Freelancer Sells 500,000 Photos on iStockphoto

Posted on June 16, 2007

Crediting the power of crowdsourcing an iStockphoto press release describes how freelancer Lise Gagne has sold 500,000 of her photos on the stock footage website. The company says it has over 1.8 million members. iStock photographers are paid when one of their images is downloaded.

iStockphoto CEO Bruce Livingstone says in a statement, "Lise is a great friend, a true artist, and has really set the bar high for the members of our community. We work very hard to promote our artists, providing training, business cards, partnerships, and advertising that give all our exclusive contributors maximum worldwide exposure. I believe Lise is the first of many who will achieve this milestone, as we have just barely scratched the surface of the worldwide appetite for imagery. What may be her most astounding accomplishment is that by our calculations, she just may be the most prolific stock photographer on the planet."

It is interesting that iStockphoto is calling itself a social network in the release. They also offers blogs, profiles and friend features in addition to selling photos. Lisa Gagne says she likes the community aspects of iStockphoto.

Gagne says, "I love the community aspects of iStock so much and have learned a great deal from all my friends there since 2003. I fell in love with iStock right away, but never would have dreamt that someday it would be my career. But things have a way of working out: I got fired from my old design agency for spending too much time on iStock, and suddenly found myself with all the time in the world to give to photography. Now I hope to hit a million downloads in half the time it took to reach 500,000."

We don't know how much money Lise made from the micropayments on the 500,000 photos she sold but selling 500,000 photos is very impressive. It probably helps that many of her photographs are business oriented. Lise Gagne's blog and website can be found at lisagagne.com.



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