Last week I openend my own shop at Werk aan de Muur to sell my pictures. They sell pictures from various photographers or artists, each having their own shop, and print them on different materials, such as canvas, aluminium, Xpozer, or even wood, in a number of sizes. Or just image prints to frame yourself.
It looks like an interesting concept because they bring photographers and artists closer to the public because they sell what the audience wants: art on the wall and freedom to choose.
The other interesting concept is that the photographer may decide himself how much he wants to earn for his image as a percentage of the material it is put on. A small percentage may increase the sales, a high percentage may show exclusivity. I will have to find out how it works.
They really strive for quality, for example, the pictures should have at least 9M pixels, to make sure that they can be blown up quite a bit. This means that I cannot submit some of nice pictures taken with my older cameras. Furthermore, they select some of the pictures to be part of their collection, which are presented first to potential buyers.
Until now I put 20 pictures in my shop to see how the traffic to My Shop @ Werk aan de Muur picks up. In a later blog I hope to inform you of my first sales.
Category: Shop
250 sales on Dreamstime
Yesterday I reached 250 sales on Dreamstime. Above you see the last picture that was sold to complete the 250. Since 2009 I have been selling a slowly increasing number of pictures, although it is not a lot (especially not in money) compared to some of the other contributors to Dreamstime, I am proud of it.
| 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
| 22 | 35 | 41 | 33 | 49 | 66 |
I always wonder where my pictures appear. Do they appear in books, magazine, calendars, or on the web? It is impossible to find out because the buyer is known only to Dreamstime and not to me.
Another question is what kind of pictures are sold and which ones sell best. The interest of the buyers is wide spread; the last couple of years of almost all photoshoots I sell at least one picture. The pictures that sell best are cityscape and waterscapes. Also my two models are doing quite well. Furthermore, my Chinese pictures are also popular. The most popular picture is of Budapest in winter.
Here you will see all the pictures that are sold via Dreamstime.
Dreamstime, a perfect micro-stock website
Dreamstime is a micro-stock website where photographers like me can sell their pictures. Since March 2009 I am a member and since a couple of years I am an exclusive photographer with Dreamstime. The amount of money I make out of it is, however, nothing compared to the investment in equipment. What is rewarding for me is getting pictures accepted by Dreamstime and that somebody actually buys a picture. The acceptance procedure is quite tough (my acceptance ratio is now 65%). This means that on the average two-third is accepted.
Above you see my first accepted picture. It is the river the Maas flowing through Maastricht at night. My currently last accepted picture is of my last visit to Beijing. It is one of the buildings of the Prince Gong Mansion.
In total I now have 350+ pictures accepted, ranging from landscapes, cityscapes, seascape, and portrait. In total I sold almost 250 licenses. The best selling picture is of Budapest covered by snow (12 times).
Although the pictures in this blog look like they are of low quality (this is needed for a fast download) the original pictures are of high quality. Please contact me if you are interested in one of them. Here are all my Dreamstime images in chronological order.