Few things are as rewarding as making money by doing what one likes. The fact of becoming a professional, not only means an income of money, but also that people value and appreciate your work as much as to hire you. This is one of the greatest satisfactions a person can have: do what he loves and be recognized for it. But the problem arises in the beginning, when you are considering how to make the leap to become a professional but you still don't know how to do it. Or, if you are an amateur photography lover but extra income from your work as a photographer would not hurt you. In today's article I will leave you some ideas so you can get your bearings and start making money with your work as a photographer. What do you expect to stop being a talented amateur to become a professional?
TO BE PROFESSIONAL?
Before starting with the different ways for you to start generating money as a photographer I want to clarify what I'm going to call “professional” throughout the article: Being professional is not "living photography as the only income." A professional is a trained person who takes control of his work, and who, above all, does it in an ethical and responsible manner. A photographer is not more professional than another because he earns more money or because he has better equipment, but rather because of the responsibility with which he performs it and the ethics with which he treats people who work with and for him. Professionalism is a way of life, an attitude towards it and not a way to earn money. What I mean by this: you can be a professional beyond whether you live exclusively from photography or not. What matters is that whatever you do, be responsible and respectful towards all the people who are involved in your work, be they clients, colleagues or collaborators.HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH PHOTOGRAPHY?
There are many different ways for you to generate income using your camera, as many as may occur. In fact, I am sure that great ideas to generate money thanks to photography will be left out of this article, but the ideas that I leave below will be very useful to take your first steps as a professional. The main thing is: passion. If you don't feel passion for what you do or plan to do, don't do it. I understand that the need to pay bills often forces you to do jobs that one would not normally do, but sooner or later, if your only motivation is money, you will end up noticing in your work. That money is not your only motivation. Love what you do.YOUR WORK PORTFOLIO OR WEBSITE
When buying a product or hiring a service, almost all people go through the same site: Internet. Think of the Internet as a great shopping center: if you want your work to be sold, you must build your storefront. Either to hire your services for a wedding or to buy one of your photographs for a presentation, most consumers nowadays use the network to compare possible alternatives. Internet has become an almost obligatory step when making purchases or hiring and can be your great ally or your worst enemy. You can become renowned by word of mouth, as your clients recommend you with others, or you can speed up the process a bit and get the juice out of the Internet: show your work there so that any virtual passer-by that may require a hand your services Doing so is not very complicated, in fact, Mario explains step by step in a video tutorial made by him how to create your own online portfolio to showcase your photographic works. No matter what type of photography you plan to take (advertising, sports, products, social, etc.), if you do not have samples of your work available online so that all your potential clients can appreciate your work, you will be missing out on what a great deal could mean to you source of incomeIDEAS AND PROJECTS
Internet photo sales: Internet photo selling sites are becoming increasingly popular. Known on the web as "micro stock," they are platforms that allow millions of photographers to upload their photographs and offer them for sale. You can earn 1 to 5 dollars for each photo sold, although saying it sounds very easy but getting to make your first sales can become frustrating. It is not as simple as it seems. The people who really make a difference using these sites are those who spend a lot of time researching what type of photographs are in demand and producing similar images. As I mentioned before, even though it sounds very simple, it is not so much: it is not enough to upload your entire catalog of photographs to the internet and sit and wait to become a millionaire, but it is not so complicated that you get discouraged and lose yourself try it Here are some tips so you can start selling your photographs online with the right foot:- Try to produce commercial images: the biggest buyers are companies, publicists, publishers, designers who need to buy images to dress catalogs, pages and magazines. It is generally cheaper to buy an already taken photograph than to hire a photographer to produce it.
- Build a portfolio: do not upload images to upload to see if you are lucky. Work your photos and series of these in order to offer more variety and variants to those people who may need them. As your portfolio grows in quantity and quality, you will see how revenues begin to increase. You can, for example, put together a series of photographs of landscapes of tourist destinations in order to attract travel agencies, etc.
- Analyze everything: take your time to navigate through these types of sites in search of ideas to produce your next photographs and take your time to try to understand what impacts your photos the most so as to emphasize these details in the future .
- Do not keep a single portal: if you upload your photos on the main online photo selling sites you will increase your chances of selling your images. Here is a list of the main ones:
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- Shutterstock
- DepositPhotos
- Fotolia
- Istockphoto
- Dreamstime
- The fact of selling a photograph, in no way implies that you are assigning the copyright of the same, but on the contrary, the only thing that you grant to the buyer and only to this one, are the rights of use of the photos that he has bought. Online platforms are only the intermediary between the client and you.
- It is essential to keep the quality of your photographs to the maximum since these sites are very demanding in this regard. It is more important to keep the technical quality of your photographs high than the concept that the photo conveys. Remember that they will be used for purposes other than you. I recommend that you carefully read the following articles: “Detailed Guide: How to Make a Correct Measurement and Exposure in Your Photographs” and “24 Ways to Get Photos Sharpness in your Photographs” .
- If people who are easily recognizable appear in your photographs, you must attach the corresponding contract to the transfer of image rights for each of these. Again, I recommend that you read the detailed guide about rights, licenses and contracts that I mentioned above.
- In your photographs they may not look like trademarks, logos or registered designs. Keep this in mind since, if you appear, you must edit them and delete them before uploading them to the network.
- Each and every one of the images you want to sell must be accompanied by: title, description, and keywords or tags. The more time you spend describing your photographs, the better these will be in the face of searches from potential buyers.
- Always upload your images in the maximum possible resolution in the JPG format. The higher the resolution, the more money you can charge for these. But be careful, don't interpolate your photos (increase their size through software) as you will end up ruining them.
BUSINESSES AND COMPANIES THAT REQUIRE A PHOTOGRAPHER
Not all companies, when preparing their brochures or web pages are willing to use in these, photographs purchased on portals such as those mentioned above, since, they may have been purchased also by other companies and even their competition. Nowadays, almost all companies require photographic material for their businesses, whether to prepare brochures, catalogs, notices or their web pages, but also to take shots of staff, equipment, events they perform, etc. The best way to reach the consumer is with stunning images and this is very clear. Here I leave a small list of businesses or companies to start thinking about how you will offer your services in each of them: 1. Restaurants: whether for your menus, your ads, or your signage, restaurants require the services of a photographer to show the various dishes they offer to the public. Making these types of photographs is not complicated at all or requires the latest equipment. The food first passes through the eyes, before passing into the mouth. Do not worry if you have never done so, here I leave an article that will be extremely useful: "11 Tips and tricks of gastronomic photography" .IDEAL SOCIAL EVENTS TO START AS A PROFESSIONAL
As you gain experience as a photographer and become renowned, an infinite number of events will arise that will require your knowledge and skills to immortalize them. These types of jobs are not relaxed at all and are otherwise existing due to the amount of possibilities that you should consider, but I assure you they are very exciting and the experience you acquire with each of them will be incredible. But of course, today's article is about ways to earn money as a photographer, and cover events should be one of the quintessential ways for you to do it, more if you consider the amount of products and services you can offer besides doing the photographic coverage of the event. Here is a list of the main events that you can come across when taking your first steps as a professional photographer: 1. Marriages: Marriages are usually the gateway to the world of professionalism for many photographers to such an extent that for many it is their only source of income. Wedding photography is one of the most lucrative events that you can come across. The keys to success as a wedding photographer are: planning and your ability to solve unexpected situations. Planning is fundamental so that you can know perfectly, for example, the moment in which alliances are placed, and be able to solve unexpected situations, since having to work with many elements, any of them can get out of the initial plan. Check out the following article: “6 tips to portray your Best Friend's Wedding” .MORE SPECIALIZED JOBS
1. Documentary photographer: textbooks, dictionaries, manuals, school magazines, etc. They require a large number of photographs to illustrate each of their texts. To do this you must leave making a large portfolio of photographs of birds, insects, plants and flowers so you can offer it to different agencies or publishers. Get one of these manuals and pay attention to the most requested frames, compositions and types of images. While you wait for your opportunity, check out the following articles: "How to Get Attractive Images of Flowers (Like these ...)" , "7 Tips and Tricks for Bird Photography" and "Initiation in the Wonderful World of Insect Photography" .RELATED SERVICES
Not only can you make money through your work as a photographer, but you can also make a real business if in addition to covering the events you offer the following extra services:- Production: you are not only the photographer but also, you become the person in charge of the production and of defining the concept of the whole project together with your client: get models, makeup artists, assistants, and everything related to be able to carry out the Work will be your responsibility, so you will have to charge extra for it.
- Locations: You can also offer the service of finding the locations needed to carry out a certain production.
- Lighting: you can offer the rental and tuning of all the lighting elements necessary to carry out such production. Do not worry if you do not have your own equipment to rent, you can always rent them until you can make the investment in your own.
- Digital retouching: If you are not familiar with handling photo editing software and retouching techniques, I suggest you try to incorporate someone who is.
- Printing: once you have finished a certain job or event, it is very likely that you should provide hard copies of the final photographs. Delivering the finished work will not only give your clients a sense of professionalism, but it can also mean extra income.
THE BUDGETS
Once you start accepting jobs you will encounter another problem: prepare a budget. It is very likely that, at the time of the first, you do not have the slightest idea of where to start, but do not worry, it is very common and even the most experienced photographers have trouble making them. For your fortune, in the Photographer's Blog we prepare a guide thinking that one day this moment would come to you, so, if you are already determined to launch yourself as a professional, I recommend that you give it a read. To access it, just make yourself a Vip Reader. It's free, you just have to register at the following link: VIP READER .TO END
Do not be afraid to make mistakes , the one who is not mistaken is because he is not doing, that is, working. You learn from mistakes, so try to make a lot of mistakes if you really want to become a teacher.