Selling photos with Shutterstock + tips for submitting

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In May of 2006, I bought my first digital SLR. A Rebel XT from Canon. By June, I'd already taken close to 5000 pictures with it. Add that to all of the shots I'd collected over the years with my point and shoot Olympus, and you're looking at a LOT of pictures. I wanted to find a way to make some extra money, and stumbled upon stock photography. It was an excellent route to get rid of some of my older pictures. So, I signed up. Part of the registration requires you to submit 10 images for review. In hindsight, what I submitted could have been 100 times better, but you learn as you go, right? The minimum to pass is 7 of 10, and that's what I got through. I was pretty happy. I shot mostly editorial, and those don't sell too great. After roughly 1000 images online, and over 700 sales, I've hit two payouts for over 200 dollars total. Not bad for images that otherwise would have just collected dust. I've since tuned my skills and have been recently accepted with a larger, more traditional stock agency, so I am stepping away from Shutterstock. Anyone looking to get into the stock photo business, whether for a full time gig or for extra cash for equipment, you need to learn the business before you go in head first. Find out what sells, what doesn't, what gets accepted, and what will get you rejected. Shutterstock is specifically picky with noise, sensor dust, lens dust, poor lighting, and poor composition. They're also pretty picky with focus. Narrow DOF might do wonders on a portrait, but it's not necessarily what they're looking for. Tips for selling? Shoot what sells. Take a look at the top selling and most popular. They're almost all 'people' shots, all model/property released, and all are shot with good technique. The rest are purely creative, well done shots of every day items that nobody else had taken time to shoot well. So, if you think it's for you, give it a shot! It's a great place to start out, at least for the images that would never meet the technical requirements of a traditional agency (most big shots require giant image files that even the most top of the line professional cameras can't produce without post processing and upsizing). A 4 or 5 megapixel camera simply can not produce that kind of a result. I highly recommend traditional stock to anyone who is already a honed and technically good photographer. If you're just starting out, give Shutterstock a try. It, along with Dreamstime, were my two top earners. Here are my referral links, should anyone care to join. http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=65792 http://www.dreamstime.com/res161996