Freelance Photography - Earn Money from Your Hobby
Written by John Alexander Thursday, 11 October 2007 13:21
In a recent series on television, run by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), they investigated the top 10 jobs people would really choose to do if money was no object. Essentially what would make you dash out of the front door first thing in a morning, champing at the bit to go to work? The intriguing thing is that the top 5 jobs are all \'creative\' jobs, and in 3rd position was \'Photographer\'. Specifically, Freelance Photography, where you work for yourself.
There has been a massive rise in sales of Digital cameras and equipment, everyone is enjoying the benefits of digital photography; comparatively low running costs, the capacity to take a virtually unlimited number of photographs at virtually no cost, and the advantage of being able to edit and print them out yourself. The last couple of years has also seen an escalation in the number of digital SLR cameras being bought – in particular, the SLR beginner models such as Nikon D50, Nikon D80, Nikon D40and Canon 350D.
Growing in proportion to this has been the increase of photography associated websites, forums, galleries - such as Flickr.com for example - where every man and his dog force their photographic efforts on us with tireless fervour. Some fantastic, some passable and, to be frank, some absolutely hopeless undertakings. Mind you, with many people now tiring of the daily 9-5 grind of life in an office, this is a superb creative vent.
The majority of people are quite happy to continue with this for pleasure, but for me, I\'ve always aimed to find an income stream that can be built from something that the majority of people would regard as a past-time. This is what I call Freelance Photography.
Now I\'m not saying that you will suddenly turn into the next Lord Lichfield, David Bailey or Man-Ray, but there is good cash to be earned in freelance photography, and the great thing is you don\'t have to be an outstanding photographer - just fairly competent will more than suffice.
Here are some thoughts to get you started:
Register with a stock photography agency website such as www.shutterstock.com or www.dreamstime.com. These in particular are what are known as \"micro-stock agencies\". You upload your photographs for approval (by the editorial team) and once approved they are available to download by the agency’s customers. If you only have a small portfolio, this type of Freelance photography isn’t going to make you a millionaire straight away, but it will provide a steady residual income that grows as your portfolio grows.
Start your own website and sell prints directly to customers. There are a number of providers on the net who take care of all the site design and shopping cart technicalities. I have a friend who makes quite a nice second income by selling his landscape photographs of the Peak District in the UK. The best advice here is to find a niche in something you are good at, and focus your efforts within that area.
Sell your photographs to the local newspaper. Seriously, if you\'ve taken any decent pictures of the local football game, or community event, then see if your paper will be interested in using it. This sounds like a long shot, but local papers (in fact, national newspapers) use freelance photographers all the time. They often can\'t afford to employ more than one or two permanently employed photographers.
So, good luck in your efforts. Even if you don’t quite get to quit the day job, it is very realistic to attain a very decent second income which will pay for all the expensive lenses, filters and accessories that come with having photography as a hobby.
For more information, visit my website below.
www.digital-photography-pro.com
Article Source : http://www.articleboy.com
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