Digital Photography—There’s Money to Be Made as a Stock Photographer

You may never have thought of your digital photography interest as anymore than a hobby, but you may be able to earn some money for your efforts, as a stock photographer. This would have been unlikely decades ago. Today, however the Internet is not only a huge medium that needs stock photos, but also the prefect place to market your photos. The challenge is two-fold: first, you must be able to take quality photos that the market wants, and then you must know how to use the system to market them. Reading the many how-to articles on PhotographyTalk.com will help you become a better digital photographer; reading this article will teach you some of the tips and methods to sell your photos.

Recommended Cameras:

Nikon D500 | Nikon D3300 | Canon EOS Rebel T5 | Sony A7RII | Canon 7D Mark II

Partnering with Online Photo Databases
Typically, online stock photography is offered by and bought from various Internet-based database companies.
•    Start, by researching the stock photography databases. Look at the kind of photos they offer to determine if yours will be competitive.
•    It’s best to concentrate your portfolio on one or two sites. You’ll obviously have a better opportunity to be noticed because there are more of your images from which to choose. The databases that accept your photos will usually create a page or pages to display them and incorporate them into their site search engines, which also make them accessible with a standard Internet search.
•    In many cases, once buyers find photos they need on a particular site, they will return there again and again. The stock photo companies make it easy to entice them by making sure they always have a few credits in their accounts.

Shoot the Most-Wanted Digital Photos
As with any product or service to be marketed, you must know what kind of images the buyers of stock photos want.
•    That requires a bit of research, too, to determine which industries need new stock photos regularly, and then shooting those pictures.
•    Obviously, those industries will change, but some that use many stock photos include health and fitness, finance and business.
•    Sometimes, they want pictures of smiling people and families who are expressing their satisfaction with those industries.
•    They may also need stock photos that are symbolic of what their industries do, in a more graphic or abstract form, such as money and stock trading for finance and the benefits of Internet marketing and technology for those industries.
•    Once you’ve identified which industries are active buyers of digital stock photos, you then want to be sure to shoot a series of photos of the same subject or object. Multiple photos from different angles of the same person doing fitness drills are much more likely to grab the interest of a stock photo buyer than just a single fitness photo. Now, you’ve created a reason for the buyer to return to your page and purchase more of your digital photos.

NIKON Prime Lenses	CANON Prime Lenses	SIGMA Prime Lenses
Nikon 24mm f/1.4	Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II	Sigma 24mm f/1.8 EX DG
Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.4G	Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM	Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM
Nikon 35mm f/1.4G	Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L	Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM
Nikon 85mm f/1.4G	Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II	Sigma 85mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM
Nikon 300mm f/2.8G AF-S ED	Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS	Sigma 300mm f/2.8 EX DG IF

Keywords Are the Key
Taking plenty of great digital photos is not enough. You must also invest plenty of time in developing keyword tags for your photos.
•    Again, some research will help you understand this process; but, simply put, you want to create a complete list of keywords for each photo that describes it as thoroughly as possible and in as many categories as possible.
•    Keywords could describe the contents of your stock photo: the people, the objects, the place and the action.
•    Keywords could also relate to photographic techniques, such as color, black and white, lighting, angle, etc.
•    Other keywords may relate to the industries or businesses that are most likely to use your stock photos: a picture of a young couple could represent both engagement rings for the jewelry industry and new homebuyers for real estate.

You probably won’t be able to quit your day job and become a full-time stock photographer (although some do); but the opportunity to earn some extra money is a powerful motivation to continue to improve your digital photography skills.

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