Freelance photography?

[Scarlett]

Someone I was talking to on another site mentioned that he earned a good $1,000 a month just from selling pictures he takes himself. I never thought to do something like this as a means to earn from "home". Does anyone know anything about this? Like what sites pay you to upload pictures and allow people to buy them?

[Carson]

Look into stock photo sites. You might be able to sell your photos on their. As well, if you're a freelance photographer, you can take any job you want essentially. You could take a job as a wedding photographer, or graduation photos, or into more adult oriented material. 

I know a lot of photographers who are open to all kinds of ideas. You of course get to make the rules. You can decide who you take pictures of or work with. 

When it comes to stock photos, I think taking general, day to day type photos are best. So maybe an office setting with workers, stuff like that. 

[James]

There are a lot of sites that pay you to upload your original photos. 

I know as a publisher I use shutterstock to buy photos to use on my sites all the time. They get those photos from freelance photographers and middle man the transaction. 

Here are a couple places to get started. 

Shutterstock - https://submit.shutterstock.com/

500Px - https://500px.com/licensing

SmugMug - https://www.smugmug.com/features/sell-photos

GettyImages - https://www.gettyimages.com/workwithus

Then if you want to get really creative you can even use Etsy. People like to buy prints and canvases. 

 

[Emma]

To add to the above list, PhotoPin is another one. I know someone from another site who sells pictures on there. You have to be very niche select to make good money with something like this though! Another option is to take pictures of celebrities and sell them to magazines. Scummy work but it pays!

[Ella]

You could start your own site as well. Provide a public image gallery and allow people to see what you have to offer with watermarks. Then allow them to buy them based on use. If they want to buy all the rights to the picture, they pay more but if they want to buy partial or "shared asset" rights, then they pay a small fee. 

[Mila]

On 7/16/2021 at 2:54 PM, Ella said:

You could start your own site as well. Provide a public image gallery and allow people to see what you have to offer with watermarks. Then allow them to buy them based on use. If they want to buy all the rights to the picture, they pay more but if they want to buy partial or "shared asset" rights, then they pay a small fee. 

I was going to suggest something similar. Setting up a website like this would be super easy using WordPress as well. I think they have something called WooCommerce that is free to use. I could be saying the name wrong. Either way, it is very easy and doable even for someone with minimal experience setting up or running a site. The themes on WordPress are super easy to work with and learn. 

[Ella]

On 7/17/2021 at 4:25 PM, Mila said:

I was going to suggest something similar. Setting up a website like this would be super easy using WordPress as well. I think they have something called WooCommerce that is free to use. I could be saying the name wrong. Either way, it is very easy and doable even for someone with minimal experience setting up or running a site. The themes on WordPress are super easy to work with and learn. 

You are saying it right! : https://woocommerce.com/

And yeah, that is a great platform to run a store on. It is easy to use and you don't need to have a background in coding or general website building to make use of it.