Nicholas Normandy asked:


The best tool a freelance digital photographer has, besides a digital camera, is photoshop. Mainly, because it can increase stock photo sales and generate more profit. It can work just as well if your more into just editing digital photos, or graphic design. You are still going to need a digital camera, but putting more focus on digital editing is really up to you.

With every coming year the population of graphic designers and photo editors has been increasing. Photo editors, like yourself, are trying to find a freelance income from their work. This can be hard with competition and location. So, a lot of those people turn to stock photo sites to start a career or earn extra income. If you don’t know what a stock photography site is, the definition is basically a site that provides graphic designers, advertisers, and marketers digital photos for whatever job they need. The people selling them upload their photos, the photos are bought through a stock photography site like Shutterstock and you earn a commission or a profit. It can be said that this is mainly a freelance digital photography business but lately that has changed. Actually having photo editing skills will benefit you in the long run and earn you more sales.

The people that are buying stock photos are graphic designers and photo editors like you. Which makes it easier for you to understand exactly what a buyer wants. You can utilize this information and make more sales by providing them with the types of digital photos they need for a particular job. It might not apply as much Photoshop and digital editing as one would want but its a freelance lucrative business that can earn you a pretty decent paycheck.

You are going to need two things right at the beginning: a digital camera and an internet connection. Then you can learn how to create your own digital stock photography portfolio. It’s important that you learn about keywords, uploading, traffic, best photos to sell and the best stock photography sites. There are some books that helped me, but one source in particular I recommend is a program called Camera Dollars. Basically, this program will teach you all the technical stuff that is hard for anyone to understand. (the link is on the site). That is where I learned this information when I was first starting out. I started out only selling digital photography and in the beginning I was only earning about $100.00 per site every day. I later started using Photoshop a ton more and increased my profits multiple times.

If you are digital editor or graphic designer then I definitely recommend trying to sell your work on places like Shutterstock to see if it’s right for you. If your a digital photographer you need to get photoshop for photo upkeep and presentation. If you work hard and spend several hours each week you will earn money fairly quick. You won’t need to quit your day job, you just need enough time to take and edit photos.

Nicholas Normandy asked:


So you want to make a living from your freelance digital photography. A way to earn extra income that has been showing a lot of promise is selling your freelance photos to stock photography sites like Fotolia. Say you love shooting pictures with your digital camera but never considered making a good amount of money from it. You couldn’t describe this as a job quiting opportunity just yet, but if you dedicate enough time who knows. Doesn’t matter what age you are just as long as you have some extra time to shoot and upload photos. This is just a way to distribute your freelance photography onto a stock photo site that will sell the pictures for you. If someone buys your freelance photos you will get paid, it is a pretty simple concept. Although the concept is simple enough there is a few methods that need to be learned in order to ensure successful picture sales.

Taking good digital pictures is obviously an aspect of getting good conversions. You don’t have to use all the most expensive equipment or know the trade secrets of taking great digital photos. Buyers of stock photography need pictures of almost anything, and that’s what you can give them pictures of anything and everything. The colors in your digital photos have to be neat, balanced and not too dull. You cannot have any signatures, logos or marks on the pictures to define there ownership. Your photos have to be in focus and not have any noise. Lastly it should not look like you were a tourist and you had a more creative outlook.

To help your photos sell you need to photograph things that are useful to buyers. You really have to think like a buyer, because the people who are buying stock photography are marketers, advertisers, website makers, magazines, and graphic designers (to name a few). You need to attract your buyers with keywords or proper picture categorizing. Learning to pick the popular, low competitive keywords will improve your sales dramatically. And will bring a large amount of traffic to your freelance work.

Here are the things you need (or) need to do to get started

-Have an Internet Connection

-Buy a Digital Camera

-Learn about proper keywords, conversion, uploading, stock photography companies (read an Ebook)

-Sign up with Stock photo companies

-Take hundreds of digital photos

-Upload you pictures, make conversions/sales and make a profit

-Repeat what you are doing correctly in order to start make double, triple and yeah you got it

If selling your digital photography to stock photo sites something that interest you, learn more about how to get started at my site Freelance Digital Photography Careers and Job Choices

Groshan Fabiola asked:


Selling stock photography to a stock image library could be a great option for you if you’re more interested in taking pictures than selling them. One of the major problems associated with freelance photography on a part time basis is the lack of time. If you have a separate job that takes your time from Monday to Friday, the only time you have left to take pictures are evenings, weekends and holidays.

If you add up all this time together, it looks okay, but to actually make money from your photography you can’t just take pictures, you need to sell them as well. That in it self can be very time and labor intensive. If you have a family, you probably have even less free time, so you need to make best use of what you have.

Many photographers don’t actually know how to sell their photography either. There is very little point in trying to sell pictures to magazines and publishing houses if you don’t actually know what they want or when they want it. If you send off pictures to these types of publications, the chances are you will be getting them back again within days; you will have achieved nothing except waste time and money.

A great way to overcome the problem of selling your photography is by storing your work with a stock photo library. With a stock photo library, all the selling is taken care of for you. This gives you a source of income for your photography, and gives you more time to spend on taking pictures.

So, if you want to find out more about transportation stock photography or about motorcycle stock photography or even about nautical stock you should click these links.

Nicholas Normandy asked:


Selling digital photography to stock photo sites or selling photos over the internet can be a very profitable business if you know all the nuances that will get you a good amount of sales. Learning the technical aspects is very important, and really paints the fine line between making money and wasting your time. I don’t mean to discourage anyone, because it should be conveyed that anyone with a digital camera, an internet connection and a little spare time can do quite well. A lot of people sell their freelance photos through stock photography sites or through their own page/web host without a particular theme and do fairly well, but I will take more time and effort. A better battle plan is to find a particular type or subject of digital photography that you can easily focus on.

To explain further what picking a theme really does for photography sales, it helps consumers easily find what they are looking for when they type in specific descriptions or set of keywords. This benefits you because if a consumer types in your specific subject there is a good chance that it will bring them directly to your freelance photography. If you don’t already have the program called Camera Dollars, then labeling and specifying keywords is something you have to learn, but this tool will help you. And after you read the Camera Dollars lessons, you need to sign up with these companies and do a bit of research in order to figure out a profitable theme to pick for your photography.

Here are are several different types of freelance photography themes and short descriptions of each.

The method of taking pictures as a Theme:

Some examples of this would be macro, scenery, black and white, geometric, architecture, abstract, micro, motion, portrait, or panoramic.

These are usually recognized by simple types of photography and aren’t usually profitable on their own. Usually you want to combine this with other themes, like instead of “50’s Television” you could use the theme “Black and white 50’s televisions.”

Nominal Themes:

Simply put these themes based on any object, person, or place. Examples are Dvd, chair, cookware, doorknobs, Bahamas, Britney Spears and so on.

Themes Based off of Photo Utility:

Instead of think of what to take pictures of think of what the person buying the photo is using it for. You can base your theme off of a particular job or usage for the photo. To give an example a lot of graphic designers buy digital photos off the internet, do some research and try to sell particularly to them.

Intangible Themes:

Intangible digital photography themes are based off of ideas, emotions and other ambiguous images. Here are some examples: Love, hope, existentialism, correction, trust, triumphant, justice.

Your digital photography doesn’t have to be specified by just one form. Any of these three types of subjects can be put together to make an even more specific category of photos. An example of mixing two themes would be like Motion and friendship, which can be a picture of two friends doing some activity together or otherwise being in the state of “motion.” You could have hundreds of themes by the time your done, but it is better to focus on a few at a time. Do your research and in order to learn about how to sign up or start your own business check out Jobs in Digital Photography

Nicholas Normandy asked:


Stock photography can be a much overlooked sect of digital photography. Although, portraits, nature, abstracts and so on are more known through out the photography community, that isn’t to say that stock photography isn’t as important. What makes taking stock photos so different to all other types of photography is the applicable means to which stock photos are presented. Other types of photos such as portraits and macro sometimes don’t have a definitive analogy to where such photos lie. A portrait can carry the quality of being a ‘portrait’ with no other applicable use besides the art in itself. Contrarily, stock photos have a very clear purpose and may even cross the line as to calling them a job instead of a type of photography. A proper explanation of stock photography is needed in order to further pursue the career.

First it is important to know where the term stock photos comes from. This is term coined, more fluently, on the internet, and most of the time it refers to selling and buying photos through a stock photo site. A stock photo site is a place that anyone can sign up and upload their photos in order for buyers to purchase their pictures. You can earn money based on whatever guidelines the site may have. A variety of people purchase stock photos mostly for job related reasons. The most popular frequenters of stock photo sites are graphic designers, marketers, magazines, and advertisers. They may use the picture in whatever way the want, they may edit the image or leave it completely unchanged.

In order to learn how to become successful in the business of freelance stock photography you need to know what buyers want and how it differs from regular photography. Depending on the practices of a job, buyers need digital stock photos for specific purposes that make it easily editable or accessible. They might need pictures of macro, landscape, and industrial subjects but just presented a little bit differently than what most are use to.

Advertisers might need pictures of self-directed compelling premises, that easily convey what they are trying to sell. Graphic designers want digital photos that are easy to edit that lack complex backgrounds and over shadowing. Also, a lot of jobs need several different versions of the same picture in order to find one that will do the project justice. Meaning pictures of the same subject but presented at different angles and camera positions. For a more comprehensive tutorial on how to take stock photos go look at thetutorials and jobs in digital photography.

That is the basic explanation of what stock photography is. It can seem simple but learning the complexities of how to take profitable digital photos can take a while. If you are looking to pursue a career doing this freelance and on your own, then dedicate enough time, work hard and you will have something to show for it.