If you think that you have what it takes to be much more than mere a time-pass photographer, then, your passion could be your passive source of decent income. Your original clicked photograph could yield you much more than what your 9-5 regular office promises, however on one condition. And that is your photograph ought to be unique and impressive to lure the visitors to download it. You’ll get paid for every download. Here’s how!
First of all it is imperative to dispel the myth that only those with high-tech extraordinary cameras could produce great pictures. This is absolutely untrue as even an ordinary camera possessing 5 mega pixels and 3X zoom could yield you a fine quality picture which could be further refined via the editing tools of photo editing software like, Adobe Photoshop.
Then, click some good pictures which have decent commercial values and submit them to a stock photography agency which bids your pictures for sale. If you are a beginner, then, visit some of the stock photography websites to acquaint yourself with the kind of commercial pictures put for sale. Then make a comprehensive list of stock photography websites who would market your valuable art for sale. Stock photographs are visited and downloaded by a large percentage of potential visitors like media personnel, web designers, advertisers who download your photograph to meet their purpose. On every download, you get some amount of commission. The best way to ensure yourself fetching a decent monthly salary is by maintaining and submitting your portfolio, containing the best of your work, to the stock photography sites.
Next important step is coining your pictures. It is important to know that your pictures would searched by potential consumers by typing a particular keyword in the search engine. Therefore, make sure to use appropriate keywords for naming your pictures so that they appear in the first two pages of the search results. As the rule stands, the earlier your pictures appear on the search engine results, the more are the chances of it being viewed and downloaded. For example, if you have clicked photographs of footballers then mentioning the keyword “sports” would increase the visibility of your picture.
Some of the most popular stock photography sites are ShutterPoint stock photography, Photo Stock Plus, Fotolia.com which has royalty free photographs, Corbis, everystockphoto.com, etc. All these websites ask for a membership form which is generally free of cost. However, there may be a few websites charging a minimal amount, but that is worth paying against the amount of commission you’d be paid by the website.
Though photography could be your next viable source of income, apart from your regular job, make sure to prepare yourself for the stiff competition with those who have already established in this field. If you are at the outset of this profession, make sure that you bid for your picture only if it is unique and different from the rest. There are fresher who enter the business of stock photography with the old redundant stuff and meet rejections by the stock photography sites right at the beginning.