The era of digital photography, high quality home printers, and online shopping has completely changed the options that a photographer has to sell their work. So long as your picture is in focus, well ‘framed’ (not a frame for the wall, but where you put the ‘edges’ when you took it) and has an interesting, clear subject, you have plenty of options for selling it.
Your photography can pay you – for having fun!
Here are 9 ideas to get you started! They each have different sorts of $ returns. But they all pay – so, just how many pictures do you have, just sitting on your hard drive, that could be earning you money ?
- Online stock photo sites
A stock photo site is a place where graphic designers, web site designers, book illustrators or others who need images to use in work that they are creating can go to buy the rights to use a particular image.
Rights granted vary, as does how much they have to pay. The cost of buying a low resolution image can be less than a dollar, if they want to use it in a limited fashion, but the cost of buying a high resolution image, with the intent of using it in a book with a known print run of over 250,000 can run to hundreds of dollars. How much you get paid varies too, in direct relationship.
When you submit your pictures to a stock photo site, they will assess them, based on their criteria, and if they accept them, your pictures will be available for people to buy through them, and you will be paid a percentage of the sale prices. There are a lot of stock photo sites – some specialize in certain types of photos, others are more general.
It may take a few tries to get started, but persist, and soon you will have a steady trickle of income rolling in.
- Online art and photo sales sites
You create a design, and the site sells, manufactures and ships the item, and pays you a percentage of the sale price – does that sound good to you ?
Online art and photography sales sites are different from stock photo sites, in that they are aimed at people who want to buy a print to put on their wall, or a picture to use as computer wallpaper, or a calendar with nice pictures, or a T-shirt, iPhone cover or other piece of merchandise with unique designs. They are an ‘artist’s marketplace’ and are aimed at a higher price per item and a more exclusive concept.
Different sites have quite different preferred styles, so it’s best to have a look at what they promote on their home pages, and at what is most popular and selling (if their site shows you that) before deciding which sites you want to list your work on, so that you can maximize your potential sales.
- Online T-shirt creation sites
Online T shirt creation sites are sites which are primarily aimed at the creation of designs for, and sale of, T-shirts and Hoodies with graphical designs of some kind. These may be purely for that, or may be a section of a site the also sells other artwork in other formats.
You create the design, and the site sells, manufactures and ships the item, and pays you a percentage of the sale price.
The buying public will be different from site to site and different to that on the ‘artist’s market’ style sites. Buyers on a T-shirt specific site may be looking for graphics aimed more around particular sports, or current trending themes, so a bit more research is needed before deciding what you might try to sell through these sites.
- As part of a book
Books nearly always have illustrations of some kind, even if it’s just the cover. You can sell your pictures to those who create book covers, to those who illustrate books or to publishers of ‘local attraction’ style ‘coffee table books’ or magazines.
You can also create your own photo based books to sell, either on specialist book creation sites (who will usually have an integrated book store, through which you can list your book for sale), or on Amazon.com, using their print on demand or Kindle e-book publishing.
If that sounds a bit challenging, there are services who can help you publish, so that all you have to do is create your book, using the template provided, and wait for your payments. These services will charge you a fee to manage the rest for you, but that can be well worth it. With Books, marketing is key – do some research first, and get an idea of whether there is interest in your topic, so that you can maximize your possible sales.
- In a local coffee shop or restaurant
Coffee shops and restaurants have a large volume of people go through them every day, and while waiting for their food and drink, or sitting and enjoying it, most people will look around them and consider the pictures that they see. So, the shop owners want to have some variety in their interior décor – and the easiest way to do that, is to have the pictures on the wall change regularly.
Rather than a coffee shop or restaurant continually spending money on buying pictures to decorate their walls, most are very open to the concept of putting YOUR pictures on their wall, with a price tag, and collecting a percentage of the sale price when one sells. They make money rather than spending it, and you make money, while their clients get ever changing interesting décor – it’s a win-win-win!
If you live in a tourist centric town, or somewhere with iconic scenery, then try to aim for a place where the tourists go, and pictures that capture the ‘essence’ of the local scenery and character.
You will, to take advantage of this opportunity, have to put out some money up front to get nice prints of your work, and put them in good looking frames, but, when a small print can sell for $200 and up off a coffee shop wall, that is not such a difficult thing, once you have the first few done.
If you live in, or near, a beach town, this sort of thing is likely to be popular, anywhere that visitors to the town are likely to go.
6 In a gallery
Galleries, in most people’s thoughts, are all about paintings, or maybe sculpture. The reality is though, that many galleries do exhibitions of all kinds of art, including photography.
There are two kinds of gallery – ones which arrange all of their own exhibitions, and often focus narrowly on a specific type of art, and those that hire their gallery space to anyone whose material fits their general criteria, and who is willing to pay the space rental, and a percentage of sales to the gallery owner. The former more often host high priced exhibitions from very well-known artists, the latter tend to focus more on those just starting out, who have quality work to show.
Don’t think that you need lots and lots of printed and framed pieces of work to do an exhibition – this is a space where less is more! Depending on the size of the gallery space, between 10 and 40 pieces will be more than enough. You will need to arrange the prints and framing yourself, but the gallery owner may be able to advise and assist with getting that done.
Decide if you are going to make the pieces:
- exclusive – ie, this is the only print of this that will ever be done, outside the photographers personal collection, and the picture will not be licensed for use anywhere else, ever – in which case the buyer gets to collect the piece the day after the exhibit closes.
- or semi exclusive – ie, there will only ever be 10 signed numbered prints of this picture – in which case buyers pay and order while it is on display and you deliver to all at a nominated point in time after the exhibit.
- or non-exclusive –no guarantees that you won’t sell another print of the same picture tomorrow.
- By doing exclusive photo shoots of a targeted type (eg, pets, babies etc)
This works best if your specific targeted area is something that you really, really care about yourself. So – if you love dogs, and are into dog training, you could start by offering a ‘dog portrait’ service to members of your local dog training club. The key is to know enough about the topic to be in a good position to understand what sort of photo will make your clients feel like you have really captured the ‘essence’ of the subject.
Consider your chosen area carefully, practice, practice, practice, until you are comfortable that you can do the subject/s justice, then look for your best local groups to market your services to. That could be a pet related group, like the example above, or it could be the local mothers club if you like photographing babies, or the local jewelry making club if you like taking macro ‘portraits’ of beautiful objects.
If you like taking portraits of people, start with your friends, family and neighbors. Try to capture really nice portraits of them, get them printed and framed, and give them to the subjects, as presents – if you have done it well, they will display your work with pride, others will ask who took the photos, and word of mouth will do your marketing for you.
- Using your photos to create unique craft items, or selling prints to those who do (decoupage, ‘distressed’ look mounted prints, scrapbooking, vision-boards)
Many people create craft items that are very visually based. Over the last decade there has been an up swell of interest in such activities as scrapbooking – creating books of collated, collected items, pictures and words to make a lasting reminder of places, people or times in your life.
If you live in a resort town, there is almost certainly a market for pictures that are materials for people to use to remember that they have visited. These don’t need to be big prints, just ones that are very representative of your town. Sell through local craft shops, or at markets. If you find people who like making things with decoupage they are also likely to be interested in photos that create the feel that they want. Investigate local craft classes and clubs to find possible clients.
You can also make items yourself – a particularly successful item in this sort of category is pictures for hanging on people’s walls, made by attaching prints of your photos to old boards and carefully creating an aged ‘distressed’ look. Choose a picture that captures something that could be ‘anywhen’, as people who want ‘distressed look’ style furniture and items are often creating the feel of a particular period in their home.
You can sell this sort of work at markets, through local craft shops, local coffee shops and similar. You can also sell some of this type of work online, through sites like Etsy, or even Ebay. The same sort of effect can be created by finding old picture frames in thrift shops, and doing some post processing on your photos to create a sepia toned look, or a black and white look, so that the picture and the frame seem to be from a bygone era.
It can be lots of fun to go seeking out locations in your town and surrounds that look ‘just like they did 50 years ago’, if you catch them at the right time (with no modern cars in the shot!) or from the right angle. Here is a shot that I took of a refitted sailing ship. First in normal color, second after I made it a sepia look. Imagine the sepia one in an old style frame.
Kim Lambert
Kim Lambert started into photography as a child, and it has been a part of her life ever since. She first worked as a professional photographer in the 1970s, when photography was all film based, and all the wonderful post processing options that we now have did not exist. Now, in the digital era, she has a range of exclusive art prints about to be released, works as a freelance travel writer and photographer, and is the author of a number of books, most recently “The Photographer’s Quick Guide to Earning Money From Your Photos”, which is the first in a planned 13 book series.
She also owns Dreamstone Publishing (http://www.dreamstonepublishing.com ), which helps others bring their book dreams to reality, and boost their personal or business authority in the process.
If you found this article interesting, you can get more information on these ideas, and more in Kim’s book – ‘The Photographer’s Quick Guide to Earning Money From Your Photos’ – which can be found on Amazon – here