How To Sell Photographs Online

Posted by Dan Feildman | Posted in How To Make Money Taking Photos, How To Sell Photos, How To Sell Photos Online, Making Money With Photos, Online Business, Online Photography Business, Photography Business Book, Photography Business Ideas, Photography Business Tips, Sell Stock Photography, Sell Stock Photos, Selling Photos Online, Selling Photos Online Tips, Stock Photography For Beginners, Stock Photography Tips | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

How To Sell Photographs Online

Selling photographs on the web is super easy and convenient when compared to the hard copies, and mainly because there are many photo uploading platforms and sites available which are well established with regular visitors.

Therefore if you’re planning to sell your photos online, you will need to choose the best web site to upload them to, and there are a lot of websites like Fotolia, Corbis, Clustershot, Shutterstock, and at these web sites both experts and amateurs alike upload photos. So you will have lots of strong competition to face, and to survive, you need to make your photos stand out from the rest and include a lot of creativity and innovation in your photos.

Uploading photos at these websites may be cost free or you might to pay the membership fee. Many web sites charge a part of the price as transaction charges, but these are less and cost-effective. Specific sites takes the copyrights of the images from you while many let you retain that. So you will need to select the best website for your photograph display and sale.

Photo agencies are becoming extremely popular nowadays for the sale of pictures on the internet. There are many such photo agencies that help you sell your pictures. There will be little fees associated with the transaction but these agencies will have a large database of customers and prospective customers. Thus selling your photos through these agencies is recommended.

The payment for the photographs could be in different ways. You can either request for online payments to your bank accounts or PayPal accounts or even check payments. Upon receiving the payment you can give those links to download the photos. Some people might be skeptical about making the payments before getting the photographs. But if you’re an established photographer, or you are involving a reputable web site or agency, then this stress could be avoided.

If you’re not very interested in getting the copyrights then you can submit your photos to the web sites like Eugenef. These website pay you price for submitting photographs and once you submit, the photos belong to those sites. You may restrictions on selling the same photograph elsewhere, but the price offered is normally good. You may need to comply with particular guidelines while submitting the photos too.

If you’re a professional photographer, you don’t have to depend on the other web sites and agencies. You can easily create a good website and upload your photos there. Do a little bit of advertising and marketing to market the website. Give apt titles and tags to make your photographs appear in search results and begin earning money. It might take some time before your site gets steady traffic, but when you begin getting steady traffic, your earnings also will start to rise.

Stock Photography Tips
FREE Report Reveals How Profitable It Is To Sell Stock Photos…
www.TurnYourPhotosIntoCash.com

Stock Photography Tips – How To Create The Ideal Portrait

Posted by Eve Canipe | Posted in Cash For Photos, Home Photography Business, Photography Business Tips, Sell Stock Photos, Stock Photography, Stock Photography For Beginners, Stock Photography Tips | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

Obviously, we have all seen some of the ghastly examples of family pictures out there. Families dressed in odd costumes with strange poses are good for a laugh, but probably not what we want decorating our walls. So, consider these tips when getting ready to shoot a family picture.

There is a certain amount of planning required for a successful photo shoot, and that means you need to figure out your location and the time of day beforehand. Even if your location is indoors, you need to think about your options in terms of natural lighting and artificial lights. You might need to bring in extra lighting, so discuss your options with your family photographer prior to the shoot.

If you choose an outdoor location, discuss timing with your photographer. A professional photographer will know the best times of day to capture light that will best suit your photograph. There are many fun options for photo shoots. Consider heading to the beach or a beautiful park or perhaps a pastoral setting. Think about locations near your house that would make a beautiful backdrop for your photo.

Planning out your outfits is more important than you might think, especially in a photo that features several people. You don’t want to wear distracting items that overshadow the photo itself. For example, weird outfits or costumes or t-shirts with distracting words and images are poor choices. A better option is to dress each person in a similar style. Outfits don’t have to be exact duplicates, but they should stay within similar colors and styles. This keeps the focus on whole picture, and not just one part of it.

If the photo shoot involves children, make sure they are rested and well-fed. Try to pick a time when your children are most likely to be happy and on their best behavior. A cranky, hungry, tired child is not going to make the photo shoot a pleasant experience, so do your best to shoot at an ideal time.

Conveying a sense of happiness and closeness is an important aspect to any family portrait. So do your best to make the experience a fun event. If everyone is relaxed and happy to be together, the portrait will turn out just the way you hoped.

Stock Photography Tips
FREE Report Reveals How Profitable It Is To Sell Stock Photos…
www.TurnYourPhotosIntoCash.com
(Click Link To Get Even More Important Photography Business Tips)

A Guide To Making Money From Selling Photos Online

Posted by Dave Beckhame | Posted in How To Sell Photos Online, Online Photography Business, Sell Stock Photos, Selling Photos Online, Selling Photos Online Tips, Stock Photography For Beginners, Stock Photography Tips | Posted on blog-05-2008

2

Can you answer yes to this question: do you want to sell your photographs to the highest bidder? If that is the case do consider some significant sides of making a go of such an establishment.

Many are the people that need to use the facility to sell their photographs. Well, selling photos on the Internet is starting to become massive business. And it is a proven fact that masses of cash can be made in a comparatively short period of time.

It might be foolish to waste this opportunity to make real money. If you have a lot of photographs that you were brooding about deleting from your hard drive, think again. There could be good money concealed in those stills.

It really does not take a great deal to take good photos and to sell them on the internet. This business is one, naturally, that may make some demands on you to do your best. It does not even matter what subjects you want to photograph, because the clamor for all sorts of images is great on the web.

So don’t be one of those people who let money go down the drain simply because they are not brooding about selling all of the great pictures of folks and places that they have amassed in years. There isn’t any reason why you can’t cash in on such photographs.

You do have to discover how to generate money from this hobby, but it is not something troublesome and out of your reach. There are lots of offline and online publishers and internet design experts who are in continued need for quality stills.

Photographers like you are just the types of folk they’re looking to for their requirements. And you can take advantage of this without leaving your house. Explore the Net and find the sites that are prepared to pay for your wares. If you’ve an fascinating angle, you may be sure that there is a market for the kinds of photographs you can create. And that creativeness can easily be interpreted into serious money.

There is an almost infinite assortment of photographs that sell out there. The days when only particular kinds of pictures were in demand are well past. In this age of the computer more different categories are developing. Find your niche and focus on taking pictures in requirement for that niche.

Whether you wish to take pictures in general or focus on some specialized niche is neither here nor there. Each one of these sides has its benefits and drawbacks. But pre-eminence in pictures can sell in either way.

The thing to do is to be sure that you shoot at pre-eminence in photos. You don’t have to be some highfalutin expert with the latest gizmos.

It is, of course, hard to tell in advance which photos would be the leading sellers out there. But what’s significant is that you find masses of customers for the sorts of pictures that you like taking. If you find those purchasers, your chance to make serious money will increase.

But be careful of those internet sites that would not pay you the right costs. A few of them will buy what you have for cents and then turn around and sell them for 10 or 20 times as much. They can do this because they know the buyers who will pay them for your footage.

So try and find those high paid customers and then sell straight to them. Do the research; it’ll pay off in the long term.

The sheer sweetness of your photographs isn’t about to do it for you; you have to know where to submit those attractive stills. This is the thing that divides the small-time operators from the big ones.

If you follow these laws there’s not telling how much cash you can make. Choose the buyers who will appreciate your wares the best.

In the long run, there is no reason which explains why your enthusiasm for taking photos can’t be made into a good money-making opportunity. Do good work and you will simply climb up on the ladder of success.

How To Sell Photos Online
FREE Report Reveals How Profitable It Is To Sell Stock Photography
www.TurnYourPhotosIntoCash.com
(Click Link For More stock photography Tips)

How To Get Paid For Photos – Discover Your Hidden Photography Talent

Posted by Dave Beckhame | Posted in Cash For Photos, Get Paid For Photos, Online Photography Business, Photography Business Tips, Sell Stock Photos, Selling Photos Online | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

You don’t necessarily need to be a world traveler to produce amazing photographs. While we have all seen the exquisite images of the monuments of the world these images are not the ones that currently win awards. A photo of a grinning child, if done well, is more likely to win an award than one taken of an illustrious monument.

Photos that capture your eye, and hold it … photos that draw you in and make you remember better times … photographs that stay with you long after you have left them … these are the photographs that earn money.

Photographs that transcend time and place are ones that will live on forever. It is these types of photographs that will undoubtedly yield a ton of money. If you would like to turn your every day photos into extra income I have a few tips that will help you get started.

Photography is a form of self-expression that has the power of transcending the expression captured in the photograph on to the visitor. These powerful pictures need not be captured in distant locations. You may find myriad reasons to click at your vicinity without having to transcend the boundary of your household. Your kitchen, backyard, garden could be your next best stops for clicking fine and impressive pictures. Here’s a list of few endearing options you can opt for within your own domesticity.

Photos of people with endearing expressions are some of the best selling photos on the internet. These don’t require make up or amazing clothing and props. Simple and true-to-reality pictures sell the most. Capture their natural beauty.

Simple gestures like laughing, shaking hands, yelling, cribbing etc make for beautiful natural expressions. Remember the people you are clicking may not be necessarily hired models. You can simply focus on your family, friends or neighbors for capturing a true-to-reality photograph.

Another arena are photos of regular everyday items. These could be anything from the herbs in your garden to crayons on the table. To make these items work you need to photograph them in a way that gives them a new and exciting appeal that will attract the buyers eye.

Whichever items you choose, always remember that you need to look at them in a fresh and new way in order to attract potential buyers. Something important to keep in mind is that if you are photographing a commercial item please remove the logo or photograph it is such a way that the logo will not show in order to avoid having the photograph be rejected.

Photos of food and beverage items are in high demand, especially by the food service industry. Photographs of mouth watering foods, fresh vegetables with dew on them, etc. are incredibly likely to sell. Always make sure your subject is front and center with no extraneous items to distract from it.

If you have the ability to think outside the box and be creative and combine that with your skills with a camera you will have the ability to earn an incredible income with this business. The key to being a successful stock photographer is being able to find the amazing elements out of the ordinary. Don’t forget that your photograph should attempt to capture the essence of your subject and portray it in such a way as to create a lasting memory to the viewer. Don’t wait, grab your camera and get started today!

How To Get Paid For Photos
FREE Report Reveals How Profitable It Is To Sell Stock Photography
www.TurnYourPhotosIntoCash.com
(Click Link For More Stock Photography Tips)

Stock Photography Tips – The Eighty-Twenty Rule For Photographers

Posted by Matt Brading | Posted in Microstock Photography, Microstock Photography Tips, Sell Stock Photos, Stock Photography, Stock Photography For Beginners, Stock Photography Tips | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

The 80-20 rule applies to many aspects of photography but maybe the most important is where you pass the time and where you make your cash.

For most of us it likely looks something like this: 80% of your time is spent on activities that produce 20% of your revenue, or less. Paperwork, busy-work, interruptions and distractions…

Which basically means is only 20% of your time is spent on the activities that actually generate almost all of your earnings.

Does that seem familiar?
In tough times the very first thing to do is to check both your time management and get fully clear on what tasks generate revenue. After you identify where you spend your time, and which activities generate the majority of your income, probabilities are there will be really tiny overlap!

After that it is a matter of reducing the time you spend on tasks that don’t generate cashflow and using it instead to do more of the things which do generate cashflow.

Reducing time expended checking e-mail 10 times a day, checking your photo website statistics, aimless web surfing. You may then use that time for real market analysis, prospecting for new photograph purchasers and shooting new images!

That is what’s going to grow your business: shooting new stills and showing them to Clients. Everything else should be kept small.

A couple of things you can do right now:-
Set Your E-mail To Test Only Twice A Day. Set the 1st check at 12 midday, so you have the morning free to get things done uninterrupted. Set the second check for later in the afternoon so that you can check for replies. Turn off sounds & alerts so you do not get interrupted if you are in the middle of something.

Set Up An Auto-responder Message on your e-mail account to tell people you will be checking and responding at these times and include a cellphone number if it is important. You’ll be amazed how few calls you will get! Most people will wait quite happily when they know when to expect an answer!

Stock Photography Tips
FREE Report Reveals How Profitable It Is To Sell Stock Photography
www.TurnYourPhotosIntoCash.com
(Click Link For More Stock Photography Tips)

Stock Photography Advice To Sell Your Stock Photos

Posted by Jayne Reisyelp | Posted in How To Sell Photos, How To Sell Photos Online, Microstock Photography Tips, Sell Stock Photos, Stock Photography, Stock Photography For Beginners | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

Therefore you have made the decision to create some cash out of your footage then sell them as stock photos? Your assortment of stock footage can be quite good. I’m not sure your collections, but there’s a large difference between taking good or great photographs and photographs which sell.

You can observe great pictures in photograph mags and displays, which people admire, however these pictures don’t make you much cash. Footage, which boost your profits so known as stock photos, won't be great, however these satisfy the necessity of the client. For example photos on packaging, in books, booklets, selling material etc.

When you will have a picture, you have got to think not in composition from the picture itself, however in terms that area of the picture will contain the written text, chit or some place of other picture.

Avoid delivering stock photos libraries that offer royalty free footage or inexpensive photographs. Should you select, this may take you tiny earnings and also you lose your copyright to those pictures. You will find a number of other significant stock photos shoppers, who’ll buy your photos with once publication and will also be prepared to pay much larger cost for the photographs. Don’t auction yourself inexpensive. You're able to offer cheaper costs round the beginning nonetheless you can lift up your costs later on when stock photography purchasers know you more.

Just Remember, likely the most stock libraries have a large cut from the cost of every image offered. They are managing a company to make money from photography enthusiasts. This actually is ok, because these photography enthusiasts have a very good deal. Before delivering your stock photos to the stock photograph library, read all the facts. Choose only individuals stock photos libraries, which provide you with acceptable deal and %.

Stock Photography Advice – Learn how to make cash with just a digital camera, PC and Internet connection through Microstock Photography

How To Sell Microstock Photography

Posted by Matt Brading | Posted in Microstock Photography, Microstock Photography Tips, Sell More Photos, Sell Stock Photography, Sell Stock Photos, Selling Photos Online, Stock Photography, Stock Photography For Beginners | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

Selling microstock photography has become huge business in recent years digital SLRs keep getting cheaper and the images they produce keep getting better. It appears everyone on the planet must own a camera by this point. Given the recurring financial crises of the last couple of years, it is not surprising that more camera owners are interested in selling photography online for some additional cash.

For pro photographers attempting to make a living selling photography online all this extra competition from the hobbyists has made life pretty difficult. Masses of sites have appeared offering photographers the facility to give their work away for nothing more than small change and the excitement of making a sale. The market has been deluged by cheap pictures and many photography buyers have come to view microstock photography as just another commodity to be sourced at the lowest possible cost.

It’s not all bad news though. In a lot of ways we’ve now come the full circle, and an increasing number of photo buyers are showing a renewed interest in features apart from price alone. For the savvy photographer, this offers a means to stick out from the crowd and define a niche of their own.

Specialized Content:

There’s such a thing as too much choice, and professional photography buyers have had enough of the massive stock libraries with millions of images. Plenty of the photography buyers we speak to are continually looking for new collections that target their interests, and will cheerfully search 4-5 specialist libraries rather than one mega collection.

Most microstock photography articles will tell you to start by applying to the 4-5 largest stock libraries for the maximum exposure but that is only half of the story. Those sites might get the most exposure, but that doesn’t always mean you will get a share of it.

Instead of joining millions of other photographers at the ‘big-four ‘ stock libraries, you’ll do miles better to find 3-4 boutique stock libraries that you can submit to. Pick one photography stock agency as your principal net presence and use the others to re-post your content (photographic and written) and add substance to your net footprint.

Original Content:

If you look around, you will find a heap of ‘experts ‘ who’ll tell you the fastest way to make money with microstock is to look at the pictures that sell best on the major libraries, and copy them. It’s fairly likely this could work for a while, but you only need to see the mass of poor photos of popular subjects to understand why photography buyers are tired of it.

Much better that you adopt a Client-centric approach and think about your end user, who they are and what they need the stock images for so that you can then set about creating photographs they can use.

The best thing about this approach is, you can still check the major libraries to see what’s selling, but then, instead of simply duplicating what you see, you can identify the themes and concepts that the buyers need associated with the subjects, and from there create something fresh and new that you know your buyers will need..

Personal Service:

In an industry where the buyers were always racing to meet impossible deadlines, immediate downloads must have looked a God-send for some time.

As one of the few stock photography libraries that did not offer instant downloads, we definitely felt the pressure when we started. We soon realized though the photo buyer’s top priority was to ‘find the image ‘ and as long as a reliable delivery followed, ‘instant ‘ was not really a problem.

In reality, photography buyers are creative people who enjoy interacting with other creative people. These days we are still finding plenty of top-end photography buyers who are happy to take a little more time and experience the ‘photo research ‘ journey, dealing directly with the photographers, so long as it’s pro and efficient.

So however and wherever you choose to sell stock photographs, ensure you make yourself available to photography buyers. They’ll appreciate it and once the link is created, they will come back to you time and time again.

Value Your Work & Your Time

When you approach stock photography on this principle, you’re actually positioning yourself as a high-end photographer, which helps you stand out from the crowd even further.

Without going into the whole rights-managed vs royalty-free discussion, there are many millions of photographers on the web these days queuing up to give their work away for peanuts, so it you follow the group you’ll be facing enormous competition for the smallest of returns.

By comparison, the rights-managed market is a lot less competitive and pays considerably more, so if you’ve got the prime quality , original content, then it makes complete sense to cut out your own niche there instead. Specialist photographers have always prospered and in the existing market place it’s more crucial than ever that you focus on doing a couple of things remarkably well to sell photography online.

When you specialize your work interests, you narrow your market and you are able to really get to know your buyers. This in turn lets you understand their desires and create the top quality original images that may make you stick out from the crowd. And if you then back each sales lead with outstanding personal service, you will soon build a Customer list that may come to depend on you as a creative partner they’d like to conduct business with.

Get this FREE REPORT full of Photography Business Ideas & learn how to make cash with just a digital camera, PC and Internet connection through Microstock Photography

Should I Sell My Photos As Stock Photography

Posted by Brad Stephens | Posted in How To Sell Photos, How To Sell Photos Online, Making Money With Photos, Microstock Photography, Microstock Photography Tips, Sell Stock Photography, Sell Stock Photos, Selling Photos Online, Stock Photography | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

Thinking it’s time you started selling your pictures as microstock photography? Microstock photography is big and everyone seems to be doing it, sadly though, the majority are going about it the wrong way.

The very first thing you must do is decide where you want to end up …

Are you wanting a full-time business? Do you dream about throwing in the day job and becoming a full-time photographer? Or do you just want a little extra cash from your hobby? Perhaps you’d be content to get a new lens once a year from your profits?

If you would like the former, you’re looking at joining a competitive business and that’s going to take significant time, effort and you’re going to have to invest real money to make it happen.

For stock photography you want to assess every element of your photography the standard of your work, the commercial potential of the subjects you shoot, how many images you have on file and how often you add to them. Quality, Content & Volume to achieve success in microstock photography you need to have each of those aspects totally covered.

If you feel you could have work to do in any of those areas, I’d recommend you take some time to work on them first. Take a short course to fine-tune your technique, buy some microstock photography books to find more subjects that sell well, and then shoot like mad to build up your catalog.

Stock is competitive and certain to suck the joy right from your photography if you try and start selling your photos before you are ready.

If you’re not out for a major life-change though, you have a few more options.

A lot of part-time photographers place their pictures with the Microstock photography sites and hope to make a little bit of small change each year but I truly believe this is about the very worst of your choices.

A number of these stock photo sites are selling photos for a greenback or less each, royalty free, so the photographers gets a few pennies for the sale, and the purchaser gets free usage of the image, for evermore. This doesn’t worry lots of amateurs, but it has a huge impact on the industry. If that does not concern you, it probably should.

If circumstances change and you decide one day to sell your pictures seriously, each $1 sale you make is going to make it that much tougher for you to make a living. And to rub salt into the wound, you won’t be able to sell and of those pictures to top-end buyers, because you’ll have no idea where they’ve been printed before or where they’d turn up next.

Often you’ll find a much better option for the hobbyist is to use your picturespictures as content rather than product, and publish them on your own easy photography websites promoting associated products. For most photographers this will lead on to far better returns without giving your pictures away for peanuts, and if you one day make a decision to get serious about selling your photos online, they are still exclusively yours to sell.

Just click on the link to discover Microstock photography business secrets that reveal guaranteed ways of Selling Photos Online. Learn how to make cash with just a digital camera, PC and Internet connection by just uploading your photos to Microstock Photography Sites Just click on the link for immediate access!!!

Three Traits That Make a Photographer a True Professional

Posted by Matt Brading | Posted in Cash For Photos, Make Money With A Camera, Making Money With Photos, Microstock Photography, Sell Stock Photography, Sell Stock Photos, Stock Photography, Stock Photography For Beginners | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

Through our stock library, I usually look at 25-30 new photographer applications every month. I have been doing that for well over 10 years now so that’s about 3000 photographers and 40,000+ photos. I also spend lots of time each month watching the new photographs being added to both our stock libraries. Again this amounts to many more thousand images every year.

I can tell you, in all those photographs there were many thousands of images that might have been great stock images with real sales potential, if the photographer had only done their job right. The frustrating part is, in all those cases, the damage was done by one or two reasonably straightforward mistakes that could have been easily evaded.

Now I should readily admit that I am no master photographer … In truth I’ve hardly touched my cameras since we started work on OzImages back in 1998 … But I know what separates an OK photograph from a stock image with real sales potential. So in this two-part article I’m going to look at three main differences I see between the serious amateurs and the pros.

Lighting

If I could only make one suggestion, this would be it. Most amateurs only really think about lighting after dark. An even then, all they think to do is pop up the flash. Some ‘outdoor ‘ photographers might time their work for early morning or late afternoon light, but even then they usually to look at lighting as a separate element of from the image.

The pros on the other hand, consider the lighting of their subject, and they do it with each single shot.

Their focus is not just on the light, but the way in which the light affects their subject and whether that works for the message they’re trying to capture. The pros will consider supplementary lighting, or shading, on every single shot. It is as much part of their routine as removing the lens cap.

So make it a part of your pre-shot routine to stop and ask yourself how your subject is lit.

Are the main features properly lit? Is there anything you can do to make it better? Flash might be an option, but so might a reflector, a different camera position, turning on a light … Coming back in one or two hours time.

Remember, nothing kills the commercial prospects for an image as quickly as uneven lighting … Photo Buyers take one look as deep shadows and/or washed out highlights and walk away every time.

Make the lighting of your subject your principal concern and your photography will improve significantly in both quality and sales potential.

Patience

If all you do is capture a visual representation of what’s there at the time, you’re taking pictures, and they’re a dime a dozen. If you really want to capture stock photo images that are going to stand out from the crowd — and sell — you have got to convey a message or a story about that subject to your audience.

So make it a custom to study your subject in detail before you even look through the viewfinder. Work out what it is that you need to convey to your viewers? Conversely, what might your viewer wish to know about the subject? What are you able to capture and convey that the viewer might not know?

Once you’re clear on the key elements of your subject, you can get thinking about the effect different viewpoints may have on the final image. Then you’ll find you’re actually creating unique and new stock images with real potential.

A lot of amateur photos come across as indecisive. You realize the photographer ‘knew ‘ there was a photo op there, but, rather than dig around a bit and find it, they just kept pressing the shutter expecting to get something. Sometimes they might get something, but more often than not, the ultimate result is vague images with a subject lost in the middle-ground, a lot of clutter in the background and no clear point of interest in the foreground … And no commercial potential.

Work out PRECISELY what it is you are trying to say prior to starting. Then think about your lighting. Then use your technical skills and imagination to capture it.

Get this FREE REPORT full of Photography Business Ideas & learn how to make cash with just a digital camera, PC and Internet connection through Microstock Photography

Stock Photography Tips – 5 Things Every Photographer Should Be Doing On The Web

Posted by Matt Brading | Posted in Making Money With Photos, Sell Stock Photography, Sell Stock Photos, Selling Photos Online, Selling Photos Online Tips, Stock Photography, Stock Photography For Beginners | Posted on blog-05-2008

0

Often it appears the Internet was made solely for photographers. On a social level it lets us share photos with friends and families, we can get together and talk camera gear and photographic technique, and it helps a lot of us overcome the isolation that frequently goes hand-in-hand with a photography career.

On a professional level, it provides the means to showcase our work to Clients, access new markets and conduct the whole stock photography sales process without leaving our desk. It also offers the resources to monitor trends, see what our peers are doing and see what our customers are purchasing.

And for all that, the sad fact is, for many photographers, the pure volume of info and options becomes more of an obstruction than a helping hand. They only have so many hours in a day, and deciding what’s worth their attention and what isn’t becomes a bore, and as a result they tend to brush over the significant stuff and get way-laid with the trivial.

Well if you find yourself in that scenario, here’s a bare-bones list of the 5 necessary internet site types each freelance photographer should have bookmarked and should be using continually.

1. Stock Photography Library

Few professional photographers wouldn’t have a photo agency catalog of some kind, but lots of photographers still leave it as something to do later when they’re better established, or have more pictures. Nowadays that’s not necessary and the easiest way tosell photos online is to begin early and add to your stock catalogue regularly over a period of time.

Stock photography is a long term business though, so do take it steady and find a stock library that fits your work and your style. Ensure it leaves you in charge of your work and does not expect you to hand over your rights, or sell your work too cheap, just to stay in the game.

2. Photography Price Calculator

To this end, ensure you bookmark a good online stock photo price calculator. We all used to manage this with hard-copy books, but things move fast these days and new sorts of photography-uses emerge every week, so a live stock photo price calculator is essential.. Be warned though, many photographers are blown away when they first use these… That’s because most photographers seriously under-price their work.

If you’ve never looked at a Stock Photograph Price Calculator before, I’d recommend you make a list of 5-10 of your principal markets, and then list two ‘average ‘ uses for each. Then open the calculator and work out a price for each use. Keep it handy and you’ve got a ready-reference guide if a Client ever places you on the spot, but just as importantly, you’ll get a completely new understanding to the value of your photography.

3. Photography Business News & Info

If you are eager — and you don’t mind sitting at a P. C. all day — you can subscribe to dozens of different newsletters and blogs to try to start recent with goings on in the photography industry. Or you can find a single Photography/Business site that does it all for you.

There are quite a few extremely good websites out there if you go looking. My suggestion is to test them out and follow a few till you find one that does the job right for you, your field of work, your interests, your location etc. The good ones will give you all of the important stuff in a nutshell, then include links for more in-depth info if you need it, so that you can stay up to date and get all of the information you need, without the information overload.

4. Shopping & Auction Websites

It’s no secret, photographers are gadget-junkies! We’re always searching for that next piece of must-have camera equipment that we simply can’t function properly without. The incontrovertible fact we have already worked quite alright for years without it doesn’t matter… Once we know it’s out there we have to have it. Sound familiar?

The flip side is, quite frequently we have got equally as much gear we should actually get rid of… And once again, if the Net was made for us then I am sure the creators of eBay are either photographers themselves, or they’ve a few in the family. So bookmark it and use it. If you’ve a cupboard of old camera gear that’s not been utilized in years get it out and sell it, while it still has some value!

5. Online Photographic Community

Professional photography is usually a solo career so the option to interact with your peers online should not be taken lightly. We all see hundreds of photographs on any particular day, but to be in a position to look at new pictures and discuss them with other photographers is priceless. Pre-Internet, it was something that only happened at Camera Clubs or waiting around at the Pro-Lab, but the web forums and portal sites now give working photographers to capability to interact with their peers, share ideas and info and truly grow as artists. And if you are not making good use of them, you’re probably stagnating!

Well that is my top 5 must-bookmark website types. The web offers us the chance to ’round-out ‘ our photography businesses in ways in which we never could before, so make sure you are getting maximum value from the time you spend online… And remember all work and no play, leads to a boring photographer!

Get your FREE REPORT about Selling Photos Online and Learn how to make cash with just a digital camera, PC and Internet connection through Stock Photography

Make Money Traveling With Stock Photography