuff. The only thing they were lacking was digital downloads. This is a pretty big deal in this day and age. A number of other sites offer this. As recently as July, they indicated this was a priority and they were working on it. As recently as 10/28 though, they made it crystal clear that we won’t see it in the immediate future.
Instead, Zenfolio is putting their development focus on allowing comments on photos. I have a couple issues with this.
1. Zenfolio is not Flickr. It is a commerce site. Comments are secondary in nature to the sales process.
2. Digital downloads offer immediate $$ returns. As a photographer looking to make money from my images, this is a priority to me.
I have already lost at least one sale that I know of because I didn’t have an immediate download option available. And that was someone who took the time to let me know. How many opportunities have their been that I was not aware of?
It’s my own fault really. I have this need to be different, and give “new guys” a chance even when it might not make the most sense. I have learned my lesson though. I am signing up for my Smugmug free trial today and will start using their tools to migrate my stuff away from Zenfolio. The good news is that the “Print of the Week” entries will now be available as digital downloads, so you can use them as a desktop, print them for yourself at home, or however you want to use it. Commercial licensing will also be available if you want to use one of my images for an ad campaign or something similar. I’ll let you know as soon as this is available.
By the way – if you have found this post and are a dissatisfied Zenfolio / Flickr / Picassa / Phanfare / Yahoo / Photosite customer, go to smugglr.smugmug.com and see how you can migrate your stuff to Smugmug, and save significantly on your first year with them.
Getting Into Stock Photography?
Only one thing seems to generate a livelier debate in the photography world than Canon versus Nikon – stock photography. Magazines and blogs are rife with material talking about the evils of microstock, the difficulties of getting proper rights managed sales, and people wondering what the problem is. It has indeed become a world where anyone with a good camera can contribute, but it doesn’t appear a lot of people are making any money at it.
When I finally decided to get serious about photography a couple years ago, I thought I could make a go of being a stock photographer. Then I had a wake up call. I submitted several images that i thought had real potential, only to be rejected for what seemed like various and random reasons. Indeed, some of the stock photo companies seem to have so many reviewers working. As a result, the subjective part of what gets accepted and what doesn’t feels very disjointed and random. Ultimately, I did have some submissions accepted. I have even had a few sales (the sum total has amounted to about $3.50).
The bottom line is that, for me anyhow, stock photography was not all I thought it could be. Sure, there are success stories out there. But as with other parts of photography, there are a few well known success stories sprinkled in among the majority of people who have had little success. What made me write about this today? I was reading a copy of Photoshop User last weekend, and a nice parody of the concept of stock photography was presented. Earlier in the morning, there was a Denver Post article talking about how Colorado is pursuing the license rights as a taxable item. My hat is off to the photographer mentioned, Dan Coffey of Edwards. He has enough money coming in from stock photography to have a significant tax problem if the state can come after that income source. But he is one of the few. If you are thinking about getting into the stock photography game, think long and hard about it, and look at your images with a very critical eye.