How to make money from your photos

The eternal question, no mistake here. Any advanced amateur has thought about it - how to have fun, do something you love and make some money on the side. Most even don't want to do photography full time because that means actually taking responsibility and delivering good results every time, sometimes pictures that you normally would not take and that you don't find value in. But I thought I'd share my experience as I've sold couple, I'm actually selling one every week or even more often. But I've certainly not become rich because of my photos.

First a little about promoting yourself. I started posting my photos on my homepage long time ago. First just for friends to see because they were on them, as my audience grew I started being more critical and publishing a bit less. I also seldom wrote on photography, this even grew into a special website about photography - foto.diip.ee. Because I was now showing photos in several places people started to notice and occasionally someone would ask if it was OK to use a picture here or there. So I decided to give my photos away with only 2 minor restrictions. First I asked people to link back to me and I they could only use pictures for non-commercial things. This approach proved to be very successful as my photos got used on websites, in PowerPoint presentations etc.

If you lack skills and webspace you might want to check websites that offer photo hosting (Flickr being my favourite) but anyone who is a bit more serious about presenting their work should invest (not necessarily money) in nice personal looking galleries. It gives much better overview of their work and if done well will make people take you much more seriously.

Orders did not pour in, they never have. But I've developed good relationships with couple of designer friends who use my photos for their client works. I don't do any assignments because I shoot film and have a huge backlog of rolls waiting for development but if you shoot digital that is an option.

When I put up new photos I promote it on my homepage and also paste link to couple of friends, just to remind them that the photos are there for viewing pleasure.

Royalty-free ripping you off?

Couple of month ago I was reminded of a site called istockphoto.com that has a vital market for photographers, designers and everybody else who deal with photos, vector images, flash clips etc. Just to see how it works I uploaded couple of photos (see my gallery). Results have been interesting. Selling one photo makes you very little money because it costs very little to buy it. So it's a volume game - you have to sell a lot to make decent sum of money. But because it's a big community and buying one photo costs so little people actually buy a lot.

When I compare to my direct sales the difference in pay is tremendous. I might make 60 UDS from direct sale of a photo in Estonia but when I put the same photo up in iStockphoto then one sale only creates me .60 USD. If you value your photos higher then this solution is definetly from you.

Also, read the licence really carefully so you know what rights you're giving away. And you need model release for all photos that have recognisable people on them. This might be a dealbreaker as many photos that I like have been taken some time ago, of totally unfamiliar people and I have no way of finding them and/or getting them to sign model release.

But. If you can get some friends to pose for free (give them a free print for example) and create some fun, cool, different photos then these could easily sell in tens if not in hundreds. Key to success is finding out what buyers are looking for and to have a large portfolio.

iStockphoto is actually very helpful - they try to give topics that always need photos (and also those that they have more than enough already), they don't accept everything so make sure yours are sharp, good quality and of course visually strong. They run forums as well, most useful is "Photo Requests" where one can detail what image s/he's looking for. Keep your eye on those forums, they might help you earn a few bucks but also give insight into what images are currently sought after.

By no means is iStockphotos the only option. I'm sure there are tens of similar websites. iStockphotos is not paying me to advertise them, I'm writing about them because I'm using it myself and I hate writing about stuff and tools I don't know and use.

I won't get rid of my own galleries because I have many images that would not sell there but that I like myself, that I like showing to people and that might just by accident prove a sell.

One more thing that relates to your galleries. You have to make very clear what rules apply to using your images. You might want to add copyright icon + photographer name on every photo. At least have (C) Copyright and photographer name and contact email beside each photo. Sometimes people steal photos just because "there was no name on it/beside it so I thought it was for free".