Digitalquill

Eva has a thing for hats at the moment. I had my chainsaw hat out as I was cutting a hedge at the weekend. She took it upon herself to try it on!

Photography is a hobby for me, I would not necessarily say that I was a particularly good photographer, but I can take a relatively good photograph.

I have been selling those photographs online for the last 3 or 4 years and have brought in some good pocket money from doing so. At times I have logged into my seller accounts and been greeted by $1000, some of which is affiliate earnings, but it is always a pleasant surprise.

How and where do I sell photographs?

The how is very easy, just sign up to one or all of the stock photography sites below and follow their instructions on how to upload images. The text that you write for them, the tags and labels is very important as it is these that are going to get your photographs found by searches. Generally they have an approval process and many of your images will be denied, o not be disheartened by this, they will be denied for many reasons, quality, subject and simply that the site already has too many of that type of image.

As for the where, these are some of the sites that I use with a few comments as to what I think of each of them.

SmugMug Pro – Not really a commercial stock photography gallery but allows you to have your own space, share and sell your photographs

Big Stock Photo – A very simple to use stock photography gallery, this is where I sell most of my photographs

Fotilia - I find this site not as easy to use, however it is well worth persevering with as you will get the results.

DreamsTime - A good site, easy to use and seems to be the quickest to upload photographs to.

IStockPhoto - One of the best sites, the user has a control panel on which they can manage all their account.

What photographs sell?

The photograph has to have some commercial value to sell, an photograph of your local bridge is not going to sell unless it is an iconic land mark and thus symbolic of bridges anywhere, a holiday snap of someone eating an ice cream won’t sell unless it is a posed photograph which says ‘holiday’, with model quality poses and thought of the background.

What you have to do is think about who is going to buy your photograph and what they will use it for, also remember there are millions of other images on the stock photography sites so yours will have to either be exceptionally good or it needs to be of a niche subject that is not covered so widely.

The ones of mine that sell well are a picture of ‘Salt end’ oil refinery at night, this does not specifically show the place its self and the images are taken in such a way that they are iconic for any heavy industrial plant. I have a picture of a Bay leaf with water droplets on it which does very well, this could be used for cooking or gardening applications.

I also have some photographs taken at Hull Fair, again these do not specifically identify Hull fair, but they show fair ground rides and can be used for any type of fun park entertainment.

The best advice is to go onto the sites listed above and see the featured sections and have a browse through the images to see the types and quality of images required to be successful.

Selling photographs as an Affiliate?

Affiliate marketing is something that I do anyway, I also do affiliate selling of stock photography and referral of other photographers. If I promote a stock photography site and refer a photographer who then uploads and starts selling their photographs, I earn a percentage of the sale price of each of those photographs. This is a great way of topping up your income. Once you become a photographer with a good portfolio uploaded to the stock photography sites then apply for their affiliate program and start referring other photographers.

I make 75% of my money from this affiliate method rather than selling my own images. This maybe because of several reasons, firstly I am an affiliate marketer anyway and two I have not dedicated the time to my photography and building up a bigger portfolio of images. Either way, even if you do not earn that sort of percentage from affiliate sales it is still a worthwhile exercise to sign up to the affiliate program and start referring members, you never know you may get lucky and refer a brilliant photographer who sells thousands of images.