How To Make Money Taking Pictures

While photography is certainly a fun hobby and can lead to great personal fulfillment, it is also a high-skill profession that thousands of people use to pay their bills every single day. Not everyone can be a photographer for Sports Illustrated or Glamour but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a good living from photography. Microstock photography, for instance, is a relatively new concept and a great way to make a little extra cash.

What is Microstock Photography?

You may be familiar with the term “stock” photography – it refers to photographs that are licensed for a wide variety of uses. For instance, a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco could be a stock photo, which could be used in magazines, ads, calendars, or whatever else the person who buys it wants to do.

Microstock photography is similar, only the images sell for less and can be uploaded by anyone with high-quality material. With microstock, you sell more images at a lower cost so you have to be willing to upload a lot of images to make it work. Fotalia, Shutterstock, and iStockphoto are all great websites for this purpose.

How Do I Get Started?

You may be surprised to learn that using a microstock site is probably easier than you think. The two things you’ll need is a basic editing and shooting setup but you can find these very inexpensively. A digital SLR will be suitable for most of the photos, and you can use a free photo editing program like Paint.net until you feel ready to invest in one of the paid ones.

Once you have the gear in order, all you need to do is shoot a bunch of photographs to prepare for the initial application process. If you want your images to sell, focus on subjects that are easy to sell in markets like business, home decor or other lifestyle themes. You should focus on creating and uploading images that someone buying photographs wants, but won’t find anywhere else. When taking images, make sure that your pictures don’t include any trademarked or copyrighted subjects or material. And, if there is someone in the picture, you’ll need a signed release from the model.

Before you upload any images, check out the site and see what types of photographs they offer as this will give you a good idea of the types of images that will likely sell. Think about how the image will be used. Will it be in a magazine or ad or displayed in a picture frame? Once you have a strong portfolio, find a site that you like (or go to all three) and submit your photos for review. When applying, read the training materials and site requirements beforehand so you’ll make sure that your portfolio fits within their guidelines otherwise your application may be denied.

How Do I Profit?

Unlike traditional stock photography, with micstock images, it’s all about quantity. Just remember that the more pictures you upload, the better your chance at making money. There are people that make thousands a month working in microstock, but it is important to note that these people also use it as their full time job and upload hundreds of photos. If you can commit this sort of time to the job, the potential for income is really limitless.

Always start small so you “test the waters” before investing a lot of time and effort into uploading images before you know if it will be a good fit. If microstock seems to be your thing and you can see yourself making a healthy profit doing it, focus more time and energy on it and upload as many photos as you possibly can. If microstock photography doesn’t seem like a good fit, keep looking for other photo opportunities that are better suited for you. You should always have fun and enjoy taking pictures so find something that works best for you and you’ll end up shooting images that everyone will admire!