Contributing for Getty Images: how much money can you expect, a detailed account

Not only do I write about the fascinating cultures I have encountered in the last ten years of my life, but I also like to photograph them!

When I first started contributing photographs for Getty Images I badly wanted to know the details of how much money can contributors make. This was key to knowing whether the effort would be worthy of my time or not.

Unfortunately, all I could find back then was very generic information or plainly misleading blog titles. Nothing that I could extrapolate or relate to my situation, even if just to guess what an approximate income from contributor photography could be.

I decided to give it a try anyway.

After some experience into it, and after enduring a long time of uncertainty and months of efforts and virtually no sales, I can finally share the information I looked for when I started with this hobby, which I have only come to obtain through learning by doing.

So here it goes.

I have been a Getty contributor for a couple of years now, as an amateur travel photographer based out of the US, and have recently stabilized my flow of uploads and earnings in the last year.

The cameras I have used have all been point-and-shoot (most remarkably a Nikon Coolpix P510), so nothing professional so far.

My subjects generally cover travel landmarks, city skylines, natural landscapes and city life around the world.

With some 560 uploads up for sale to date (November 2015), since the ~100-200 I had one year ago, I have been earning a yearly average of $76 dollars per month. That is the 20% Getty gives to me, before deducting for taxes.

About 140 of my photos have also been rejected by Getty, so the total number of uploads has been around 700.

This average has overall been improving every trimester (avT1:$47, avT2:$69, avT3:$62, avT4:$125) owed to the larger number of uploads and to being an active contributor.

It certainly isn't much money. And it certainly can take some years of patience and perseverance/ But eventually it can become a good way of paying up for a camera or upgrading your gear with just a partial time effort.

And that is if you are a total amateur like me using simple (although still carefully chosen) point-and-shoot cameras.

I hope that is useful and helps you decide whether to invest your time in it or not. Drop me any questions if you may need more details.

And if you are also a traveling spirit:

Whenever you interact with different cultures, instead of imposing yours or cheering for or looking in others only what is similar or familiar to the preconceptions you may have accidentally packed with you, never forget the wise words from Goethe in his 'Divan of West and East':

What I would like best is to be regarded as a traveler who will be worth hearing (only) if he eagerly assimilates the ways of life of a foreign country, tries to appropriate its forms of speech, and learns how to share views and comprehend customs.