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Freelance Photography - Make Cash from Taking Photographs

By: John Alexander In a recent series on television, commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), they polled the top 10 careers people would really choose to do if they could. Essentially what would make you jump out of bed first thing in a morning, desperate to go to work? Well, the intriguing thing is that the top 5 are all 'creative' careers, and at number 3 was 'Photographer'. Specifically, Freelance Photography, where you work for yourself.

With the huge rise in sales of Digital cameras and equipment, everyone is enjoying the benefits of digital photography; comparatively low running costs, the ability to take a virtually unrestricted number of snaps at effectively no cost, and the advantage of editing and printing them out yourself. The last couple of years has also seen large increase in the volume of digital SLR cameras being sold – primarily, the SLR beginner models such as Nikon D50, Nikon D80, Nikon D40and Canon 350D.

Directly in proportion to this is the increase of photography related websites, discussion groups, galleries - such as Flickr.com for example - where every man and his dog force their photographic efforts upon an unsuspecting public with relentless enthusiasm. Some fantastic, some good and, to be frank, some completely 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 outlet.

Most amateur photographers are quite happy to continue with this for amusement, but for me, I've always aimed to find a living that can be derived from something which most 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 quite reasonable money to be earned in freelance photography, and the best thing is you don't have to be an outstanding photographer - just fairly competent will more than suffice.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Sign Up with a stock photography agency site like www.shutterstock.com or www.dreamstime.com. These in particular are what we call "micro-stock agencies". You upload your photographs for approval (by the editorial team) and once approved they can be downloaded by the agency’s customers. If you only have a small number of photographs, 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.

Set up your own website and sell prints directly to customers. There are numerous merchants on the net who take care of all the site design and shopping cart details. I have a colleague that makes quite a nice second wage 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.lifeweightloss.com

The author, Nick Bailey, is a pro-amateur photographer himself who earns an income from stock and freelance photography. Visit www.digital-photography-pro.com for more details.

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