Seeling work... A newbie

GreyArea

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Hi,

I was with an old friend last night who was looking at some of my photography. As an ex professional, I value his opinion. He tels me my work is "Jaw droppingly brilliant, and you should be selling it"!

But HOW?!?!?

I have been a very serious amature for 20 plus years now, and admit I have some good work, but whare does one start? I am between jobs at the moment (IT contractor) so have time to work on this project, but I need some pointers. I have looked a loads of these online "Stock Photography" sites, but they all seem, well, poor value! And half of them say you must be a professional, you must use one of these listed cameras.... Boxes I just can't tick!

Any help you could give would be so welcome, as I realy enjoy working in this area, but don't realy have any ideas of how to get started!

Thanks

Matt
 
Never take advice from an ex professional. At any rate look at the local market. Certainly there are some bars, restaurants, coffee houses you could hang your work. The net is one idea, but oversaturated. First step is to consider your work. Then consider the market you want to target.

Love & Bass
 
It's really really hard to get into selling "regular" photography (i.e., landscapes, nature, etc.) and make a living at it.

I love it, but portraiture is where I found is the money. With so many Targets and Ikeas and such that sell trendy cheap art prints for a wall, it seems that it is hard to find people who value originals, KWIM?

I've sold some of my work to card companies to galleries, to people at art fairs, but I always end up feeling disappointed because it just doesn't seem like enough money to support a family... ever.
 
what may be a "jaw droppingly brilliant" may not be good stock photography.

If you do decide to go down that road, then be careful which site/agency you use. There are many sites that allow downloading of images and the photographer gets only a few pence/cents per download.

You'd be aswell giving them away.

Make sure you retain all rights ie rights managed as opposed to royalty free if your work is that good.

I'd also be careful about accepting praise literally, especially from friends and family. They don't want to hurt your feelings so will always say the image is ok even if you know it's dreadful.
I've had people say my work is amazing but i've seen some others who blow my stuff away (some on this forum i might add) so that immediately means i have some way to go to reach "the next level".
 

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