Yuri Arcurs Home of the world’s top selling microstock photographer

Branding Microstock is filled with loads of imagery and literally millions of images so if you don’t stand out you will be “lost in the crowd” completely. Branding yourself by having a unique style that is recognizable and consistent is probably the most important aspect in microstock and also something that makes it so hard for traditional shooters to enter micro. You cannot underestimate the importance of branding yourself! If you do, you will wonder, "why am I not selling anything?" The reason is that you have not made enough of an impression on buyers so that they go directly for your images when searching for material to buy. So here is the breakdown: Step by step plan for getting started 1. Find something you can shoot effortlessly. Your hobby, the sports you do, your friends, family and their life. Shoot the things you know something about, so you can make it look real, natural and genuine. Write down the things you should be able to shoot quite effortlessly. 2. Decide on a style and a limited range of subject matter and stick to it. Microstock is getting competitive so specialize yourself in your field so you can become very good at shooting it. A shoot never goes quite as planned and you often have to "play the hand you are dealt" to get some good shots out of it. You can do this with the things you know about from before but not very well with things you have little or no experience with. Write down the style and subject matter that you want to go with. Brainstorm! 3. Shoot something new and find your spot instead of duplicating successful images. Duplicating is probably the fastest way to be unpopular in microstock and because microstock agencies have forums (unlike traditional agencies), this can be highly damaging for your branding. Don’t do it! There are a few overall categories of subject matter that are neglected in microstock:

The purpose of this post is to give you a two minute, super quick overview of the landscape of microstock agencies and which ones to submit to.

Below you will find a graphic overview of my total income from the different agencies over the last three years of my microstock carrier.

The non-exclusive microstock distribution channel (submitting to a lot of agencies, such as I do) still remains the best income provider, despite the higher commission of the exclusivity offers out there.

I started my time with Yuri Arcurs in the early summer of 2007 applying for a model job. I’ve always had a huge interest in photography and casually asked for an assistant job at Yuri’s facility. This was initially turned down.

I was lucky to know a little about Photoshop, and applied for a freelance Photoshopper job instead -also at Yuri Arcurs. This job I got and when a new position opened as assistant I immediately took the chance and applied. After an intense job interview (Yuri is very critical when hiring core staff) I got the job.

Yuri Arcurs is looking for a second shooter/back-up shooter for a full-time or freelance job at our studio.

You have to be highly skilled regarding technical aspects of digital photography and preferably have experience in the field of stock photography.

You should preferably be from Europe or be willing to live in Denmark or other places in the world for periods of up to a month at a time.

We do not accept applications from competitive microstock photographers that want to learn from us and pursue their own career afterwards.

A model release is a formal agreement between the model and the photographer about usage of the images where the model appears. When a model signs a model release he or she acknowledges that images or movies with him or her in them will be used for commercial purposes around the world.

The images and movies cannot be used for just anything, and the agencies that sell images, known as stock agencies, have a long set of “user rights and restrictions” that protects the model and the photographer from abusive usage of the material. The restrictions are very tight, so abusive usage almost never happens.