Can You Really Turn Pro?

Can you really turn pro and make money from your photography?

Yes, you can. And more easily than you might think. Not only can you make good money from your photography, you can travel the world for free and get paid for doing it. 2008 was a great year for me. I made 19 trips to some of the most exotic locations in the world: the Dominican Republic, Hawaii, Mayaguana in the Bahamas, California, Florida and many more. I stayed at some of the world's finest hotels, for free: the Ritz-Carltons hotels in Naples and Georgia, the Sanctuary Cap Cana, Princeville Kawai, and more. All of this was made made possible by a technique I developed more than 25 years ago - the Photo Essay.

The Photo Essay is the one quick and easy way to become established in the publishing industry and to become a professional photographer. A couple of years ago I published a photo essay: Seven Tips For Photographing Paris. That essay ran as the cover story of the final issue of PHOTOgraphic magazine - the photograph on the cover is also mine. Read the article . It illustrates exactly how the technique works. Today I make a good living as a full-time photojournalist. I travel the world for free, and I get paid for doing so. You can too. Here's how.

More About Microstock Photography?

Judging from the interest we've had over the last few weeks in Micro Stock Photography, we thought you might enjoy the following article by Chef Benjamin Christie. We've run it before, and you can also find it in our Articles section along with many more helpful and interesting pieces.

Selling Stock Photography and Royalty Free Images on Websites

By Chef Benjamin Christie

A couple of months ago I wrote an article on Food Photography and how to creating edible Food Photos with food styling. The article would have to be one of the most popular articles on my site last year.

After reading my Food Photography article I received an email from one of my website readers, Lisa McCorkle, who directed me to an article about selling stock photography online. After reading the article I thought I should be selling some of my photos online, so I have done a little research and together with some of Liza’s thoughts here are the best royalty free stock photo websites on the internet where you can sell your own photos.

At present I am concentrating on my new TV cooking show, called the Upside Down Kitchen, so my time is rather limited and I have only uploaded a few photos from my vast collection of over 20,000 images. Although great deals of my photos are food photos, I also try when ever I travel to take as many photos as I can.

In saying that, successful stock photographs must be commercially in demand for designers and publishers to use. I would recommend that before you look at selling your selling stock photography and royalty free images on websites that you search around the sites I suggest in this article and see what sells and what doesn’t.

Some of the stock photography websites indicate publicly how many of times the photo has been sold and viewed. From what I can determine the most popular stock photographs are generic photographs which can be used in various applications such as brochures, websites, annual reports and other printed formats. Other growing areas is for stock photograph is web blogs. Many bloggers including food bloggers require photographs which are relevant to their topic or blogs which they are writing about.

Only new to the stock photography websites, what I have quickly learnt is to shoot in RAW format. I use a Nikon D200 and process the RAW files in Adobe Photoshop CS2 which allow a great deal of post processing. The reason for shooting in RAW format is that the size of the image is important on all the stock photography websites. Basically the larger the size of the photograph (XXL and above 300 dpi), the larger the commission.

Keeping track of your personal stock photography library can be difficult, especially with all the titles, descriptions and keywords that the stock photography websites require. To manage this, I have been using the beta version of Adobe Lightroom which makes keeping track of everything easy. Apparently, Adobe Lightroom will be available soon.

Here are some of the sites that I have recently started uploading images to sell stock photography ;

IstockPhoto

Considered the largest and most visited stock photography websites in the world, istockphoto boasts over 1 million images and receives between 12,000 – 14,000 new images each week. This means there is plenty of competition, but also plenty of buyers.

Stock Photographs range in price from US$1 to US$40 which provide photographers commissions from 20% for non exclusive and up to 40% commission for exclusivity.

istockphoto has a great collection of food photos, cooking photos and photos of chefs

FTP : No
Commission : 20% – 40 %
Prices per photograph : US$1 to US$40
My Photos on istockphoto : chefbenjamin

Fotolia

With just over 2 million stock photographs and recently passing over the 200,000 members, Fotalia is growing quickly. They have a wide range of stock photography available mostly from US$1 – $3.

FTP : Yes
Commission : 50% – 80%
Prices per photograph : From US$1 to US$2000
My Photos on oFtolia : chefbenjamin

Dreamstime
Dreamstime is relatively new and has just under 1 million stock photographs in their library. In the past 12 months traffic has increased over 50 times.

After uploading via FTP, Dreamstime has a great interface for adding keywords and choosing the correct licensing options as well as being able to nominate your price to sell the rights to a stock photograph.

FTP : Yes
Commission : 50-65%
Prices per photograph : From US$1 to US$350
My Photos : chefben

Big Stock Photo

Big stock Photo is just over 1 year old and
For food photographers, currently Big Stock Photo are requiring stock photography of cooking shots, chefs, people eating, food prep, people dining out, chopping food, making dinner, herbs and other cooking ingredients.

Check out their existing food photographs.

FTP : Yes
Commission : 33% – 50%
Prices : US$1 to US$2.50
My Photos : chefben

Benjamin Christie is an Australian chef with an interest in photography. You can visit Chef Ben’s website at http://www.benjaminchristie.com

Can You Really Turn Pro?

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