Selling Photos is Difficult

The other day, I received an inquiry from someone overseas asking if I sell my photos. I had previously tried various methods to sell my photos online, but it’s quite challenging. There are several ways to sell photos online.

The first option is to print the photos yourself and sell them on your website or a platform for selling products.

The second option is to use a platform that takes care of both printing and shipping for you.

The third option is to use a platform that sells digital photo files.

The first option is quite difficult. Printing and shipping the photos is labor-intensive, and it becomes even more complicated when shipping overseas. Since the first option doesn’t work, I would like to rely on the second one. I’ve spent a lot of time researching various platforms and even listed my products on some of them, but I’m still in the trial and error stage. The third option seems to have slim chances of success. I’ve tried platforms like Shutterstock, but it’s tough to get through their strict quality standards, such as noise and blur. Also, most of my photos are candid photography, so they naturally include people’s faces. This makes selling photos of people quite challenging since I don’t have their permission. Of course, I submit photos without people’s faces (especially close-ups) for review, but it’s quite difficult for an amateur like me. I guess the platforms’ critiques are valid since I don’t pay much attention to camera shake and don’t hold my camera properly. Still, failing the review process does hurt my confidence.

I’m still waiting for some review responses, and there are platforms I haven’t tried yet, so I’ll continue experimenting. If anyone happens to see this post and has any advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

I wonder how to sell candid photography effectively. But first, I need to take good photos that people would want to buy.

Below, I’ll post some photos that didn’t pass the review process.