Turning Your Photos To Cash - How Can Your Photos Make
Money For You
If you are an amateur or a semi professional photographer then chances
are that you can make some money out of your photos. In this article you
will get tips on how to turn your photos to cash. This article is for you
only if you?re looking to turn your photos into some extra cash on top of
your main income source. This is not for you if you are looking to live off
your photos this is not for you.
There are plenty of ways to make money from photography. Some are very
easy and only require an Internet connection while others require more
legwork and directly dealing with customers. Following are five options:
Sell your photos on photo stock web sites: there are many sites that let
people trade and sell photos. They vary in their terms and the way they do
business but the foundation is the same: they let you upload your photos,
showcase them and set their prices. The site users can browse through your
photos and purchase the ones they like. While some of these sites are free
to use and only collect a commission from the proceeds other sites charge a
setup fee or a membership fee. Examples of such sites are: http://www.photostockplus.com
and http://www.smugmug.com
Build your own site attract traffic and sell advertisements: Many sites
today generate revenues from advertisements placed on their pages. To
generate such revenues the site has to attract visitors. If your photos are
unique and can attract viewers you can create a blog or a site with your
photos alongside with some text describing them and the story behind them.
Spread the rumor about your site to your friends and family and post
information about it in forums and chat boards. Once you generate traffic
add advertisements to your site. To create your site you can use tools such
as http://www.blogger.com and http://www.VSresim.com/en.asp . To place
advertisements you can use advertisement syndication networks like
http://www.google.com/adsense and http://publisher.yahoo.com.
Sell your photos yourself: If you created the site mentioned earlier you
can also sell your photos on that same site. The photos published on your
site are highly compressed low resolution versions of the original ones. If
your visitors want to use the photos for prints or other photo processing
they will have to buy the original high resolution photos. To easily collect
funds from your visitors you can use tools such as http://www.paypal.com.
The original photo can then be emailed to the buyer.
Photographer for hire: This option is more traditional and requires some
more legwork. If you are willing to do some work for hire you can post your
services in a local classifieds web site or paper. Many web sites such as
http://www.craigslist.org let you do that for free. Make sure that you
provide details about the work that you can do and your experience. It is
also recommended to post examples of your work. Also ? if you have a site
with more of your photos post a link to that site. To get a better sense of
how much you can charge try to contact other photographers in your area and
get quotes for their services
Sell your photos in coffee shops
and galleries: This option requires even more legwork and a more significant
upfront investment. Print and frame a few of your best photos. Go to local
galleries and try to convince them to showcase your photos. It is best to
start with just a few prints to minimize both your risk and the risk the
gallery takes. Another option which can work better for amateur
photographers is to visit coffee shops and restaurants and convince them to
hang your photos on their walls. It is very common today for such places to
hang ?photographs for sale? on their walls. This is a win-win option for
both the coffee shop or restaurant and you. They get high quality free
photos and provide their customers with an extra service buying photos that
they really like. You get free exposure while most often only paying a
commission from the proceeds.
One issue to remember when
turning photos to cash is copyright. Copyright laws change from state to
state and country to country. Make sure that you check beforehand that you
have the rights to sell or post the photos that you take. For example taking
photos of commercial symbols and logos usually requires a written permission.
There are many other ways to make some extra cash from your photos.
Hopefully the ones mentioned here will give you ideas for what more you can
do. Good luck!