Many of the photos I take are editorial photos, which can be used for non-commercial purposes, such as for articles in magazines. The nice thing about editorial photos is that you don’t need a model release. I also have dreams of being a photojournalist, so this allows me to indulge that passion.

Some of my editorial photos are about events that happen around my hometown of Ann Arbor Michigan, such as car show photo that ended up in Fodor’s, much to my delight!

But sometimes I’ll take a shot of something I think might come up in articles, such as the Veteran’s hospital, which has ended up in some articles.

It took me a couple years to get that photo, to get just the right angle, on a nice sunny spring day for the blue sky background and with the flowers blooming….

The same rules of photography apply here, but you also have to be careful not to stage anything, and not to edit it in a way that changes the reality of what happened. Then you have to write a caption. I typically follow Shutterstock’s rules for editorial captions – they work for just about all the websites I’m on except iStockphotos, who don’t like the all capital letters.

Where do you put that caption? If you have a photo editing program you can access your photo’s information and put it in the description, along with your keywords, title, etc. That way all the information will load up automatically when you submit your photo into the stock photo website. But it that feels intimidating right now you can add it at the stock photo website after you upload your photo.

Are people telling you they like your photos and you think you might want to sell them? Consider stock photography, it’s been a fun hobby for me that slowly became more of a business for me. Check these great websites to get a general idea of how to get started:

– Digital Photography School’s Shooting for Stock Photography Sites

– WikiHow’s Shoot Stock Photography page

– WikiHow’s Sell Stock Photography page

– Lightstalking Stock Photography page

– SellingGraphics.com 10 Tips How to Get Accepted by Shutterstock

Check these websites, and if you’re ready to go, read the next entries for more details of my path and how you too can become a stock photographer, and don’t intimidated. It was a very long process for me, starting in 2008, just take it one small step at a time, conquer each step as you go, don’t feel you have to know how to do everything right away. I knew close to nothing about photography and certainly nothing about stock photography when I started, so you can do it too.

Best wishes with your own adventures.

When I tell people I am a stock photographer they usually don’t know what that means, so here’s what I tell them. When you read an article in a magazine or on the web, there is usually an accompanying photo – that photo was likely purchased from a stock photo website, such as my Shutterstock site, and photographers such as myself provide photos to the website, and get a cut when our photo is purchased.

So photos on articles are primarily editorial photos. Stock photos are also bought for commercial purposes, for use in greeting cards, billboards, within books, for t-shirts, or anything else. You can see some of the places my photos end up at Sightings of my stock photos.

Alright, you get the idea. As a stock photographer you sell people the right to use your photograph either for editorial use or for commercial purposes. Read the upcoming entries for more information on how to get started with stock photography. Then give it a shot yourself!