Sell Pictures Online, Freelance Photography Opportunities

Whether you make your sales through photo libraries or direct, do you have a target to keep your mind focused on your output? And, if you do, is it measurable?

It needs to be otherwise you cannot assess just how you are performing against your target. It can be as simple as the number of images sent out each month or the number of sales made, or the monetary amount of sales made, all of which are measurable.

My targets began as the number of submissions made each month but I felt that that didn’t stretch me enough. Regular submissions are, of course, essential in this freelancing business but results are more important.

So, I amended my goals by setting myself an income-based goal for each month which encourages me to continue to send submissions out but will not let me feel satisfied just by the making of a submission. Now I won’t feel satisfied unless I can eat! Hopefully this approach will improve my selections and lead to more sales.

Don’t forget, that setting a target is not the end of it. There is no point in having a target that there is no chance of achieving just as there is no point in having a target that is too easily achieved. Setting targets that challenge is a fine balancing act so review your goals regularly.

And don’t feel that you are cheating if you downgrade your targets if you find that you are not achieving them even though you have put a 100 per cent effort in. Of course, if the non-achievement is brought about by lack of application on your part, you know what to do.

Author: David Bigwood

Technorati Tags: freelance, ideas, job, photography

For more help and dozens more selling photos ideas, check out the ebooks mentioned on our main page. 

So let’s assume you’re in and you’ve gotten the nod to shoot your first sports assignment.

Sorry, those professional baseball, basketball and Big 10 college football games will be covered by the staff photographers because they’ll appear on the cover of the section.

Don’t despair, as you get better, you’ll get to the front page of the Sports section. If you have a really good picture, it may run on the front page, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet. So this will likely be the typical assignment you might get.

• High School football, basketball or volleyball
• Kick off, tip off (whatever the term is for the sport) 7 pm (earlier if you’re lucky, gives you more time to shoot)
• Coverage of Cougars’ season opener against Rams. (substitute names for your local high school mascots)
• Deadline for picture 8:45 pm

Preparations

Get to know the route to and from the stadium. Arrive early enough to figure out how long it will take to get to the nearest area where you have WiFi or an ethernet cable which you can plug into your laptop for internet access.

Grab a team lineup or roster for both teams. If you can’t get a copy to take with you, photograph the roster so that you can quickly bring that up for captioning when you’re editing. If you’re lucky, the Athletic Director of the school may make his office available for you. But let’s assume you have to drive to a Starbucks. Let’s say it will take you 5 mins.

That means you have to leave the stadium no later than 8 pm if they want one picture. You may be thinking that’s more than enough time. Don’t forget you have to set up your laptop which you should be "sleeping" and not turning on from a cold start. If you’re not going to be near AC power, make sure to charge up your laptop’s battery beforehand.

Be careful where you park

Be sure you are not going to be blocked by another vehicle because you will be leaving earlier than everyone else. This is also a safety issue. Have your gear ready to go once you arrive.

It’s not a good idea to be digging in your trunk. Opportunistic thieves will see this.

Watch your time.

As you gain experience, you can push those time limits more.

A lot depends on how much you shoot and how fast your laptop is. If you shoot too much and at too a high a jpeg resolution and if your computer is "older," it will slow you down. Large files take longer to download.

Those files will take Photoshop more time to open, render and save. A few seconds here and there may not seem like much, but over a 100 or 200 images, that will become significant.

The majority of professional sports photographers do not tweak their images very much. They check sharpness, dodge and burn, caption, crop, save and they transmit.

Don’t forget you will be sorting and deciding on one picture where you will need to identify all the players in it. So when you’re shooting, everytime you think you have a good action sequence, be sure to photograph the back of the jerseys of the players involved in the "play" to help you id them later.

Football and ice hockey players have an annoying knack of looking alike once they don their gear, or don’t you know that? If that never occurred to you, don’t feel bad. I made that mistake when I was a rookie. I ended up driving to the coach’s house with a wet print in hand at the eleventh hour. And mind you that was in the days when we shot film and made prints.

Shooting

• Expose well so that you don’t have to do much dodging and burning in Photoshop.
• Stealing a peek every now and then to see how the histogram looks is fine, but don’t make it a crutch.You might be draining your batteries or you might miss something you should be capturing in the camera.
• Keep track of your memory cards by numbering them so that you know what order they were used.

In photojournalism where deadlines are critical, the most recent pictures tend to be more important. Game winning plays andpost-game jubilationare such examples. Later, as you’re editing, you might find another player had a very good game with outstanding statistics, then go back and look for extraordinary images of that player.

Editing & Writing

Use the team roster

Open the picture you took earlier of the team rosters. Minimize it and keep that handy. You’ll be referring to that for correct spellings and jersey numbers.

Don’t sweat the color

Most photographers don’t try to fine-tune the color because they are not in the most "ideal" locations when working on their pictures.

Pick the picture you like

If you’re told they need only one picture, pick the one you like the most. Remember, the editors at the paper weren’t there. They may ask if you have this and that, but in the end, it 1ff8 ’s your name that goes underneath the picture.

You should feel good about your choice. In all my years at the paper, I lived by that motto. It has always worked for me. The trouble with giving in to what the editors want is this: they have a picture in mind and that’s a tainted, it’s not necessarily the best picture. You were there, only you can be the judge of that.

Identifying people

Whenever possible, identify people in your pictures left to right. Names with ages and the city they live in and other facts which might add to the picture. In the case of a soccer game, the name and the player’s position e.g AC Milan midfielder Ronaldinho (left) celebrates with teammate Kaka after scoring the equilizer in the dying minutes of the game against Barcelona.

There may be more to this but generally speaking, after you hit click the mouse to "Send" or the "Return" key to transmit your picture, you can relax. Call your supervisor/photo editor to make sure they receive it after a few minutes.

Author: Peter Phun

Technorati Tags: make money taking photos

One of the nice things about photographs is that you are able to capture the most special moments in life and are able to preserve it for years to come.

The world of photography is very vast and many people are very much interested in the field. Some take it as a hobby, while others consider it as a job. The amount of time, effort and cost invested in photography can vary for every individual.

Photography is also very much an art. It is true that anyone can just point and shoot a camera, but it really takes talent to capture a certain emotion or scene that will depict something that is worth to treasure for a lifetime. People who have this talent are the ones who invest much into their craft and these are also the people you see having freelance photography jobs.

Freelance photography is the ultimate expression of one’s love of photography. For most photographers, this is the best job they could ever think of because they are being paid for something which they love doing. Also, there are no work hours to be met, no bosses to be pleased and most of all, it gives them extensive exposure to the many different subjects that they can capture. Sometimes, the services of these freelance photographers are up for hire and they are given the chance to feature their works in magazines.

If you feel that you have what it takes to be one of the millions of people that have freelance photography jobs, it will take just a bit of your time to set-up your own gig.

One very important thing that you must have if you want to become a freelancer is your portfolio. Basically, a portfolio will contain samples of your work as a photographer. Your portfolio will serve as the ultimate advertising material for your skills so better put together one that is very impressive to look at.

Once you get your first project as freelance photographer, you must see to it that you maintain the quality of your works throughout all your succeeding projects. Learning the craft in a more detailed approach is important to do now more than ever since people will be able to identify your works already.

To further enhance your skills in photography, you can take additional classes for the technical aspects of the art since photography has more aspects to it than beauty. You might have the talent and the knack for it, but if you do not do anything to improve your skills, then you will eventually get trapped and will not be able to adjust to the newer ways of improving your photos.

Freelance photography jobs are aplenty and can be very rewarding to those who have the patience, talent and skills to succeed in the field. One photographer’s photo will always be different from the other photographer because each one sees something totally different even through the same lens of the same camera.

Author: Terry Edwards

Make Money With Online Videos

Take Pictures And Make Videos Through a home based travel business I can hire my family to perform services while on vacation.

Ways You Can Make Money At Home

Take a look at some of your hobbies that could be turned into money making ideas. If you enjoy taking pictures, there is a good start. You could offer to take family pictures or portraits from your home.

Ways to Make Money Online

So let me guess, you found this article while looking for ways to make money online right? If you like photography, take some pictures that are popular and sell them on websites like iStock and ShutterStock.

Some Ways How You Can Make Money At Home

Maybe you have a talent for taking pictures that has always been kind of a hobby. Why not take that hobby and turn it into a side business.

Technorati Tags: Home Photography Business

The digital photography industry is booming and many people are cashing in by setting up their own freelance photography businesses. The good news is that freelance photography is a career that you can pursue either part-time or full-time.

Turn on the news or pick up a magazine and you’ll discover stories of moms running home-based businesses selling photos online. They are not only having fun and doing something they love. They are receiving regular payments from stock photography sites and checks for hundreds of dollars from selling photos to magazines and other publications.

When you work as a freelance photographer it is ultimately up to you how many hours per week you put into your digital photography business.

Many freelance photographers choose to keep working in a regular job while they build their freelance photography business. By doing this they can build up their portfolio and start to earn some income from their photos, before making a decision to quit their job and work full-time as a freelance photographer.

Working part-time doesn’t put you at a disadvantage. In fact, freelance photographers typically work odd hours anyway. So it is not unusual for a photographer to have an irregular shooting schedule, or a photo session at odd hours of the day or night. Most freelancers enjoy the flexibility that this allows.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your digital camera and start taking some great digital photographs. Once you have a few good shots, start uploading and selling your photos online!

Author: Michael J Kryzer

Nigeria’s No. 1 Job Site 

JOB TITLE: PHOTOGRAPHERS REQUIREMENTS • Graduate with a passion for photography and who are computer literate may apply.

Engagement!: Weddingbee PRO 

In this, her first year of business, she’s booked 30 weddings all around the world, in New York City, California, Jamaica, Venezuela and Nigeria. Her images have been described as emotional, whimsical and elegant.

CosWeAfricanWomenAreDoin&DoinItWell

I’m also inspired by other photographers on http://www.shutterchance.com/ and by friends interested in photography as well. Djaa my nigerian sistas sont dedans dee:)

Terry Spencer RIP

After their marriage they bought an old Piper Cub aircraft and established a profitable aerial photography business in Johannesburg, photographing the houses and farms of wealthy South Africans from low level. 

Technorati Tags: how to start a photography business