If You Like Photography, Make Money With A Camera

Digital photography? Make money with a camera? Yep, they are not mutually exclusive. I’d like to take a few minutes to introduce you to something you may have never heard of that can make you more than a little money on a regular and recurring basis.

You can make a handsome regular monthly income by submitting photos from your digital camera to various photography websites called stock photo sites. These are the places where people like magazines, publishers, ad agencies, web designers, graphic artists and many others come to find photos for their various projects. They purchase the right to download and use the photos. And here’s the fun part! The stock photo websites pay commissions to the person who owns the photo each time it’s downloaded! And it’s free to join these websites as well as upload your photos too.

What kind of photos, you may be wondering? It’s wide open. A few examples would be: a pile of old bricks, a child opening gifts, a simple glass of wine, a smiling child, a kitchen sink and the list goes on and on. The sites do have a list of some things they don’t want at various times like forests, pets and your relatives, but the exclusions are far fewer than the list of things they want. Even if you don’t like photography, you can make money with a camera.

But if you like photography, you can have fun and make money with a camera at the same time. It would be a dream job for many amateur photographers. Just think, riding around with your camera at your side until you spot just what you were looking for. Then hopping out and snapping away to your heart’s content.

How much commission do these websites pay? It can vary, but usually 20% and up from the download fee paid by the user. It also depends on the size of the photo. Very small images pay around $.30 for each download and extremely large photos can net for over $8.00 each and up. It may not sound like much, but consider that some pictures get downloaded hundreds or even thousands of times. This can really add up.

The quality of your photos IS a big deal to these websites. On your first submission, you must get approval before you can upload any more. A panel of experts will physically inspect the quality of your work and pass judgement. As scary as that sounds, if you follow their suggestions for taking quality photos, you should have no trouble getting in. The wait on getting approved can be long sometimes, but worth it.

A good suggestion would be to find all the websites you want to submit to, get registered and read about their submission rules. Also see if they are asking for certain kinds of photos at the time or conversely, if there are genres they don’t want or need right now. This could also help you getting in.

And the cost of starting a little business like this is next to nothing, especially if you have the camera, computer and Internet connection already. There’s not even any supplies to buy; no film, remember? Just start finding some interesting subject matter and click away! The Internet just keeps on giving: photography, make money with a camera!

Related posts:

1. Even If You Don’t Like Photography, Make Money With A Camera
2. Photography: Make Money With A Camera
3. Get Paid a Royalty: Stock Photography