Earn money with stock photos
If you are good at photography, have the required equipment, and are located someplace with interesting scenery, you can make some extra money by selling stock photography.
However, you’re going to need to get good at photography, own good-quality camera equipment, and spend time discovering what people are willing to pay for. Trying to sell your old holiday pictures probably isn’t going to earn you anything. Creating high-quality pictures that match what people are looking for can earn you hundreds, or thousands, of dollars.
Cost to start: Low (less than $100), Medium ($100-500), or High ($500-2500) – depending on how much photography equipment you already own.
Special skills needed: The better a photographer (and photo editor) you are, the more likely you are to earn money.
Special equipment needed: You’ll need a good quality digital camera. Photo editing software, and a computer to run it on, will let you produce photos that are more likely to sell than unedited pictures.
Local language needed: No
Obviously, in order to sell photographs, you’re going to need to learn how to take good pictures. Fortunately, the Internet is filled with websites that can teach you how to take better pictures. A couple of good sites to start with are:
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/
Once you know how to take great pictures, you’ll want to learn how to use photo-editing software. You want your pictures to be as free from noise as possible. Learn how to make adjustments to your photos to make up for any problems you may have had when you took them (like the hue and saturation).
Here are some free photo editing programs you can download:
http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php
http://www.serif.com/free-photo-editing-software
If your pictures have any people who can be identified in them, you’ll need to get a model release from each of them before you can sell that image.
Look at the best selling photos and compare them to what you are creating. It will give you an idea of where you can improve your quality, and will let you know which subjects are most popular with paying customers.
Remember that, as nice as your pictures of a waterfall may be, the people who pay for photos are probably going to be looking for something to use for their business. Three people standing around a computer may be your best selling photo.
Make sure that the pictures you submit don’t have any logos or copyrighted material. If someone is wearing a Nike t-shirt, you won’t be able to sell that photo.
Be sure to read the rules for each site where you submit photos to sell. This is especially important for the technical requirements of the images. You may be required to submit in a certain file format, and there is often a minimum size requirement.
When you first submit your photos to a new site, write down a checklist for you to follow, to ensure that they aren’t rejected. Many people have their first attempts rejected for technical reasons that can easily be fixed. For your first submission, only upload a few photos. You don’t want to spend all day uploading hundreds of photos, only to find out that did something wrong and need to re-submit them all.
Most sites where you can submit your photos to sell don’t expect you to only submit photos to them. So you can sell the same picture through many different websites.
Once you start selling photos, review which ones are popular, and which ones aren’t. Try to find a pattern and create more images that follow the same patterns as your best-selling photos.
How to charge for this service
You’ll start out by selling images on stock photo websites. So they will handle getting customers, billing them, and getting your payments to you.
Most sites have a minimum payment amount. Therefore, it may take you a while to build up enough purchasers to get your first check.
How to get clients
The easiest way to start selling stock photos is through websites where you can upload your pictures and let them handle the sales and payments. Some of the larger stock photo websites are:
http://submit.shutterstock.com/
Be sure to have a website for people to contact you and see samples of your photos. People who purchase your pictures from the stock photo websites may like your work and want to have you do something custom for them.
Summary
This is probably best if you already own a good digital camera and have some experience in photography. You can start without those, but it will take longer for you to start earning money and you’ll need to spend a few hundred dollars up front.
You’ll get the best results if you take some time finding out what types of photos people are willing to pay for, then creating those pictures. If your plan is to just upload every tourist photo you take, it will probably take a long time to start earning a noticeable income from selling stock photos.
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