About 3 months ago, I paid for a pro membership with 500px because all the reviews were positive. I do that through Getty, and have no plans to link to sales. It isn’t free but their site tools are good and they don’t come with any of the sort of BS 500px does. I have photos on 500px and some of them have a good amount of views and never sold one photo. . Latest in 500px 500px reveals 2018 breach that exposed user data 02.13.19 View. And recognizing that the real motivation of any site like 500px is to make money, they are broadening their reach to attract more people who, good photographers or not, will pay fees to be seen and appreciated. End of the day, I'm frustrated with the fake comments and bots driving subpar or fake/falsely presented photos to the top. A paid membership is currently not an option for me, and I would prefer something that doesn’t require a lot of time. Users can advertise their photography skills and promote their work to potential clients. What’s really surprising is they thought a cat picture was more commercially viable than a food picture. This is the most recent I’ve read – most, for eg about iStock, seem to be from 2013 or before. Shutterstock is one of the largest photo libraries online. It’ll be very interesting if customers value quality enough to pay amounts that make it worthwhile to the photographer. That is one thing for a non commercial blog but for a commercial site it isn’t acceptable IMO. . After the same problems continued to prevent me from logging in, I thought that it might have something to with my password so I changed it. My reason was that the portal could be a valuable backup site to my Aphotofolio site, and second it has a good category setup. Great points. Put everything into it for a couple of years and got insanely popular. If you haven’t already I’d suggest you also read Sarah Marino’s post on that point which I linked to in #1. A professional website with all the features you need. Pays 100% commission. 500px support confirmed with users asking for an explanation that indeed this was a 500px website. It becomes a game. From their blog post (https://500px.com/blog/998/introducing-500px-prime) we have this statement: “We are pricing all licenses in a way that brings dignity to the photographer, we are not joining the race to the bottom. If you just want to display your photos on a network for sharing and not selling, Flickr still does a decent job at that. I agree some of these points are mostly relevant to those trying to make some income from their photography. Within the first couple of years becoming self-employed, digital was the only real option and your website quality and organic SERPs rankings where all you needed online. These days I have social media accounts simply to prevent others using my trading name. These initially look like cute photos showing a glimpse into the daily lives of these birds. What places online do you share your photography and is it a community that celebrates a variety of styles and methods? We can add to this example photographs of drugged frogs holding leaf umbrellas, and insects covered in various substances or refrigerated to make them “pose” in a desired position. Started by PaulieWalnuts General Stock Discussion. I do have several of my photos on the marketplace. Either way, a very unethical way to go about wildlife photography. Regards. A recent development there is that they automatically have new accounts, or accounts that have logged back in after a period away, follow a select group of favored accounts. Find out how to get started and use 500px. I started an account when I first started out in photography, and the initial response I got was really positive, until I realized most people who liked or Favorited my photos, only did so, so I would either follow, or in exchange like or favorite theirs. Thank you Michael for a very thoughtful article. -Tiny logos Many of the best images on 500px are available for royalty-free licensing. Good luck! I read their TOS, and all seemed straightforward and uploaded some photographs. I had reached the top (locally at least) for both with little return. Trends are constantly changing, and buyers are always looking for fresh content. I'm looking into selling photos for money. I requested my latest payment 3 weeks ago, submitted a W9 form, etc., and received nothing in my PayPal account. Hi Michael, would you have any recommendations for people like me who are just starting out? Your Licensing portfolio should reflect changing trends and should not be seen as static. There is always Flickr. Started by Silken Photography New Sites - General. I joined a year ago January. It may be the case that self-marketing is not high on your list of priorities. I could be wrong in my assessment but it is just my opinion. However, I do believe they only offer RF licenses which would certainly clash with your RM licensing on your PS site. Relying on any online platform to sell photography in our best interest with any semblance of honesty is naive at best. 500px is a photo sharing website, meant to compete with flickr. I already feel like I am spread so thin and take so much time on social media already between Facebook, G+, twitter, my website, blog, flickr, etc and wasn’t sure what worth joining 500px would bring. Stand out, get noticed, get sales—easier said than done, but crucial, nonetheless. Well that might depend on what you want to get out of a platform. Anyways, enough of my rant, thank you for the post. I’ve heard of a few that were great (before I heard of them) but have devolved into various unsavory attitudes and cliques. This group is for your and world's pleasure, so let's keep it simple: post only best photos, the one's that you consider your best art works. Great post, Michael. Launch of 500px Art store (service ending in 2015) I was not interested in opting into the print store … 500px ISO is home to the best photo stories on the web. Your dog dies, you announce it and the only option you have is like…says it all. How does decreasing the reward for use on the Bing homepage to $0 work as a first step towards exposure to eventually make money? One of the drawbacks of 500px is that subtle work, or that which might take a few seconds to savor and enjoy is often ignored there. My account with 500px expires next week and with the loss of the actual print orders, there’s just no reason to stay. This may very well have been covered by the 500px main site’s Terms of Service but it still left a bad taste in my mouth. Grand landscapes (for example) are favored over intimate ones. Anyway, i don’t find any insights about, if people do actually sell there. I only use two sites: Flickr & 500px. Not so much for what they are doing to me but I cannot be the only one. The only thing I did like is that the overall quality bar for the work shared there was a bit higher than flickr… and unlike the flickr of way back when, they didn’t seem to have an innate hatred of professional photographers and the idea of using the platform for some self-promotion – something flickr would delete your account if you got caught doing. I sold large and small prints through their original marketplace, but the web/print licensing has not delivered any results. Shutterstock. So I guess it depends on what someone is looking for in a platform to share their photography. Sorry it took me so long to answer you here. Keeping an eye out on our trend related blog posts and staying on top of different articles that are shared in our Contributor Newsletter is key. If you have spent any … I will respond as soon as possible. Ultimately I think the best place to post your photographs is on your own website, and point there from social media, but that isn’t for everyone. Not sure just who is doing the recommending but, IMHO, more than half of the recommended images are simply not of adequate quality — technically or photographically — to even qualify as family snapshots! In some cases I find these on websites based in countries where copyright is only a faint notion, and I have to pretty much pretend I didn’t see the infringement. Copyright © 2020 500px. Thanks for your comment Gary! I reread the 500px Terms of Service, and it looks like they have permission to do so! If you really want to go to the next level I would host your own website with your own domain name. I’m an amateur, a hobbyist who’s purpose for posting images on line is to see the reception they garner and to solicit critiques and suggestions that will help me grow as a photographer. Discover great photographs before anyone else - and help vote the best photos to the top! Thanks. Thanks. What the hell is going on? Access Stats, Priority Directory listing and more! Bots and fake accounts are a problem on most networks, it seems 500px is no different in that regard. I’ve not authorized any image sales, but have a message on my page to contact us directly for print sales, and we have and continue to sell work from 500px without their intervention. I have not opted into the 500px Prime licensing site, and yet sometimes these have appeared below my own images. 500px is an outstanding display platform. There are some truly dreadful recommended images on this site. Call me paranoid, but I’m tempted to have someone buy a license (with my money) to see if I get paid. The rest are just taking advantage of photographers IMO. Edit (March 21, 2016): 500px has now cut their royalty rate from 70% to 30% for non-exclusive photographs. I should point out this was not the same as the 500px Art store I mention below. I’ve done tests to see what kinds of images capture attention. But most aren’t. A good tip is to always keep an eye on your histogram to make sure things are looking good. When 500px launched their 500px Market option that allowed users to opt into limited canvas sales and digital downloads I was interested. I have written to help@500px and I am filling an Internet Crimes report with IC3. Hi Michael I just joined for fun , wondering how this all works , fun so far 1 week in.however I just wanted to know why I cannot upload photos that come from my goggle cloud? The logic here makes no sense to me anyway. What happens next? I fired Alamy earlier this year due to their pricing and other shenanigans and now just sell through my website only. #500px has a bunch of aspects I don’t like, and you’ve hit on most of them. The good critique I received was seldom as harsh as what I’d come up with on my own so I soon decided that this wasn’t going to be a useful avenue to pursue, at least in an untargeted, online way. While on my social media I would share clients wedding photos. They had linked my photo from 500px without my knowledge or permission. After reading this article it looks like 500px might not be the platform I’m interested in if all it will brings is more disconnected ‘likes’ on yet another social media platform. I’ve had a number of people ask me where I DO recommend hosting photos. This is mostly because this kind of thing took place in forums or social media where the audience was also only in the “this is great +1!! I find more inspiration in variety than a relatively narrow vision, so I prefer the self directed exploration that Flickr does a better job of encouraging. I’ve listed it as #1 here instead of #9 as I feel it might be the most important on the list (the rest aren’t really in any order). 500px encourages “hotlinking” of a sorts by sharing from their site and embedding on another. Great post! If they really do, they are vegan. I am not sure I would consider 500px a stock photography site just yet, at least not in the same vein as agencies such as Alamy, Corbis, Getty etc. However what better alternatives are there? The 500px website is both a photography community and a platform from which to sell photos. It features high-quality photos in a range of different disciplines. 500px Prime. Along with the privately posted, but not publicly private, photos of their kids in the bath etc. There are a few stock agencies I would probably work with (Tandem Stock for one) but I am not yet interested in giving them exclusive rights to sell my work as I prefer to do that via my website as well. Was this an option? When I left my office to go home to unpack my new Samsung tablet I had about 578 followers. Also keep resolution below the ‘buy for print’. Do you know of any reliable way to find one’s photos “out there” that are being used and linked without the artist’s permission? It has been 23 days and nothing, no refund and Paypal says that they have NOT cancelled that transaction. -Dust spots While photography is a serious hobby for me (my daytime job is in IT/software), I’d like to promote my photography a little more, and I was thinking 500px may help. Last Updated: December 14, 2018 500px is a online photography community that helps you find inspiration and connect with photographers. If you want to sell your work, I’d recommend Photoshelter. Have these things changed since this blog was written? They say that they will concur. From what I’ve seen on G+ your work SHOULD fit in just fine on any photo sharing site. Frustrating – but lack of communication when someone is critical is something I’ve read a lot of before. Keywording is a theme that usually comes up when advising photographers on how to improve the discoverability of images for buyers. If I recall they have a limit on how quickly you can upload things there, and beyond that you have to pay. I can not say for sure this was due to the way my image was displayed on 500px, but it illustrated a big potential problem for me with sharing images on their service. They still have my photos on their server (though not in my account), and they are watermarked with their website. Unfortunately Norbert I have no idea, I don’t use 500px anymore nor do I use Google cloud. And i’m not talking about selling an image once an year .Did anyone here ever sold an image there ? This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Shoot that. However I like their photo quests, some of them are good fun to participate in. Most of those are simply “okay” but I can’t think of one with as many drawbacks as 500px. 500px declined half the photos for the generic reason of them thinking it wasn’t commercially viable. -Include location details in your keywords. Since then I’ve read a great post by Sarah Marino titled “Photo Consumption, Conformity, and Copying in Landscape Photography“. Now, I don’t think I’ll be using 500px. I then compared the 2 lists and located the additional followers. I ignore it. Sarah’s post nicely sums up the issues with voting, goals of popularity, and the resulting conformity better than I did, so you should just go read her post. See what photos come up for different keywords. Thank you for the post, I was just wondering about the best site for sharing photos to start as a very beginner in photography. I wrote to 500px and I contacted Paypal to try and stop that payment. Totally agree with your post, and very interesting to read, didn’t know about the china things!!! Pay attention to the kind of images you see in different types of ads, billboards, and posters. That said your work on 500px may not get great scores (though it might) – but I don’t think that is a bad thing. And even fewer bookings. Joined solely for the purpose of seeing good images from photographers around the world and sharing my images. 500px Team I’ll have to find another site to post my snapshots! Direct, e-commerce platform operated by 500px. I already have a Flickr account and should probably spend more time curating that rather than yet more ” social media”-I use Instagram and Twitter as well. 11 Replies 4301 Views May 30, 2017, 06:48 by PaulieWalnuts: 500px keep selling your photos after you remove them from their site. Also, make sure there are no dust spots or other technical issues, and go easy on the HDR. I’ve seen great, interesting photography there completely ignored because it wasn’t a big, impactful (and often saturated) scene (in the case of landscapes) and actually took some pondering and thought to digest and appreciate. I wish you luck in seeking your refund. However, I am not really happy with it. We’ve pulled together the Top 10 insights from our 500px Content Team on how to make money with photography. Is there any danger having my images hosted here? So, in the two months, I’ve been putting a few photos on 500px that sell, which grossed me (after the 500px commission) $1,602.50 for photos that I already had (I had a few sales … Someone just recommended 500px so I did some research and came across this blog. Thanks for this article. (Not possible to edit?). Clicking anyone these results in a page that does not exist. From what you say and what Sarah wrote, it sounds like the way Instagram is going…promoting conformity and copying in order to achieve meaningless “likes” and one-word comments from people fishing to boost their numbers. While I never submitted to 500px for selling anything (even back when they did prints) I also removed my photos from all stock agencies back in 2014. Today I wish I could do it all over again and continue enjoying my photography for myself. Many thanks for writing such an interesting piece. Prints (New Era) Print on Demand business that 500px used to operate, selling art decor, wall art, etc.. 500px Marketplace. The top rated photos on 500px right now, as voted on by the community of photographers and enthusiasts. This was going against my own personal beliefs but my customers don’t care. You can't directly download a photograph from 500px for free, but if you need to save a photo for legal use, there are some tools that will help. They aren’t thinking ahead all that far? While they have just been acquired via Yahoo by Verizon, until we see what changes are made there I’ll still recommend Flickr over 500px. Learn about product features, troubleshoot issues, and get answers to common questions. I’ve certainly been in too many places in the past but now I try to concentrate on the areas that give some return. Selling thru 500px would seem to mean a buyer could potentially use it for business or commercial purposes, forever, for any purpose - for only one payment to the photographer. It’ll be very interesting to see how things settle – at the moment there doesn’t seem to be enough financial incentive to contribute really good photographs to most stock agencies, which probably explains why most of the photographs on them are really quite mediocre. I pursue a lot of copyright infringement of my images. How is it better than Flickr or all the other free sites? This was at a time of crossroads for analogue and digital photography. Flickr or 500px: Feedback. I downloaded and installed and viewed my page – pretty good I thought. There may also be space limits. I do quite well on G+, but I’ve also been on there since it was in Beta (4+ years ago) and have quite a few (by my standards anyway) followers already. I’ve been on 500px for over a year. And then your concerns about misinformation and whatnot. The trouble is, to be honest, that there seems to be a pro photographer’s blog about “why I’m no longer using X” about pretty much every stock photo agency. Pulling my files — if they let go of them!! It seems to me that the stock photography market is in considerable flux; in fact, I wonder whether economists would do well studying it as it’s a curious sort of supply and demand, further complicated by the subjective nature of pricing this particular product. I’m still using it after 6 years. 2 Hover the mouse over your profile photo. I had never seen these followers before. I complained about this via twitter on a number of occasions. Welcome to 500px group on flickr! Sorry I missed your comment until now – I came back to this post due to the controversy today (look up info related to the Chinese mirror site that copies all the images into Chinese servers). 500px is a bit of an echo chamber where much of the work is of a high quality, but has a similar look to it. it’s really a terrible business model, with everything. I have signed on for two reasons and am curious what your opinion is on my decision. Exclusivity has many different advantages. We understand that photographers want to test the waters with a couple of images before they submit more content to Licensing, but this may not be the right approach, as the more images you have on your portfolio, the more chances you have to make a sale. The only reason I’ve stuck with it, despite not using any of their sales aspects, which I really don’t like, and the friggin’ ranking numbers game, which I hate, is that its still a decent quality platform for simply sharing work for the sake of having it seen. Watermark all your photos would prevent this. The quality of your images is important, but it is also a good idea to upload batches of photos every week, or every other week. I signed up for a 500px account a year ago, or so. -Incorporate both conceptual and literal keywords. As a 500px member, you can sell your photos through their stock photo marketplace. Maybe, since it’s so hard to distinguish between price points, the market will stabilise with different stock agencies taking care of different price points and quality levels. Same issues as Robert Mckinstry ( comment above ), problems logging-in 500px sell photos uploading to my website paid. 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