How to make money from photography online?

If you’re a professional photographer or ambitious amateur in photography or a person with creative eye & visual imagination, they you could make money from photography online. There are different ways to earn income with photographs and thus your picture could be thousand dollar worth. Photography is high-end lucrative profession and many people are finding out the genuine online opportunities to progress their skills and to get money with their photographs.  

                       “A picture is worth a thousand words” it is true!!!

All of us would like to take snaps with camera. Even though we are not good in photography, we used to shoot unforgettable moments with our camera and smartphone. Whatever be the skill level, you could make use of your photography hobby to earn from photography by launching it as a profitable side business. Let me tell you some significant details related to this matter which might help you to make money from photography online. 

6 ways to make money from photography

There is a common question among the looming photographers “how can I make money online from my photographs”. Likewise, I am receiving mails from visitors to provide materials on online money making ways of photography. So, I took a chance to reveal some genuine online methods to earn as a photographer. Check out the 6 different ways of making money from photography.

Make Money from Photography Online

                                  Image Credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

1. Create a website or blog and monetize it

To get prospective clients to hire you and attract buyers to purchase your prints, create a website or blog for photography by displaying your best work and favorite images with the world. If you have no technical knowledge and frustrating to build a website for photography, you may make use the website builder that have an user-friendly interface and easy customizable without coding skill. You may also get a word press domain with reliable hosting, fancy name & premium photography templates to set up a clean portfolio website. Adding pages for price, contact details, testimonials and about you on the created website/blog would help you to move clients from consideration to purchase in making money with photography. Once you’ve constructed a good photography website, you can monetize it through various ways to get money regularly.

2. Sell your pictures online

You can sell your photos online through the printing websites but it would be quite hard to get the people to purchase them. Having your own website to sell your snaps and services can be a good source of online income. Some companies are helping photographers to sell their prints through an easy way by taking care of transactions and order fulfilment. You have to set-up a shop with them to upload your high-quality pictures and you would make money by getting commission on every sale.
So you may create your customized photography site for your clients with help of the following photography websites.

   SmugMug

   Fotomoto

   Printroom

   Photocrati

   Zenfolio

3. Work as a freelance photographer

If you love photography so much, you may work as freelancer in this filed and you will make good income with it. Build an online photography portfolio by showing your best work to start getting jobs as a freelance photographer. Be selective on what photos to display and allow a professional photographer to have a look at your portfolio to improve it. If you spend quality time to construct a stunning online portfolio, prospective clients would easily find you by checking out your work. Try to offer some free images to your clients in the initial period and once you become a popular freelance photographer, you may charge high for your incredible pictures. To get freelance photography jobs, you may visit the famous freelancing websites like Freelance.in, Elance or Odesk

4. Share your knowledge

To earn money by photography, you may share your knowledge in the form of eBooks or create video lectures for the amateur photographers. Do share your own experiences and include simple and executable photography tips in digital books/series of videos. To make money, you could sell your eBooks and use video tutorial website like Lynda.com to upload your video classes. Moreover, if you get some people who are interested in learning photographic techniques, you can take online classes through Skype or organize a webinar for them. For this, you may utilize Fiverr to promote your photographic skill as a gig to get customers to sell your striking photos and as well to catch the attentive persons to teach photography lessons.

5. Participate in photography contests

There are many free photography contests running on the web where you can win cash prizes. If you’re a growing photographer, you might be struggling to make money off your work. In such cases, you may take part in photography contests to hone your photographic skill and display your work in front of people to gain exposure. I listed some websites where you can find the photo competitions to enter.

    Photocontestinsider.com 

    Photobrainiac.com 

    Viewbug.com 

    Pixoto.com 

    Photoswinprizes.com 

Promote your photography contest details on social networking sites to get more votes and great chance of winning.

6. Make money with stock photography

With a large collection of licensed photos, you can make a great passive income with stock photography. Many advertisers, webmasters, newspaper/magazine publishers often use stock photographs rather than hiring a professional photographer. Agencies act as an intermediate between the client & the photographer and collecting images in a library that can be searched on keywords. They are called micro stock agencies and hence you may make use their microstock websites to earn money with your photographs.
After you’ve signed up in a stock photography website, upload your pictures to get approval. If some of your photos get permitted, you will make money if someone wants to buy or get license to use them. Here are some tips to take stock photos and websites to make money from photography. 

Tips to get start with microstock photography

Selling stock photos to anyone who needs is the great way to make money from photography but it is somewhat tough to get your profile and pictures accepted on the stock photography websites. Here are some simple tips to shoot the successful images to make money with stock photography.
1. Create a stand-alone online portfolio by uploading your stunning pictures and information about yourself.
2. Decide your familiar category; shoot what you know instead of taking what’s popular.
3. Consider focus, noise, lighting and keyword in your mind while taking the pictures and don’t be in hurry.
4. Use Tripod and macro lens to catch focussed images without blurry.
5. Adjust the best quality settings in your camera and take pictures from multiple angles and distances.
6. Avoid submitting the pictures taken in dark background and don’t forget to use the proper keyword & description. 
7. It is essential to select proper category for the images to be submitted to get escape from elimination.

Popular stock photography websites to sell your photos

Here are some well-known online photo selling websites to advance your talent in photography.
   istockphoto
   Fotolia
   Cutcaster
   Shutterstock
   123rf
   Pond5
   Alamy
   Stockfresh
   Crestock
   bigstockphoto

Types of Photographs to sell well

Every budding photographer envisions the types of pictures to be taken to generate more sales. Do you think about the same? If so, check the following types of photographs that would produce more income for you.
1. Advertisers/webmasters usually look for the pictures related to electronics, technology, businessmen/businesswomen in office environments and real-estate to promote their service/product.

2. Emotional pictures like happy, fear and frustration.

3. Images related to travel and food.

4. Interesting portraits linked with festivals, lifestyle and different cultures.

5. Landscape images and illustrations.

To earn by photography, it would be good to avoid uploading the pictures like people sitting idle, photo shopped backgrounds, blurred & dull light photos.

Conclusion

The explosive growth of internet has opened numerous ways to earn money online. People do have a specific skills and searching for the ways to sharpen them and make income on the web at their spare time. If you’re a professional photographer or interested in photography, you could make a steady income with your photographic skill since the demand for images has created an incredible opportunity for you to earn with your skill through the above mentioned ways.