#creativeindustry

Stock Photography in 2026 — Growing Portfolio, Declining Sales

Once I thought that if I was already taking photos for fun, and the fact that many of them were generic images simply sitting on my hard drive without any real use, maybe I could at least make some passive income out of them. So my experience with stock photography started back in 2021.

At first it was mostly an experiment. Uploading random photos, learning how stock websites work, understanding keywords, descriptions, editorial licensing, and trying to figure out what people actually buy.

Over time, it slowly became much more serious.

I kept improving my photography, expanding my portfolio, adding videos, traveling more, editing more carefully, and investing much more time into the whole process. What started with a small test portfolio eventually grew into thousands of uploads across Shutterstock and Adobe Stock.

But honestly, 2026 has been one of the most disappointing years so far.

The strange thing is that while my portfolio keeps growing, the actual income continues to decline.

As of 12/05/2026, my Shutterstock portfolio contains around 1500 photos and videos. About a year ago I expanded the portfolio significantly and added roughly 500 additional works, expecting that larger numbers and improved quality would slowly increase visibility and sales over time.

Instead, the opposite happened.

Shutterstock statistics for 2026 so far:

January — 35 downloads — $4.99 February — 38 downloads — $9.31 March — 43 downloads — $4.67 April — 28 downloads — $6.68 May (until 12/05/2026) — only 4 downloads — $0.40

Previous years:

2025 — 475 downloads — $155 2024 — 612 downloads — $230 2023 — 223 downloads — $85

What makes this even harder to understand is that back in 2024 my portfolio had only around 800 photos, yet it generated significantly more revenue than today with almost double the amount of content.

So despite uploading more, improving quality, expanding categories, and spending more time on photography and video production, the actual return keeps shrinking.

And the payout per download became extremely low.

Sometimes photos that took hours of work, traveling, editing, rendering, or waiting for the right conditions end up selling for only a few cents.

At this point it honestly feels less like passive income and more like fighting algorithms that continuously reduce visibility for smaller creators.

Adobe Stock tells a slightly better story, but the slowdown is noticeable there as well.

Adobe Stock statistics:

2026 — 106 downloads — around $90 2025 — 189 downloads — $168 2024 — 130 downloads — $151 2023 — 141 downloads — $120

One interesting thing I noticed is that only around 1/15 of my portfolio actually consists of videos. The overwhelming majority is photography.

And yet, videos often generate disproportionately better revenue compared to photos.

That alone says a lot about where the stock market seems to be heading in 2026.

The entire industry feels very different today compared to only a few years ago:

More competition Lower payouts AI-generated images flooding the market Reduced visibility for individual artists And a growing feeling that quantity matters more than quality

I still genuinely enjoy photography itself. Landscape photography, infrared photography, long exposures, astrophotography, documenting places, abandoned objects, urban environments — that passion is still there and probably always will be.

But financially, stock photography in 2026 feels more unstable and less rewarding than ever before.

Maybe the market will eventually recover. Maybe video content will become the dominant format. Or maybe traditional stock photography is slowly fading into something completely different from what many contributors originally joined years ago.

I’m honestly curious how things are going for other contributors this year.

🎊 CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF REMOVIELING LIFE 💛

Become memories. Become feelings. Become fragments of humanity preserved in frames.

For 15 years, MY MOVIE has been traveling through places, people, cultures, sounds, emotions, and untold moments around the world 🌍 from documentaries to experimental visuals — every journey has been about one thing: capturing life as honestly as possible. To everyone who has grown with us through these years — THANK YOU for becoming part of our story.

Our Journey & Works:

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✨ 15 Years of MY MOVIE 🎥 Removieling Life

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We need to talk about Ai.

People keep saying AI is going to hurt artists, that it'll stop us from making a living. But let's be honest here: Do you really believe artists were thriving before AI showed up? Believe me, we weren’t. We didn’t need AI to be undervalued, underpaid, and pushed to the margins. That was already happening, and it’s been happening for a long time, and no one, absolutely no one cared.

Photographers have been told for years that they charge too much "just to press a button," as if their time, vision, and editing skills weren’t worth anything. “Oh I could do it with my phone” was a recurrent saying.

Painters and illustrators were expected to work “for exposure,” or undersell their craft on overcrowded platforms. Writers were told to churn out content like machines, musicians were asked to perform for free because it’s “great promotion.” AI didn’t start this devaluation.

Where was the outcry when, in the late '90s and early 2000s, anyone with a computer and an internet connection could suddenly download music, books, and movies for free? People were too busy filling their hard drives with the latest hit singles and entire discographies, because it was easy, and most importantly, it was free.

Napster, LimeWire, torrent sites were seen as revolutionary, cool, rebellious even. But while users got everything for nothing, artists were left with scraps. AI wasn’t around back then. It was still science fiction. And yet, somehow, we were already being asked to give everything we made away for free, while big companies found ways to keep making money off of us anyway.

And where was the outrage when governments around the world started slashing culture budgets left and right? Suddenly, art was no longer seen as essential. Politicians called it a luxury, a waste of taxpayer money. "Why should my taxes pay for some weird art installation or a gallery show no one goes to?" they said. And way too many people nodded along.

Just walk into an exhibition where you live. I guarantee you’ll hear someone muttering that the entry fee is too high, or complaining that the event should be free. We’re expected to work for the love of it and thank people for their pity likes.

No one saw it coming or rather, no one wanted to see it. The few who warned us about the digital turnover were dismissed as conspiracy theorists, loonies, or just plain ignorant. But they weren’t wrong. They saw what was happening: a slow, quiet dismantling of how art, media, and culture were valued and appreciated.

People were too excited about the convenience. And honestly, who can blame them? Suddenly, you could fit your entire music collection, movie library, bookshelf, and camera into one sleek device. Everything was just a tap away and often, free or ridiculously cheap. It felt like progress. It was progress. But it came at a price we’re only now beginning to understand.

But here’s the part no one wants to talk about,  the part that stings: art wasn’t devalued by some outside force. It was devalued by us. By everyday people making selfish, comfortable choices.

By a culture that prized convenience over conscience. By the collective shrug we gave every time we streamed without paying, downloaded without crediting, expected work for free, or thought "well, it’s just art."

Now, with AI looming large, suddenly everyone is clutching their pearls as if this machine alone broke the system. But AI is just the latest scapegoat. It’s easier to blame the tech than to face the truth that we allowed this to happen. That we liked what the erosion of value gave us: fast access, endless content, and no obligation to care where it came from.

Instead of asking how we got here, instead of looking at our behavior over the last 25 years  we point at the machine and “using AI is bad” But AI is just a tool. And only a fool blames the tool.

So maybe instead of just blaming the tech, we should also look at the culture that made it inevitable. And maybe  just maybe  we can still choose to do better. To value art not because it’s trending, or instant, or "smart," but because it’s human.

Today we visited the National Festival of Making in Blackburn which is in its third and very successful year. How lucky we are to live in a town which appreciates, encourages and thrives on creative skills - there are so many areas crying out for attendance in their towns! Arts, crafts, food, designers, makers and more well-known faces such as Wayne Hemingway and Patrick Grant have inspired many generations today. I attended a talk at the stunning Blackburn Cathedral called, “Making & Creating. The Skills of the Future?”. Speakers from the Arts Council, Lancaster University, Fixperts and the Creative Industries Federation spoke of the urgent need for people to learn, to discover their passions, to fulfil our natural curiosity to solve problems and to make, and to step into the ever-growing creative industries. I nodded through every word, perched on the edge of my seat - everything they said was relevant and right and spoken with passion and integrity. My son, who is 14, really enjoyed the talk too; and there I was worrying that he might get a bit bored..! At the end, I just had to speak to them - I talked to them about our vision, about our planned event - they were eager to listen and offer advice and support and gave me their business cards. Amazing! The history of Blackburn with Darwen is steeped in creative industries, as is our future. We have more inspiration in our home town than most - and we thrive on it..!