# Selling photos



## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

Hi all I have been looking it to selling my photos but don't know how to go about it can anyone help me please 


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## tirediron (Feb 6, 2014)

I'm afraid your question is just a little too vague.  Where are you located, what kind of pictures, etc, etc...  in general, selling non-commissioned work (for instance landscape images you have shot) is extremely difficult these days due to the heavily saturated market.  Do you want to sell digital files, prints, or???


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## KmH (Feb 6, 2014)

CraigReeves said:


> Hi all I have been looking it to selling my photos but don't know how to go about it can anyone help me please
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Advertising, marketing, and salesmanship is how you sell photographs.

Step #1 is doing some research to determine if there is a market for what you are selling.
If you determine there is a market for what you are selling, set #2 is determining how much and the quality of competition that already exists in that market.
Step #3 is developing a plan to offer your photographs in such a way that you stand out from the crowd, if there is one.
In the cae of selling photographs, there is definitely a crowd

How you think your photos would use your photos determines who you would market and promote your photos to.
 Would individuals buy your photos, frame them, and hang them on a wall in their home?
Would companies buy your photos for use in their advertisements?
Would art collectors buy your photos for the photo's artistic merit?

Just putting your photos online and offering them for sale won't result in very many, if any, sales.

It is estimated that 500,000,000 (1/2 billion) new photos are uploaded to the Internet _*every day*_.
To sell your photos you have to some how stand out from the cacophony of photographs on the Internet.

You could check out the stock photography market:
Microstock Agencies ? An Overview for Beginners | Yuri Arcurs
What should I shoot and what sells well? | Yuri Arcurs
Basic Stock Photography Terminology ? for Photographers | Yuri Arcurs


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## Bossy (Feb 6, 2014)

You cant figure out how to edit a photo, I'd focus on that before selling anything.


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## KmH (Feb 6, 2014)

I'd recommend the first focus be on learning how to make a high quality photograph. Then make that high quality photograph even better using an image editing application.

There are a lot of really talented photographers out there that can't make 10 cents from selling their photos, because they have no business, sales, marketing, promotion skills.


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## Bossy (Feb 6, 2014)

KmH said:


> I'd recommend the first focus be on learning how to make a high quality photograph. Then make that high quality photograph even better using an image editing application.
> 
> There are a lot of really talented photographers out there that can't make 10 cents from selling their photos, because they have no business, sales, marketing, promotion skills.


Well to be fair, I haven't seen any of his images to know how his quality is. I do know he recently asked how to do selective coloring, which speaks volumes to me.


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## bribrius (Feb 6, 2014)

why do you want the headache of trying to sell them?


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## Mike Lamb (Feb 6, 2014)

Submit some of your images one at a time to the general gallery forum for ctritique.  See if anyone likes your work.  Opinions tend to be honest.


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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

Mike Lamb said:


> Submit some of your images one at a time to the general gallery forum for ctritique.  See if anyone likes your work.  Opinions tend to be honest.



Will do his thank you criticism is the best way to learn 


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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

Please take a look on my flickr and tell me what you think  my flickr name is reevesy105


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## manaheim (Feb 6, 2014)

Ok what I'm sensing here is a lack of effort on your part.

"Hi how do I sell pictures?"
"Hey go look at my work."

Look...

There are about 8 million people on this earth who want to make money at photography. The difference between the ones that do, and the ones that don't... is effort. (with talent and luck as a sidecar) You need to want it bad enough to work really hard at it.


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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

I only said to look at my flickr because for some criticism as I am new to the photography world


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## manaheim (Feb 6, 2014)

If you want feedback, you post here.

Don't ask people to come to you.

Take it to the people.

The latter is harder work, but it shows you have some skin in the game and people will respond to that... universally.


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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

True that here is some of my work


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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

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## CraigReeves (Feb 6, 2014)

There are some of my good and not so good photos


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## Maydaywood (Feb 6, 2014)

First most of them are underexposed. There is potential in them though, just work on the simple things like exposure and it will help a lot. watch videos about the basics of photography on youtube or find tutorials online and such.


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## Bossy (Feb 6, 2014)

Post one or two of your favorites in general for feedback.


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## manaheim (Feb 6, 2014)

Why would you show us the not so good ones?

If these represent your good ones, I'd say you have a lot of work to do before you start selling your images.


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## terri (Feb 6, 2014)

Hi Craig, and welcome to TPF!    You may want to spend some time learning how to post your images here directly from flickr, or your computer (if you can access TPF other than via tapatalk).    

Most of our members will be happy to look at your work if you post it in one of the Galleries that we have here.   They are listed by different categories, such as Landscape, People, etc.   But take a look here first and learn to navigate the forum a little bit.  Some of these folks get cranky and don't always want to help a new member who doesn't seem to be taking the time to learn the ropes.     

Take your time, have fun and enjoy the forum!


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## KmH (Feb 6, 2014)

For photos you have taken, see - http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/... to upload photos directly from your computer

This is the TPF section where you share your photos for C&C (Comment & Critique) - *Photo Galleries - Photos submitted by members for general display or critique*


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## imagemaker46 (Feb 7, 2014)

You should never post any photos that you don't consider good, if you think they are bad, chances are so will anyone that looks at them.  Looks to me that you have a ways to go before you should consider trying to sell anything. If you do an internet search on the subjects you like to shoot, it will show you thousands of images that generally all look the same. The key to selling success, is to provide images that are different and better than what you see.  The other problem is that there are millions of photos being uploaded to free sites every day, that is your competition.

Post only the best.


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## TWright33 (Feb 7, 2014)

The photos, to me, look dark. 

I would first expose them correctly and then see what others think.


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## CraigReeves (Feb 7, 2014)

All grate help thank you will look in to exposer


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## ratssass (Feb 7, 2014)

CraigReeves said:


> All grate help thank you will look in to exposer
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



...our future.


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## CraigReeves (Feb 7, 2014)

ratssass said:


> CraigReeves said:
> 
> 
> > All grate help thank you will look in to exposer
> ...



What is my spelling problems got to do with you and photography 


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## Bossy (Feb 7, 2014)

CraigReeves said:


> ratssass said:
> 
> 
> > CraigReeves said:
> ...


You are on an iPhone. There is no excuse for laziness and not utilizing spell check.


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## CraigReeves (Feb 7, 2014)

That doesn't answer my question


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## ratssass (Feb 7, 2014)

communicating effectively will help in anything you do.Consider that part of your business model foundation.


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## imagemaker46 (Feb 7, 2014)

The language problem is only a concern if english is the first language


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## CraigReeves (Feb 7, 2014)

Not when I have dyslexia and ADHD so can we forget about my issues and focus on what this forum is really for photography and help out people learning photography and helpful advice please thank you


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## ratssass (Feb 7, 2014)

ok....good luck "Selling  photos" without communicating effectively,which,by the way has absolutely nothing to do with the English language,ehh?
....i'm just saying it's a tool.....use it.It's free.


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## CraigReeves (Feb 7, 2014)

Look it is my problem not yours if you don't like it don't comment like the saying goes if you don't have anything good to say don't say anything at all 


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## manaheim (Feb 7, 2014)

*Everyone commenting on the spelling and grammar can stop right now.
*


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## runnah (Feb 7, 2014)

manaheim said:


> Everyone commenting on the spelling and grammar in this thread, can stop right now.



Fixed.


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## manaheim (Feb 7, 2014)

Ok, that was funny.


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## Gavjenks (Feb 12, 2014)

1) All your images are massively too dark. Like, several stops too dark. If I feel like I'm giving myself a stronger glasses prescription j ust by trying to look at your photos, I'm not going to want to buy them.
2) Too much vignetting added (dark ring around whole image). If you can tell that the person added vignetting, it's usually too much (same goes for most editing choices)
3) All your subjects are centered in the frame which is fine now and then if there's a reason for it, but gets boring quickly. This also goes for centering the horizon in the middle, which is even less often a good idea.
4) Questionable subject matters if you want to sell photos. Why would somebody want to buy a picture of a random muddy train track without much shape definition? Or a swan in a featureless blue rectangle?  Imagine actually putting these over your mantlepiece and whether that would make any rooms look good. For most of them, the answer is "no" to me. 
5) Various minor technical issues, for instance the really really slanty perspective on the church/castle thing looks bleh. You need to either adjust in photoshop (at a loss of resolution and limiting your print sizes) or a tilt shift lens (expensive) or view camera (expensive and difficult) to do that sort of shot correctly.


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## orljustin (Feb 12, 2014)

CraigReeves said:


> Hi all I have been looking it to selling my photos but don't know how to go about it can anyone help me please
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Nope.  If you have to ask, likely nobody wants 'em.


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## bribrius (Feb 12, 2014)

imagemaker46 said:


> You should never post any photos that you don't consider good, if you think they are bad, chances are so will anyone that looks at them. Looks to me that you have a ways to go before you should consider trying to sell anything. If you do an internet search on the subjects you like to shoot, it will show you thousands of images that generally all look the same. The key to selling success, is to provide images that are different and better than what you see. The other problem is that there are millions of photos being uploaded to free sites every day, that is your competition.
> 
> Post only the best.



really? I post most of my worse stuff on here. If it were already a good photo, well then I wouldn't need suggestions or critique.


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## manaheim (Feb 12, 2014)

orljustin said:


> CraigReeves said:
> 
> 
> > Hi all I have been looking it to selling my photos but don't know how to go about it can anyone help me please
> ...



Uh, no. I'm an unpublished author. Is that because no one wants to read my books? No, it's because I'm still learning the ropes of how to become published.

Odds are if I were a better author, I'd be able to make all that happen faster, but at the end of the day, my not being published is not a direct representation of any lack of desire by the reading community to read my works.


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