Author Topic: Selling your photos online?  (Read 2706 times)

bricam2096

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Selling your photos online?
« on: 20:25:28, 27/09/16 »
I had a little look around but couldn't see anything so...

Have any of you ever sold your photos online and if so, what was your preferred site and was it worth it (i.e. did you make any money?
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altirando

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #1 on: 22:57:41, 27/09/16 »
Short answer is no, forget it.  Longer answer is I did include some shots in a guidebook I wrote years ago, did not get paid any extra.  I do know a young woman who sells framed prints of her mountain shots, but the price suggests she only just about covers her costs = I have one on my bedroom wall.  And yes, I do have professional experience as I used to be a creative director buying a lot of very professional photography.  And a few feet away I can see a large Ansel Adams print of Yosemite I bought as a memento when I was over there.  As I suggested, your best way ahead is to offer a package of guide and photos, if you can find an area no one else has discovered .......

fit old bird

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #2 on: 09:01:39, 28/09/16 »
Hi. I think it would be very difficult to sell photo's on line, these days everyone has a phone/camera, and the quality of photo's has much improved over the years. My friend who is a professional photographer has thousands of cat photographs that he used to sell, they were used in magazines, brochures, and calendars. No one wants them now as the technology has moved so far forward.


I sometimes get requests from people wanting to use my photo's. They find them on my blog and they are just what they have been looking for. I always give permission, it's nice that they ask, and it's too much hassle to ask for payment. I know some bloggers get miffed if their photo's are stolen and turn up on other sites.


Sorry can't answer your questions, but I also say, don't bother, unless you are prepared to look at it for the long term, build up a portfolio, build your reputation, it ain't going to happen overnight. You could always join the paparazzi brigade and scramble for a pitch outside the big celeb events. Good luck whatever you decide.


Ilona

Wurz

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #3 on: 12:21:18, 28/09/16 »
I sometimes get requests from people wanting to use my photo's. They find them on my blog and they are just what they have been looking for. I always give permission, it's nice that they ask, and it's too much hassle to ask for payment.


It's not worth it, partly because as Ilona says everyone has a camera phone and commercially because of people giving them away for free.


You can try stock sites but you need to have high quality images and lots of them for maybe a very small return.  The only people making money out of stock is the stock companies, not the contributors.  You can try sites like Redbubble and link them to a blog or create a website and sell via that but unless you're very well publicised I'd be surprised if the return covered the cost of running the site.


The other option is to print some of your pics off and try and sell them at markets and in local tourist information offices.  They will often showcase local photographers for a couple of months at a time.


Good luck.

Rather be walking

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #4 on: 12:26:27, 28/09/16 »
Quote
My friend who is a professional photographer has thousands of cat photographs that he used to sell, they were used in magazines, brochures, and calendars. No one wants them now as the technology has moved so far forward.

I had a friend (retried many years) who was a professional photographer , he use to upload his photos (this was in the mid 90's) to a subscription website that acted like a viewing pool and anyone what'd to use his photo(s) would pay him and the copyright would be removed from the picture.
I can't remember the site name or even if it still exists.

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barewirewalker

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #5 on: 16:27:02, 28/09/16 »
Alamy is such a site; http://www.alamy.com/


Originally looked at it about 10 years ago. Having spent my second career making decor artwork and going through the trauma of selling and marketing I decided not to put myself through the hoop in my retirement. Better to live within my means and enjoy life.


To difficult to get an original enough style of consistent quality to reach a market. I put over 300,000 displays onto the walls of public places, the far east tried to copy me but no one has got near. Seeing poor quality copies being sold was pretty gutting, until  found their client who bought the product and offered mine and got another customer and that felt good.


Looking on the photos on offer I decided not to try to compete.
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Wurz

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #6 on: 17:44:09, 28/09/16 »
Alamy is a stock site not a subscription site.  It costs nothing to join.  With stock your images are often anonymous, people search by subject and keywords not the photographer.  Other well known ones are Shutterstock and Getty Images, etc.

Requiem

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #7 on: 19:44:08, 28/09/16 »
Rachael and I run a little limited company for a hobby, seling Greetings Cards and Canvasses - we sell through Etsy and have a site hosted on goDaddy which seems to draw quite a decent amount of views per day. The market appears quite well developed these days but if you go for seling as a hobby and aim to make a bit but not a lot its quite worthwhile
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Lolly

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #8 on: 20:18:31, 16/11/16 »
I'm a keen photographer and post my photos on Instagram.  I was shocked when I received a message from The Devonshire Arms at Pilsley asking me if they could use a one of my recent photographs on their website. I was over the moon that they have used it and was too overwhelmed to dare ask if I would receive any payment  ;D
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barewirewalker

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #9 on: 10:22:45, 17/11/16 »
Interesting how this topic is developing. I have noticed over the year following topics on this forum that some posters of photos appear to be more concerned about the copyright than others, almost to the extent of making one believe that the purpose of posting is a marketing exercise rather than sharing an interest in walking.
In my previous post I mentioned having a career in making decor and have had some experience in my original ideas and actual work being copied. It is hard to cope with having your work copied, especially if it affects the value of your product and the business' income, however an over developed complex about copyright infringement might have a negative effect on the marketability of the product.
I was fortunate in that the business' who copied my product showed me where there were new customers and I was able to suggest that they bought from the dog and not the tail.
Must be good fun having photos used even if the rewards are small, when the efforts in making then marketable is not too onerous.
Some useful sites for those wishing to sell photos.
BWW
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uncled8249

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #10 on: 00:12:14, 29/11/16 »
I used to get a few pictures published in local papers and indeed once in the Sun.  They all used to pay but then gradually they started not to. Most of the time it had cost me more to process the films and make the prints than I was getting paid.  But I enjoyed seeing my pictures in print so carried on sending some,  Indeed I still do. Re the picture in the Sun, I usually tell people that I got a weeks wages for 1/125th of a seconds work, lol.


Nowadays I see no point in copyrighting pictures as they can be copied and used in publications you will probably never know or see.  A couple of my friends get annoyed about their pictures being used, but it really isn`t worth getting anxious over it nowadays.
« Last Edit: 00:17:45, 29/11/16 by uncled8249 »
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DevonDave

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #11 on: 08:22:17, 29/11/16 »
I used to get a few pictures published in local papers and indeed once in the Sun.  They all used to pay but then gradually they started not to. Most of the time it had cost me more to process the films and make the prints than I was getting paid.  But I enjoyed seeing my pictures in print so carried on sending some,  Indeed I still do. Re the picture in the Sun, I usually tell people that I got a weeks wages for 1/125th of a seconds work, lol.


Nowadays I see no point in copyrighting pictures as they can be copied and used in publications you will probably never know or see.  A couple of my friends get annoyed about their pictures being used, but it really isn`t worth getting anxious over it nowadays.


My son is a semi-professional photographer.  He says that nowadays it is virtually impossible to get paid for a photo in a newspaper because there are so many people taking photos on their mobile phones who are prepared to send them in for free.

uncled8249

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Re: Selling your photos online?
« Reply #12 on: 08:47:21, 29/11/16 »

My son is a semi-professional photographer.  He says that nowadays it is virtually impossible to get paid for a photo in a newspaper because there are so many people taking photos on their mobile phones who are prepared to send them in for free.


Sadly that is so. Editors know they can get pictures free nowadays, so are unlikely to pay if it is unnecessary.  They are a business, not a charity, they are of course there to keep the publishers costs down too. 
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