Capture Engaging Travel Portraits

Make sure you pack a spare memory card and extra batteries when you hit the road with your digital camera, because these compact picture-takers are perfect travel companions. The best portraits on the road usually consist of two shots. The first frame, often called the establishing shot, is of the point of interest itself, such [...]

Travel Portrait Photo Travel Portrait Photo

Shoot Good Self-Portraits

Some people may think that turning the camera toward yourself is the height of narcissism, but sometimes you need a shot, and no one is around to take it for you. These are the times when it’s good to know how to shoot a self-portrait. Start with the basics by making sure your hair is [...]

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Capture Existing-Light Portraits

By now you’ve probably realized one of the great ironies in good portrait photography: you should turn the flash on when working outdoors. So guess what the great secret is for indoor portraiture? That’s right; turn the flash off. Some of the most artistic portraits use nothing more than an open window and a simple [...]

Existing light portrait Existing light portrait

Set Up Group Shots

Many of the rules for engaging portraits apply to group shots too. So keep in mind everything that you’ve learned so far while preparing for this assignment. Figure 3 uses the classic “triangle” composition for a threeperson group shot. Notice that distracting background elements are kept to a minimum. The subjects are positioned in the [...]

Group Portrait Photo Group Portrait Photo

Take Great Outdoor Portraits

When most folks think of portrait photography, they envision studio lighting, canvas backdrops, and a camera perched upon a tripod. But many photographers don’t have access to lavish professional studios, and honestly, it’s not necessary for dynamite portraits. Figure 1 illustrates that you don’t need an expensive photo studio to take pleasing outdoor portraits. After [...]

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5 Tips To Help You Master Digital Photography

July 17th, 2010

Have you already mastered the art of taking photos without ‘red-eye’ syndrome? Are there some pictures that you know you should have turned out a lot better than they did? It happens to all of us – even the expert photographers.

Here are five tips to help you move from beginner to master of digital photography, whether you’re using your cell phone or a point-and-shoot camera to snap shots.

Compose Carefully

One of the most basic digital photography tips is to pay attention to what’s in the frame of the viewfinder. Fill the frame. Nothing but blue sky, for instance, behind a single subject throws off the proportions of the photo and decreases interest. You can also turn the camera sideways to see if a vertical photo might have more impact than a horizontal shot of the same subject.

You can also try positioning your subject off to the side, rather than in the center of the photograph.

Take Great Close up Photos

Your digital camera has a “macro mode” – think of it as a super magnifying glass. An extreme close up of something like flower petals can bring out textures that you never knew existed, and will add excitement to your photos. Play with this feature, you will find dozens of ways to use it to enhance your pictures.

Buy a Tripod

Digital cameras are prone to blurry photographs if your hands shake even a little bit. Several companies manufacture light, portable, inexpensive versions. Digital photography tips like this can save you hours of frustration and preserve otherwise perfect shots.

Get Active

Take your shot from the top of a teeter-totter, off the side of the boat, or standing on your head. Thinking outside the box can really pay off in unexpected ways. You will truly get once in a lifetime shots by adding a bit of creativity to your thinking.

Take a Class

Are you still hungry for digital photography tips? There’s nothing like practice to improve your photography – except practice plus experience gained by learning from a pro. You can find photography classes online, at your local recreation centers, and community colleges.

Becoming an expert at digital photography takes time; you won’t become a professional photographer in your first week. Just keep trying new methods each time you use your camera, and before long, your friends and family will be admiring your newfound skills.

5 Tips For Shooting Winter Landscapes.

July 17th, 2010

Winter brings out the toughest elements in our climate, with many people putting away their camera bags ‘till early spring. But, if you do put away your camera you are missing out on the raw beauty that this magical season brings.

Here are a few tips to make the trip more enjoyable.

1. Wear the right clothes: It’s very important to wrap up warm when out shooting winter images. The winter season brings the toughest elements, so if you are planning to spend a few days out and about always be well prepared.

2. Watch the weather: It’s very important to know what the weather is going to be like. You don’t want to travel for a couple of hours and then hear a weather report that tells you that: the weather is wet for the next few days.  During the winter months the weather can dramatically change in a matter of hours.

It’s always advisable to let someone know where you are going and which route you’re planning to take. If you do get injured or ever caught in a storm someone may be able to help.

3. Carry only what you need: Carry only the essentials. You don’t need to upload your camera bag with every piece of equipment you own. If you are going to be out taking pictures all day you are much better off going as light as possible.  Carrying a light load will also help preserve energy.  You could be climbing icy rocks or crossing snow filled hills; a warm flask would serve you a lot better than a third camera.

4. Look for detail: Snow, ice and frost bring out texture and atmosphere in most subjects.  The early frosty morning is an ideal time for close-up photography. The frosty morning also brings out patterns in our landscapes.

Take care where you place your camera: if you are taking pictures early in the morning try placing it at oblique angles to the sun – this will give your images strong shadows. This will also add mood to your landscape images.  Once you have found the perfect spot pay extra attention to foreground interest as this will  add depth to your image.

5. Expose carefully: Snow and ice are extremely difficult to expose properly. Snow usually confuses your cameras metering system or your hand held light meter. When you take a light reading from snow you will automatically get an underexposed image. The meter will record the snow as grey.

Now is the time to start bracketing your shots.   If you bracket your shots add 1 – 2 stops of light to compensate for your light meter reading. Using an 18% grey card, which I described in a previous article, should also give you a perfect light reading.

4 Great Camera Tips for Enhanced Digital Photos!!

July 17th, 2010

Just bought a new camera ?? And very excited to start taking photos with your new gadget??

But Alas, why does the picture not look as good as you wanted to !! Fret no more, stay tuned below for 4 new tricks to taking more interesting and memorable photos.

Trick #1 – Try out different camera exposure settings

By exploring the exposure settings of your camera, you could have pictures looking more brilliant with 0.5 to 2 stops underexposed in bright surroundings, and scenes appearing more clear with some overexposure. Just by simple tuning of the exposure level, you can create

pictures which can bring out different moods from people viewing it. Thats why the quote “A Picture Says A Thousand Words” is very true indeed ! For newbies, try out bracketing (i.e: Take the same photos with different exposure levels) and take your favorite pick from them.

Trick #2 – Bring out some creative blur in photos

By introducing some well-planned blur in photos, you can bring across certain important features, while using the rest as good complement, providing an overall nice touch. This can be done in 2 basic types.

First type is depth-of-field blur. Varying the lens aperture between 0.4 to 1.4 can create a lovely, soft background blur which bring sharp focus to the subject in the foreground.

Second type is movement blur. Done by setting the camera exposure on shutter priority, and keep it slow so as to capture interesting streaks as the subject moves in front of the camera.

Trick #3 – Create something out of nothing !!

What does it means? This exercise encourages you to take a step back and rethink how you can take wonderful pictures with things you already encountered on a daily basis.

One approach is to create your shot around the common elements around you such as lines, space and patterns. This can mean anything from the roads to the bridges, the trees, the railings, etc.. You start to see more possibilities and room for creativity.

Trick #4 – Take Unique Photos !!

Try to avoid taking photos from already popular places where everyone else has taken before, it will not be fresh, and the excitement is also much diminished. Try out new extreme photography (for example: underwater photography), or it could be as easy as shooting through thick glasses for that extra 3D feel, or shooting reflections of objects in water or other reflective objects.

Hope you enjoy this article

Make a Ton of Dough with Other People’s Pictures

June 25th, 2010

So for this tip you don’t even have to own a camera to make money. I started doing this recently and it is a great way to get some extra income on the side no matter what kind of photography you are currently using to generate cash.

I got this idea when I was in someone’s home and saw some old pictures on a table. I noticed that these pictures were fading and a lot of the color had already disappeared from them. In passing, I just mentioned to the lady of the house that I could try to restore some of the pictures for her and she was very interested.

I did the first one for free, as I had never done this before. But it was much easier than I thought. You don’t even have to be a photoshop guru to do this. All you need is a scanner and a basic photo editing program. The Epson scanner that I have actually came with some photo restore software that I did not even know about, and this makes the job a little easier too. It’s
amazing how much detail you can get back with some photo editing tools. I boosted the saturation on a few of the shots since the color was very faded and I made a few other simple changes that took 10 minutes maximum. After giving the lady a print of the new and improved picture, she was delighted.

The picture I had restored for her was the only picture she had of her father on her property, so it meant a great deal to her to bring back some of its former glory.

People will pay big money for these photo restores because they are sentimental. You can’t replace those old memories.

Any person who has pictures dating back to the 70′s and before will have faded photos that need to be restored, so it won’t be hard to find clients. Even if you just charge 10 bucks per photo and put all the pictures on a CD, you can easily make $100 to $200 per hour. The first picture I did took me ten minutes, but the second one I did only took me 5. It really depends on how much of the original picture’s detail was lost, but either way, it can be a very profitable business for you.

I would even put an ad in the newspaper letting people know that you could restore their photos for them. Some people just don’t want to hassle with it, even though it’s very simple to do.

I hope many of you will at least try restoring some photos to see how easy it is. Do some free jobs for some friends to get some experience and then you can show your future clients the difference with the before and after. What I like to do is offer to do the first photo for free so they can actually see the difference and how much more detailed and colorful the newly restored picture is. Nothing will sell your services like showing them how great it is.

Shoot Aerial Photography for Homes And Businesses

June 25th, 2010
Aerial Photography Helicopter

You may think that aerial photography is out of your reach, but if you have this mindset you are missing out on a multi-million dollar market that you can tap into yourself with minimal investment. No matter who you are, you can get started in the aerial photography business and make a fortune.

How Much Can You Make with Aerial Photography?I remember the first time I was introduced to the idea of aerial photography. I was in a friends home and I saw he had a picture of his house on the wall. It was a beautiful aerial shot and I asked him where he got it. He said that 20 years ago a guy came to his door with the aerial picture of his home and offered it to him framed as a 12×18 for $200. He also has a smaller sized 8×10 that he was selling for $100, and my friend bought both of them.

So right away I began to do the math in my head and it was spinning with ideas. Now not everyone will want a picture of their homes, but most will think it’s a great idea and be more than willing (in certain wealthy neighborhoods especially) to fork out a few hundred dollars to get that shot that otherwise they could never have.

The example with my friend was 20 years ago and my friend lived in an average middle class neighborhood.. You can probably charge much more than that now and hit an entire street at one time. Even if 20% of the people whose doors you knocked on were interested you could make $1,000 from a single airplane flight.

Now it would be best to already have one home owner or business owner signed up to pay you for the picture before you go up in the plane. And then you can take a few extra pictures of surrounding houses while you are at it and have greater potential for even more money. Any sales you get besides the one you were contracted for is just bonus money.

Do I Need to Fly to Do Aerial Photography?

Whether you are a pilot already or you want to pay a pilot to take you up in the air to get some aerial pictures, you need to check with your local laws to make sure you don’t get into trouble. But an airplane may not be the best way to get the best aerial shots.

Most planes are not supposed to go much below 1,000 feet and this is too high to do some good quality aerial photography, although still doable. It is best to work between 100 and 250 feet for most businesses and houses, unless the building is particularly large. Usually you can rent a pilot and plane for between $100 and $150 per hour. Of course you will have to pass this cost along with your rates, but you can more than make up for it with stunning pictures from the air.

Shoot Great Aerial Photos without a Plane

Now you don’t even need to go up into the air to get amazing aerial photos.
Here are some ways you can get your camera in the perfect position way up in
the air to get the shots:

• Remote Control Planes
• Remote Control Helicopters
• Mast Systems
• Remote Control Blimps

These above methods are great because you can get pictures from much lower flying levels and make sure you get the perfect shot every time. But not all of these methods are created equal. RC planes just move too fast and so it’s hard to get a picture that is not blurry. So many will resort to using RC helicopters as they are much more stable and can fly in place. This usually requires two people; one to fly the helicopter and another to operate the controls for the camera. The only problem is that the gas RC helicopters that are required to lift the cameras have too much vibration and cause the images to be blurry more often than not. You could invest in a stabilizer of some sorts bu then there is also the problem of noise and people complaining, which happens more often than you may think.

There are some situations where an RC chopper will work just fine, but I find that the best systems are the high mast systems and small blimps. Most of the masts will go to 50 feet which will be good for most homes, but if you need some more lift you can get great stability with a balloon system. The camera stays very steady in a balloon system and all there is no noise at
all.

If you are interested in getting started with aerial photography than I highly suggest you check out the website over at http://www.aerialproducts.com. They have just the systems you  will need for getting a balloon system or mast system.

Either way it will require a little investing so make sure this is something you want to do before you commit to it. A good idea would be to interview different home owners and businesses in town and see if that is the sort of thing they would be interested in having done for them. Based on how people respond to your questions can determine what the market is like in your area for aerial photography.

I absolutely love aerial photography and it’s a fun, relaxing way to generate huge amounts of income in the right environments. It would not be uncommon to make several thousand  dollars every month so you would be able to pay off that balloon or mast system in a short period of time.

I hope this opened your eyes a little to the potential there is in all kinds of photography. In the next tip we are going to look at how you can make money from pictures you never even took. You won’t want to miss our last part of the series on how to make money with your photography.

Take Newsworthy Pictures and Chase that Story

June 25th, 2010
newsworthy

With more people having cameras today, the big name news companies are often the last ones to get pictures and live coverage of a scene. Even when the terrorists hit Mumbai, it was Twitter users that brought us live updates of what was going on before the news even had a chance to get there. This really makes the news agencies jealous, but rather than fight us, they are now willing to pay really good money for newsworthy photos, and they are not the only ones.

In fact, there is a website out there that will absolutely revolutionize the way editorial pictures are sold, and it’s a site called Demotix.com.

What they do is accept all kinds of news photos and videos taken from anywhere in the world, and then they pump them out to news organizations who in turn buy them. Demotix is currently paying out 50% of their profits to you and the pictures that sell will often bring in a nice chunk of change.

This is from their website:
“We’re raising Street Journalists to professional rates (comparable and
competitive with all the big, established news wires and photo agencies)
because that’s what your material is worth. In number terms, that means your
non-exclusive images will sell for anywhere between $150 – 3,000; and your
videos will sell for $500-1,000 / minute. Exclusives? The sky is the limit.”

It’s an amazing concept. This gives average, every day people the opportunity to be freelance photo journalists and make the same kind of money that the big names make.

This kind of business can pay very well, especially if you live in a bustling city where lots of news is happening all the time.

Selling pictures on Demotix is great for those who also don’t want to be tied down by appointments and schedules. Although it is a little more risky as you don’t know which pictures will sell and which ones won’t, it’s a great opportunity for the adventurous.

But if you are just starting in photography, I would recommend trying to build up your base first and get some gigs going before freelancing alone.

Editorial images are also accepted on some micro stock photo sites. I have sold many of my news photos on Dreamstime.com and this is nice because they are photos that I could not use otherwise.

What kind of photos are considered newsworthy?
Well you don’t have to capture an explosion or some horrible event for your photo to sell like crazy as an editorial image. Any picture that tells a story or documents an event can be useful.

Think about it from the buyers perspective. The only ones who will be using these editorial images are magazines, newspapers and other news outlets. So think about why they would want to use your image, or what it would be useful for.

And of course, if you DO happen to catch a catastrophic moment you can make a ton of money. You can listen to police scanners and try to chase the news if you want to, but it’s usually best if you just happen to be there at the time of the event.

Try not to get in the police officers way if you do happen to be on a scene first. You may be able to get some pictures that the news crew will miss when they arrive if you do beat them to the scene.

Shooting editorial images is still a fairly new concept for average citizens, but it is a market that is busting at the seems right now and it also a lot of fun. I encourage you to check out the Demotix.com website and submit some editorial images to Dreamstime.com to see if this is for you.

Photograph Events that Pay Tons of Cash

June 25th, 2010
Corporate Photography Event

Event photography is huge, and I am going to show you the markets that will pay you the most for your time. But first some advice: When you are taking pictures at any event you reallyneed to stay on your toes. It is not a very relaxing form of photography but it sure is exciting.

You have to keep your eyes roaming about constantly to make sure you are not just capturing what every one else is looking at but also their reactions to what  they are seeing as well. Reaction shots sell the most in any event photography situation.

So don’t just shoot the bride coming down the aisle; shoot the grooms reaction to seeing her in her dress for the first time as well. Don’t just take a picture of little Billy hitting a home-run; capture his parents screaming in the stands as well.

How to Get the Prints to Your Clients:

Before talking about the different ways to make money with event photography, let me just say how easy it can be to offer prints to your customers. I never handle prints anymore.

There are services online that you can use to upload the pictures from the event and then charge whatever you want for them. The customer gets on that site and orders different sizes of different pictures and the company will accept the credit card payment and print and ship the pictures for you! So all you have to do is upload the pictures and you are done.

The service I use is called Printroom.com, but there are others like Smugmug.com and Photoreflect.com as well.

I highly recommend using a service like this because then you can just concentrate on taking great pictures.

Here are some ways you can tap into the huge market of event photography:

• Wedding Photography – This one is pretty obvious but it has to be
mentioned. Many photographers make their full time income from
shooting weddings. I have shot dozens of them in a very short period of
time so I really had to start turning some of them down since I wanted to
focus on other things besides wedding photography. But you can very
easily charge between $2,000 and $5,000 per wedding and just shoot on
weekends. $20,000 a month for weekend work is not too shabby.
If you want to learn more about how to make the most money out of your
wedding photography I can highly recommend a product called
PhotoBizforU. The easy to follow guide will step you through everything
you need to know in making money with wedding photography.

• Amateur Sporting Events – This is another huge market right now. This
includes everything from tee ball, to little league, high school basketball,
football, and any other sport that children play at their school, church or for
a league. You can either be paid by the parents of the kid you are to take
pictures of or sometimes coaches will want to hire you. I have done some
team portraits at the YMCA before. If you are being hired by the parents
of the player you will want to focus the pictures on that one player, but if
shooting for the whole team it will take a little more work and you can
charge much more.
What’s the best way to get started with shooting sporting events?
Just bring your camera and the biggest lens you have to the game and
start snapping pictures. Keep that business cards on your pocket because
you will be passing them out like crazy. I have drummed up all kinds of
business using this method. If someone comments on your camera or
photography just tell them where they can see the photos online. You will
either gain a potential customer or client. Either they will buy some of your
photos of the game, or they will want to hire you to take pictures of some
other event. Either way, it’s a win win, as you gain experience shooting
sporting events and also get some good publicity too!

• Birthday Parties – There are parents willing to spend big bucks on their
child’s birthday party, so this is another great opportunity. Be sure to
capture all kinds of expressions as well, especially if it is a young child.

• Baptisms – I have been paid very well for doing some church baptisms.
These are very special occasions for the parents so they will usually buy a
lot of photos from your site afterwards

• Business Special Days – I remember doing some photo work for Chic-
Fil-A when they had a big promotion. It was a lot of fun and there were a
ton of people there. They had face paintings and of course the Cow was
doing all kinds of crazy things so I had to be on my toes during that whole
time. Big days are great for businesses as they can have some of those
pictures in the paper or just use them in their newsletters.

• Graduations – You can often charge as much for a graduation event as
you would for a wedding, depending on how much work they want for you
to do. Often you will not only have to cover the ceremony and get some
nice professional shots but also a graduation party and shoot in a more
photo journalistic style.

• Baby Dedications – When photographing a baby dedication in a church
you will want to be careful not to be too intrusive. Use a telephoto lens as
much as possible and stay out of the way. Of course if the parents actually
want you up front and close to all the action you need to do that. They are
the bosses and you are the employee for that day.

There are all kinds of events you can make money from, so keep your eyes open and always be willing to offer your services to an even that is going on. You may even have a singer or musical group want to hire you to get some great shots for their CD cover or website.

The key to a successful even photo session is to make sure you have a meeting with the clients before the even takes place and go over all of the boring details. Make sure you know what they are looking for and what they expect of you. This puts you at ease as well as the clients. You don’t want to have to guess what the client wants and then hope you get it right. This will just lead to more frustration for you.

The sports event photography market can bring in tons of money. So if you like sports this may be the perfect way for you to start making money with your camera.
There can be a lot of work in trying to get off the ground and running in shooting sporting events and that’s why I think you will love this ebook I have found called Sports Photo Success.
From my contact with the author of this book I know it will be a huge help in giving you some direction and some step by step instructions on making money in this very lucrative market.

Find those businesses that NEED a photographer like you.

June 25th, 2010
business_need_photographer

Every business needs photos, but some are willing to pay big bucks for you to  take them.
Not all businesses want to simply buy their pictures off of a micro stock photography website because they want a picture that no one else has. Sometimes a photo will be sold on istockphoto thousands of times and the market gets too saturated with that one picture for a business to use it. Or sometimes they just need a very specific picture of the products that they make.

Here is why big and small businesses need your photos:

• for brochures about their company
• for their website
• to show clients what they make
• to use in all forms of advertising
• for ads in the paper
• for putting together user manuals about their products
• for pictures of their workers and executives

When you walk into a business you can use all of the above points to show the company how they would benefit from hiring you to take photos for them.
Show them how having better quality pictures of their products would lead to better sales. Show them how more professional looking photos can make a huge difference from a clients point of view.

So what kind of businesses need you as a photographer?
Here are just a few you can get started on, and then add to the list as you go.

• Restaurants – They need pictures for their menus as well as their
advertisements. Taking pictures of food on a plate is a bit like stock
photography. It’s very simple and you can make any dish look fantastic.
The restaurant will benefit from those pictures in their ads as well. We all
know how amazing a picture of food can look when you are really hungry,
so show the owners of the restaurant that by having some nice pictures of
the food they serve they can get more customers. They can put these
pictures in a flyer or some other form of advertisement to help grow their
business.

• Offices – One thing that most offices need are portraits of their
employees. Executive portraits can be a very lucrative business. For your
first business you can do them for free so you can build up a small portfolio
of executive portraits to show to other businesses some samples
of your work. Just set up a schedule for getting the pictures done in a
timely fashion (as most employers don’t want to waste any of their
employees time) and use the same basic backdrop for each shot. Some
basic lighting techniques would help with this.

• Builders – Every builder is proud of the houses they have built, but they
want some professional photographs to reflect their work. You can take
some exterior shots but get a lot of nice interior pictures as well. It helps
to turn on all the lights and only use your flash if you are bouncing it off the
ceiling or through some sort of diffusion device to give it a natural look.

• Corporate Events – At a corporate event you will have to capture people
speaking behind a podium, activities and use an over all photo journalistic
kind of approach. There can be big big money in photographing corporate
events. The company may want to use your pictures in their brochures or
other forms of advertising so keep this in mind as you shoot the events.

• Corporate Portraits – There are a lot of really pathetic corporate portraits
out there. Show the company the need to have pictures of their “big wigs”
in their working environment so the picture will reflect what they do. This
will give the photos some personality. These can be done in a very
professional manner too. Usually it’s not too hard to improve on the
portraits that the company already has unless they have used a
professional photographer before.

• Website Pictures – Have you ever been on a website and just said to
yourself, “Wow, these pictures are horrible”? Well you want to put it nicely
to the website owner, but show them some of the pictures from your
portfolio and show them how a website is usually the first impression a
person gets of your business. Great pictures on your website can be a
huge step in the right direction to looking professional and increasing
business.

• Architectural photography – Companies that have either huge high rise
buildings or just big complexes all need great images of their buildings.
This goes right along with good branding and companies will pay big
bucks if you can get the perfect picture of their building that really helps
represent them will. If you feel sneaky you can even take some pictures of
the building and then show them to the company and see if they are
interested in buying them.

• Press Release photography – When a business has a press release
they want to make sure they have good pictures to represent them. Most
of the people that see these pictures will only get that one shot to get the
first impression of the business so you can advertise doing some press
release photography to make some extra money. You can shoot some
grand openings as well and then offer to deliver it to the newspaper
company for submission.

Advertising is one of the biggest parts of a companies budget, so why not take advantage of that? You need to be able to take pictures that are both artistic and that carry the concept that the company wants to convey. I really enjoy taking pictures of the products the company makes. You need to take as much pride in your picture of the product as the company has in
producing it. A great picture of their product can be a huge benefit for them in advertising as most of their buyers will make decisions on what they think about the product by
just looking at the picture. Look at the pictures they already have and see if you can improve on them. The list of businesses that are needing photographers can go on and on. If this is a niche you would be interested in, go ahead and start building a portfolio of some business pictures to show your potential clients.

Use Micro Stock as Spring Board to Major Income

June 25th, 2010

OK, say you have a picture like I mentioned in the last chapter that is selling fairly consistently on a micro stock site like Fotolia or Dreamstime, but it is only making you about a dollar a day on average, instead of $3. You can have pictures selling much better than this, but let’s just use a conservative figure for our example.

Now, let me remind you that not every picture is going to sell well, and it may take a while to learn the ropes.

About 20% of my pictures on micro stock make me 90% of my earnings. And that’s because I did not understand what kind of pictures sell and which ones don’t when I first started. Now I know how to take pictures that I know will sell like crazy. This is a topic I cover extensively in my ebook (which is coming soon by the way).
So let’s do the math to see how much you can make even selling your pictures for a dollar at a time: One picture in your portfolio makes you $1 per day on average.
Then let’s say you are able to grow your portfolio online to 100 pictures. A decent start. You can do this by just adding 10 pictures a day for 10 days.

If even 20% of your pictures are as successful as your first you will be making $20 per day.

And remember you can sell your photos on more than one micro stock photo site at a time. I am selling my pictures on about 6 micro stock websites right now and that just multiplies my income with each picture I submit.

To remind you, here are some of the best micro stock websites I recommend and make me money right now:

• Dreamstime
• Fotolia
• Istockphoto
• Shutterstock
• Bigstockphoto

Let’s say after a few months you are able to work very hard and build up your portfolio to 1,000 images on just one micro stock site. Again, assuming that only 20% of your pictures are able to sell once a day you can be making $200 every day, and even if you don’t work the next week, that money will still come in.

Now will everyone who does this make $200 a day from their pictures?
Absolutely not. But they CAN if they learn how to take pictures that people want to buy.

If you think you can just throw any old picture up on a site and see the money roll in then you will only be disappointed and give up too soon.

Here is a process that can help you make the most money for your pictures using micro stock:

• Focus on the pictures that are worth more to buyers
• Set aside a couple hours a day to start building up a stock photo portfolio
• Aim for getting 100 pictures or more every month approved by a site.
• After six months you will have 600 pictures.
• Review what pictures are selling the best.
• Keep taking pictures and submitting to micro stock sites.
• Set goals of making $500 a month, $1,000 a month, $2,000, $5,000 and
beyond.

The key to making a huge amount of money with micro stock is to submit hot selling photos often to the sites. If you do this it will be difficult NOT to make money.

Once you are making $1,000 or more a month, don’t stop. As you keep working to build your portfolio with new photos you will continue to make money with the old ones that are already approved.

And therein lies the beauty of this strategy of making money with your camera. You are building residual income. You will be able to shoot weddings, senior portraits, and birthday parties WHILE you are still making money with your stock photos.

And by the way, you can get a lot of stock photos during some of your photo sessions too.

Some of my best selling photos I have taken while shooting a wedding. I would see the brides shoes in the window with some nice light coming in, take the picture, and upload it to a micro stock photo site later on to make even more money. Keep in mind that you will need to put some language in your contracts to use some of those pictures for stock photos.

And any pictures of people will have to have a model release signed by those people. So for now, you might want to just focus on non-people photos.

In the 3rd tip for making money with photography we will look at finding those businesses that need a photographer like you.

If you want to get a jump start in micro stock photography and need some guidance, I would recommend checking out this guide called Stock Photography: Going Digital. The website is VERY cheesy and he really needs a new design going on there, but this is an ebook written by a guy who is making a KILLING in the world of micro stock, so you might as well learn from the best if you want to become the best.

Get As Many People as Possible to See Your Pictures.

June 25th, 2010
many_people

Get those millions to see your pictures instead of just thousands or just your circle of friends.
Exposure is crucial. Not only will having more people see your pictures help you make more money, but it’s also good for branding.
If people begin to see your pictures in more than one place they will begin to see that you are a big name photographer. Suddenly, the demand for your pictures will go up and people will be willing to spend more to have your images.
Years ago it would be tough to get a huge amount of people to see your pictures if you were just starting out, but with the internet it’s not only possible, but it should be one of your main priorities to make your pictures viewable online.

No matter what kind of photography you want to get into, if you don’t have some samples of your work online, you will be shutting out what could be a huge portion of your income.

So how do I get those pictures online?

Well you have two options:
1. Get your own website
2. Use existing websites for free

There are a lot of advantages to having your own website. No matter which option you pick, you will eventually want your own website. This helps with the branding process and gaining brand recognition too. Get your own name as the domain name i.e. “yourname.com” or you can be a little more creative.
Even with absolutely no HTML or web design experience I was able to set up a website using the free software called WordPress. If you can use a word processor you can build a site.
First you need a webhost. I recommend Hostgator.  They are the cheapest around with amazing customer support if you ever need help.
Using their cpanel you can install WordPress with a couple clicks of the mouse.
Then just find a nice free WordPress theme and you are ready to let the world see your photos.

Not ready to build a website yet?

Here are some ways you can use some free websites online to show off your pictures and your portfolio:

1. Myphotofolio.com
2. Voodoochilli.net
3. Onetalentsource.com
4. Deviantart.com
5. Flickr.com

You can also just put some of your best pictures together on a free hosted blog. The best free blogging services to use are:
1. Blogger.com
 2. WordPress.com

Or if you want you can use some social networking sites and use the power of Web 2.0. Here are some free sites you can join to advertise your photography for free and get some traffic to your portfolio:

1. Squidoo.com
2. Hubpages.com
3. Zimbio.com
4. Wetpaint.com

With all of the sites above you can add your photos and write something about them and your photography.
Then you can put the URL of your portfolio on your Facebook, Myspace, or Linkedin pages so your friends can see your work.
You can also use that URL in your email and forum signatures for even more exposure.
But if you really really REALLY want people to see your pictures you have to put them where people who are LOOKING for pictures go. And where is that?
Every month there are MILLIONS of people who visit micro stock photography sites with money in hand, ready to buy photos.

You can upload your pictures to these sites and people can buy downloads of them. So after you put your pictures on there they can sell over and over again while you do nothing but rake in the dough. It’s really quite simple and there are some making 6 digit figures with micro stock right now.
Once you build up a nice size portfolio on the sites below it will not be impossible to be making at least an extra $1,000 a month, and the more you work at it you can make that $1,000 per week. Many give up before they see profits like this, but don’t be like them=)

Here are some of the sites I am making money on right now, while at the same time getting more exposure for my photos.
1. Dreamstime.com
2. Istockphoto.com
3. Fotolia.com
4. Shutterstock.com
5. Bigstockphoto.com

I would recommend starting with dreamstime.com. They are fairly lenient on accepting your pictures and you can upload a bunch at one time to start selling them one download at a time.

Fotolia is a great place to start too. There is one certain picture that I sell at least once a day on Fotolia and it makes me over $100 a month, every month, no matter what.
In the next email I am going to show you my blueprint for making BIG money with micro stock photography so hold on. In the mean time you can get signed up at any of the micro stock sites above by clicking on the links provided.

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