If you are a photographer, you probably make money with commissioned photoshoots in your niche. You may also sell some stock photography or original photography. However, many photographers are left with portfolios full of great images that aren’t making much money for them. There are more ways than you may realize to make money by selling photos.
Create a Professional Online Gallery
Do you want to be a professional photographer and make a meaningful income from your work? The first step is to develop a high-quality portfolio where clients can view your work, pick their favourites, choose print sizes, etc.
Trying to handle all of the details of making your own website online gallery with traditional ways like HTML, or a Content Management System is hard. You need your site to look gorgeous and be responsive. Furthermore, unless you hire a 3PL company, you’ll have to take care of shipping and logistics. It is all exhausting enough to cut into your time photographing and editing.
The best solution is an all-in-one platform like Pixpa.
Pixpa will take care of your eCommerce needs and provide gorgeous galleries for clients to select and personalize from. Furthermore, they give you a platform for a personalized blog, all in one easy account.
You probably know how valuable social media is when it comes to marketing your photos. A blog is a great way to extend your social media reach and build a more dedicated following. Just one boosted post on Facebook can result in hundreds of views to your blog and hopefully your sales pages.
Pixpa lets you establish an effective e-commerce business while maintaining your commission clients all in one place. Starting an eCommerce store is an excellent way to bring in additional income as a photographer. Even better, an eCommerce store that is effectively managed is more or less passive income.
From digital photos to prints, commissioned shoots to fine art sales, Pixpa makes it much easier than maintaining your own website.
Sell Stock Photos
Stock photos are a superb way to make a significant income on photos that you may otherwise not be able to sell. Stock photos need to be quality, but they may not be the shots that your clients choose. You can also have a lot of fun shooting specifically for the stock photo marketplace. Srijita from srijitaphotography has explained it beautifully in this guide.
Being a stock site photographer is a wonderful way to help a good cause or make a few people very happy. This free publicity builds your word-of-mouth marketing while also providing images that you can sell for good money. A stock photographer often has more choices in what they photograph than does a commissioned photographer.
Choose the stock photography website that is right for you from the dozens that are available. For some photographers, large sites like iStock photo or Shutterstock will be perfect. Being a Shutterstock contributor is free, and this massive site can attract lots of visitors, so this is a good option if you’d like passive income for lots of pictures and don’t mind earning a little less per shot. For other photographers, a microstock agency that lets you sell highly niche image collections at a great price will be ideal.
Each stock photography site varies in how much they let you sell your images for, how much money they keep, and what images they accept. Do your research to choose which stock photo sites are right for you. If you are applying to more than one stock photo agency or microstock website, be sure that you don’t sell to more than one site and violate copyrights.
Here are some popular stock photography sites that you might want to look into:
- Shutterstock
- Pikwizard
- Istockphoto
- Etsy
- Adobe Stock
What to Look for in Stock Photo Sites
- Are there monthly costs and fees? For some photographers, monthly cost and various fees associated with dealing with a given stock photo site will be well worth the benefits. Still, you don’t want to be surprised by these costs once you’ve already gone through the effort & the paperwork.
- What percentage do you get to keep? Stock picture sites that allow you to keep a high percentage of income from your images often charge monthly for your account or are otherwise more expensive or selective, but keeping 85% or more of digital and print sales can be extremely lucrative.
- What kind of images do they take? Some sites accept certain kinds of stock footage and not others. Some sites take video footage as well as photographs. There’s no point in signing up with a site that doesn’t sell the content that you’re producing.
- Do they buy exclusive photos? Some stock photo sites buy the rights to your photo so you can’t use them yourself or sell them to other stock photo sites. Others allow you to sell images without selling the rights. Make sure that you don’t accidentally sell away the rights to images that you will want to use in the future.
Sell Products and Photo Books
Your photos and photo prints aren’t the only way to make money from your photography. You can experiment with selling all kinds of products that have your photography on them. Order all kinds of things including t-shirts, throw pillows, coffee mugs, and phone covers. See if local shops will consider stocking your products or if you can sell them at arts and crafts shows. You can also stock these objects in your eCommerce store.
These products are a great opportunity to offer a unique customized product to your commissioned clients. Letting your client choose what photographs they’d like on what kind of object can be a massive boost for your business and bring in added revenue.
One kind of unique physical product that you can make with your images is a photo book. Photo books are often highly attractive to individuals, organizations and businesses that want to present a lot of photos without putting them on the walls. Make a few samples and see if some new customers might open up to you. This can be a great way to sell more photos per customer.
How to Produce Photographs That Sell
The first step to making money in photography is producing photographs that will sell in the first place. One of the biggest mistakes that many beginner photographers make is trying to do too many things with too little equipment.
It’s best to specialize in an area that you love and pick the right equipment for that task. A photo app on your iPhone isn’t going to create photos that sell. You need to develop your photography skills as well as your photo editing to succeed on a stock photo website.
Peruse the stock library of a stock agency or two where you want to sell photo content. Look at the fine art of photographers that you admire. A great way to see if your photography can compete is to try out a photo contest. This is an excellent way to bring in some money with a minimum commitment and see if your photographs are professional quality. You can also checkout this course bundle on Simpliv if you want to explore and learn more about photography
Here are some of the niches that tend to be most lucrative:
- Portraits. Commissioned portraits are one of the most lucrative options for professional photographers. Therefore, it comes in handy that pictures of people of all kinds and cultures, posing, working, or playing, also sell in stock photography and fine arts as well. This guide from Iris and Lace photography will give you posing ideas for taking teen photos.
- Food. Love food photography or run a food blog? Extend your income by selling food photography stock photos.
- Travel. Shots from all over the world sell well, including cities and people commuting and shots of nature. Wildlife photography from anywhere worldwide is also very popular.
Is Making Money Through Photography Right for You?
Do you love photography? Are you committed to improving your skill and investing in your equipment? You will likely find that you can make a decent income through photography. Diversify sources of income, but specialize in the type of photographs you take.
With the right tools and skills you can succeed in making money in photography by selling stock photography, commissioning photo shoots, selling products, and more.
