# Earning money in photography???



## Peter "RamMan" (Nov 16, 2015)

Hello!
My name is Peter.I am a photographer with some certain amount of experience.
I'd like to find some way how to earn money with the help of my photos.
Of course i am not a professional but i am still trying to find some sources of income.
I tried to write an  e-mail to newspapers,magazines etc.Then i registrated myself in a few photostocks but 
then i understood that it will last to long to sale a photo and even for a small prize.
There was also a situation with auctions but all of them were  saying to me something like  "F*ck off!".
Now my story continues here,on this forum too.
What do you think?


Some of my photos:


 

 

 

 

    =


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## tirediron (Nov 16, 2015)

I think I really can't see past all the white rectangles on your images!   That said, photography is a tough way to make money these days.  Stock is so saturated as to be pointless unless you're exceptionally good, and landscape/nature/fine-art is the same.  You can make some money in retail (family, headshots, etc), but most of the big earning avenues are dead.


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## Designer (Nov 16, 2015)

I don't get why you put rectangles on your photos.

In short; selling a photograph is producing a photograph that someone would be willing to pay money for.  

It really is just that simple, but it's not an easy thing to do.

You can either find that one person who simply loves your stuff, all of it, and is willing to pay you handsomely for any and all of it.

Or you can produce photographs for which LOTS of people would be willing to pay a small amount.


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## JoeW (Nov 16, 2015)

The two best ways to make money as a photographer (as a business) are:
--sell to other photographers (studio space, equipment, workshops, etc.)
--weddings (which needs to be done as a full-time gig and devoting your art/craft to this if you're going to make consistent money off of it).


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## jcdeboever (Nov 16, 2015)

Are the rectangles watermarks?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk


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## AceCo55 (Nov 17, 2015)

IMHO, I'm treating this as a troll until the OP at least responds.
Too many one post wonders lately


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## Derrel (Nov 17, 2015)

I think the rectangles are an anti-theft measure, put on those images to keep people from stealing them and using them for monetary gain.


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## Dave442 (Nov 17, 2015)

I like the white rectangles. If each one was was something like a canvas wrap print and then one stacked above the other then the final work might be something I would buy.


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## astroNikon (Nov 17, 2015)

I'm either way about the rectangles .. mostly "no" though.
But I've seen them used in more creative ways.

Such as the cherry photo.  A rectangle around the 2 front cherries, then non-symmetrical boxes expanding from there.  So the main item in the photo - the 2 cherries are not cut in pieces by the boxes.  Then it may interfere with the bowl, which may need to be placed differently. 

I think more thought has to be put into it rather than putting symmetrical, mostly even spaced boxes on a photo.  And then, the photo still has to be interesting.


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## tirediron (Nov 17, 2015)

Derrel said:


> I think the rectangles are an anti-theft measure, put on those images to keep people from stealing them and using them for monetary gain.


 Makes sense, that's always a concern.


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## Village Idiot (Nov 17, 2015)

JoeW said:


> The two best ways to make money as a photographer (as a business) are:
> --sell to other photographers (studio space, equipment, workshops, etc.)
> --weddings (which needs to be done as a full-time gig and devoting your art/craft to this if you're going to make consistent money off of it).



You can make money off of weddings without doing it full time. Of course, it probably won't be your full time job either, but making $20,000 a year off of 10 weddings would be a nice little chunk of change. It would sure by a lot of booze.


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## KmH (Nov 17, 2015)

Photos of the type and quality posted are not very marketable, because there are millions and millions just like them all over the Internet.

Of the photos posted the mountain valley photo is the best but could benefit from some judicious post process.
Even with that I would suggest that photo still would not be very marketable. 

To make significant money from photography done on speculation requires investing a lot of time and effort marketing and promoting the photographer.
Those few that do make decent money doing photography on speculation _do_ invest the time and effort marketing and promoting themselves.
Those few that do make decent money doing photography on speculation also produce stunning images the average photographer can not propduce.

Photography done on speculation - making a photograph not commissioned in advance by a buyer.


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## Village Idiot (Nov 17, 2015)

KmH said:


> Photos of the type and quality posted are not very marketable, because there are millions and millions just like them all over the Internet.
> 
> Of the photos posted the mountain valley photo is the best but could benefit from some judicious post process.
> Even with that I would suggest that photo still would not be very marketable.
> ...



This is why I find the idea of the current stock market and stuff like non commissioned sale of stuff like landscape photography tough. There's a local photographer that recently posted on facebook that he's was done and ready to sell all his equipment because he poured time, talent, and money into his photography business where he created prints and showed them off at trade shows but never sold anything.

The photos would have to be absolutely striking and unique for me to stop at a random show and say, "I must have that!" Same thing with the current stock trade. Before when stock was controlled by the big stock companies and literally not everyone with a camera could open an account and start submitting photos, you didn't have the vast amount of options to choose from and choices breed competition and competitive prices. 

As a photographer that shoots portraits, events, and weddings, people come to me for my style. I produce a product that they want and the experience is tailored to my customers as opposed as being tailored to my own likes and hoping that someone else shares that strongly enough to want me to pay me for it. With that you can also afford to charge more. How many photos would you have to sell to break $2000 a month?


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## astroNikon (Nov 17, 2015)

Problem is when someone sees something that they like (such as online) they'll download it in one method or another, remove the watermark, and make their background that picture.

Or just take a picture of a photo/painting with your cell phone.
No wonder they don't like cameras in art studios.


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## KmH (Nov 17, 2015)

Stock photography as a regular income stream for photographers has been killed by 2 things:
1. The consolidation of the stock photography industry caused by Getty Images and Corbis buying up all the independent stock photography houses.
2. The shift from Rights Managed (RM) use licensing to Royalty-Free (RF) use licensing that has made stock photos a bulk commodity.

RM use licensing allows the _one-time use_ of a photo as specified by the license. The license specifies - how long, what media type(s), geographical area of the use, maximum size used, number of impressions (print run) and can specify more.

RF use licensing is like buying a bushel of corn, with each reproduction of the same photo equal to one grain of corn in the bushel basket.
RF users pay a one time low fee for 500,000 uses with no time or size limitations. Photographers get paid a small % of the one time low use licensing fee.
RF stock houses make money buy selling 10's of thousands of cheap RF use licenses.

Back in the day I could make $20,000 over a few years from a single stock photo that sold with an RM use license 50 or 60 times.

Today's RF use license pays the photographer pennies for each RF license sold, even though each use license usually allows up to 500,000 uses - with only a few restrictions.
Most stock houses won't send the photographer a check until the check can be written for at least $100.  If the photographer gets paid $0.20 per use license it takes *500* sales to make $100.

It has been said that 85% of all the photos that sell _have people in the photos_.
That's how retail photographers are able to make money.
People in the photos, and/or immediate relatives of the people in the photos, buy the photos they paid to have made.

Commercial photos made for advertising more often than not have people in them too.

No people in the photo is what makes landscape, flowers, and other photos with no people in them almost impossible to give away, let alone sell.
Photos with no people in them that then also have mundane content and low quality production values hardly ever get stolen, let alone bought.

The bottom line is - it takes substantial business savvy and skill to make money doing retail or commercial photography, of any kind.
Today, stock photography is not a way for photographers to make money.


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## desertrattm2r12 (Dec 27, 2015)

I don't think you have much of a business plan, very little preparation. Many stock photos tell a little story. Do any of yours tell a story?
I was in the stock business for quite a while and made some okay money but never utilized the Internet. There was a town on the Pacific Coast that every year grew 3,000 acres of flowers for seeds. It was hard to get decent photos of a lot of the flower fields because the area on the coast was overcast a lot. A photographer would come into town, drive around and get very few photos. This field was not ready yet and without it in perfect condition he could not shoot it and the next one and the next one and the next one.
However, I lived in the little town. Any time I had a few minutes or the weather was specially good I would zip out and get one field of particularly great flowers that everybody else with a camera missed. And I got to know how to look at a field and say -- this will be ripe next week and next week I would pick a nice, clear day and nail that one, too. I sold all kinds of photos of the flower fields to magazines and newspapers and even the local  Chamber of Commerce.
Note all my sales were local and not on the Internet. You can find local clients if you look.


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## JerryPH (Dec 28, 2015)

To make money off of photography... that's a million dollar question and I am sure everyone here would want that one simple answer so they could go out and make their first million off of the pictures that come out of heir cameras.

Unfortunately, its NOT that simple.

You can be the world's best photographer but if you business skills suck, you won't make enough in a year to buy a candy bar.  If your business skills are exceptional, but your photography skills suck... same thing.

So how to make money in photography?  Be an EXCELLENT business person, and have exceptional photography skills, do something that sets you apart from the other 90 million other photographers that are out there asking the same question and trying to figure it out at the same time as you are.

Unfortunately, because of the popularity of photography and  the number of people out there doing it, the chance of making serious money in this field requires nothing short of extraordinary excellence in all areas, not just in one's ability to press a shutter button.


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## KmH (Dec 28, 2015)

Photography has always been popular.
But back in the day SLR cameras and their lenses were out of reach, money wise, for a lot more people then.

Consumer electronics technology has dumbed photography down such that it's easier today to make a decent photograph.
Plus the price of digital cameras, planned obsolescence, and improved marketing strategies allows the camera makers to sell a lot more cameras today than they were able to sell 20 years ago.
Cell phone cameras are a perfect example. No expertise needed. Just point it and press a button.
The electronics in the cell phone will take care of all the technical details.

Cars will be next.
Get in. Sit Down. Text away, surf the Net, snap photos, or make video - as the car drives itself.


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