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Make Money Taking
Photographs
Sell Your Photos
Online
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If you have a good eye for composition and enjoy
taking photographs, you might be able to generate some extra cash
with your camera. Anytime anyone builds a web page (and there
are billions of them), he or she usually needs photographs to add color
to the site and to make the content more interesting. These pictures have to come from somewhere, and most webmasters do
not have the time to take their own pictures for their sites.
Instead, they buy and download photographs from stock photo
websites. If you have
photographs worth selling, these sites are the place to find
buyers, and you do not have to be a professional photographer to
do it.
You may already have a collection of photographs from
previous vacations, events, family outings, etc. Some of these may be suitable for selling, but most stock
photo sites (and the buyers who frequent them) are looking
for well-composed, well-lit, in-focus, uncluttered photographs,
and these days, photos are digital so it may be a good
idea to start from scratch when taking photos with the
goal of selling them. It may also be a good idea to
bone up on composition rules and lighting techniques,
either through a community college class or the local
library. Investing in a good digital camera
is also a smart idea. People, objects and places are all acceptable
subjects for your photos, but focusing on objects
and places is probably the best way to start
because stock photo sites will require signed
releases from people who are recognizable in your
pictures. Avoid taking pictures of
recognizable places, or these, too, may require a
release. Keep logos and brand names out of
pictures, and do not upload to these stock photo
sites any pictures that are not yours.
There is no cost to uploading your photographs
to these sites, and buyers can download and
purchase whichever photos they choose. The
cost of downloading a picture varies according to
the size of a photo (file) downloaded, but it is
usually anywhere between $1 to $25. You, as the photographer, are paid a percentage of
each downloaded picture's selling
price.
The largest and most well-known of the stock
photo sites is www.istockphoto.com. This
site welcomes professional and amateur
photographers, requires you to open a free account
and then offers a very good tutorial about
photography, covering topics such as composition,
filtering, cropping, etc. Once you have read
the tutorial, you will have to complete a short
quiz about istockphoto's rules concerning what is and
what is not acceptable for uploading to their
site. If you pass the quiz, you will be
asked to submit three examples of your work, and
if these meet istockphoto's standards, you may
then start uploading pictures to sell (you will be
asked for keywords to describe your pictures'
content so potential buyers can find them).
istockphoto's royalty payment is 20% to 40% of
each photo purchased and downloaded, and payment
is made via paper check, Paypal or direct deposit
when your account has accumulated $100.
There are numerous other stock photo sites on
the web, and not all have the strict guidelines
that istockphoto does. Some also pay better,
but not as many buyers frequent the lesser known
sites so not as many of your photos will sell
through them. Keep in mind that many of
these sites have thousands of pictures available
for download so the more you send to them the
better your chances are of having your photos
found and purchased. Volume
counts. You can also upload the same
pictures to more than one stock photo site at a
time.
To find more stock photo sites, on Google or
Yahoo use the keyword phrase "stock photo
websites" and/or "sell photos
online."
Have fun!
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