Do any of you supply Getty or Istock?

I read their websites, and I don't know what to make of it.

Is there potential? Is it good? How do most photographers feel about stock photography?

Do any of you make real money through stock agencies?

I don't however I do know a few photographers that do and make a reasonable amount. (UK Photographers). Generally making £1000-£1500 a month. Although generally that's about 3-5 full res images.

The key is to upload with the right tags, it's a little bit like google in that respect.

It is quite hard to get approved by Getty and iStock though

I don't, but I know a number of iStock photographers who make a full time living off of it. It's a different sort of work, but they do it well.

I'm not sure how other photographers 'feel' about stock is at all relevant - stock photographers sure like it well enough. Mostly, you have to be thinking like a designer and marketing team. Anything you take a photo of - if you want it to sell, you have to have several ideas of how it could be used for different purposes. Even if you hit the other points needed for approval as a stock photo (resolution, sharpness, logos, etc etc etc), it does not mean it will ever make you any money. However, if you CAN click into the right type of photos needed, you WILL do well. Sometimes that relies as much on your abilities to keyword your photos properly as it does in the photography itself. So, it's different. but seeing it done WELL, I have respect for those who do it well.

bad stock photography is easy :P

I took all my stock shots off iStock when Getty bought them out.

I work for editorials, newspapers and magazines, and have seen how Getty have priced out a lot of photographers and created an unsustainable pricing model. They're now trying the same at iStock, dropping royalty rates claiming iStock isn't sustainable.

I'm now concentrating on Alamy reasoning that I'd rather have a few good money sales over hundreds of sales worth pennies.

When you consider the work you need to put in to make microstock financially viable you'd be better off taking a part time job as a sales assistant in a camera shop.

If you're looking for some pocket money though I'd go for it, just don't see it as a substantial part of your income.

My issue with these sites is the amount of competition. Just seems like your photo would get lost in an endless sea of similar photos. I understand that tagging and keywords are a big part of it, but, it also seems that most of the people on these sites know this as well.

I have yet to find an istock or microstock photographer that makes a living, there was one guy who did in the paper but the failed to mention he also HIRES the models, has YEARS of experience, and spends more than half he makes on getting the right images, so the "100K" he made was BS! Always seems someone knows someone who does, but haven't seen it proven yet.