How to go about selling bird pictures?

[Starskream666]

Any ideas how to make money from selling bird pictures etc? I love doing it and need some income. A woman in a shop that sold pictures once told me people won't buy my picture of a seagull because birds are thought as 'bad luck' :/

Anyway happy with these i took. I cropped the 3rd one so many times in different angles aha not sure i like the one i chose to upload

 

[pjaye]

Your pictures are nice, but you have exposure and focus issues. I'm not sure they are of a high enough quality that people would pay for them. If you look at some of the posts on here from people who do make money off bird pictures, (like msnowy..I have 4 of his on my wall that I bought) you will see the quality difference.

As for selling them, I'm not much help although around my area, people tend to sell them attAched to cards.

 

[Starskream666]

Ok thanks could you elaborate on the focusing issues? I can understand the one that is blurry due to it being about to fly though ive seen blurry images in shops before to be honest. Unless you mean the 2nd that is slightly out of focus, whereas the branch is sharper? I took another one from that angle with the bird in full focus. I was using the 50mm 1.8 bare in mind which is known for its bad focusing

 

[SCraig]

Word of advice: When you have to explain why a photograph isn't in focus or isn't cropped properly or isn't composed properly or isn't this or isn't that, then it probably isn't something that people are going to pay for. For someone to purchase a photograph it has to have value over and above all the others around it. In short: It has to be better.

 

[gsgary]

The last shot above is totally killed by the blurred branches in the foreground, you have a long long way to go if you think these are sellable

 

[Didereaux]

Ok thanks could you elaborate on the focusing issues? I can understand the one that is blurry due to it being about to fly though ive seen blurry images in shops before to be honest. Unless you mean the 2nd that is slightly out of focus, whereas the branch is sharper? I took another one from that angle with the bird in full focus. I was using the 50mm 1.8 bare in mind which is known for its bad focusing

That lens will not get you many 'salable' bird shots. Not a terrible lens but you are going to have to 300-500mm at least to get bird portraits. You have a people portrait set up, not a wildlife one.

Go here to the Birds & Critter album. In 409 shots there are less than 20 that might be salable (I wish they were salable).
Picasa Web Albums - monte
Compare your stuff to those pictures. And THEN go to a professionals site and look at their galleries. I really hate to discourage you but you are neither equipped nor ready for this type of shooting. Find some subjects locally and take unique shots of those. Often times people can sell such pictures in card form.

 

[Starskream666]

Okay gsgary that wasn't contributing to my question, it just sounded like your ego was trying to put me down and sounded rather belittling...

Thanks for the advice from the others, as I say though i've seen alot worse being sold which is why I asked the question in the first place

*EDIT* Yeah Didere, the Robins were really not bothered by me being close so I managed to get quite close with the 50, im not sure how a telephoto would of benefited in this scenario i was in today but agree obviously its not a wildlife lens.
Also which one would you say was saleable?

 

[Light Guru]

Okay gsgary that wasn't contributing to my question, it just sounded like your ego was trying to put me down and sounded rather belittling...

Thanks for the advice from the others, as I say though i've seen alot worse being sold which is why I asked the question in the first place

Actually it is contributing to the question. The first step to selling photos is having photos good enough to sell.

You say you've seen worse photos for sale, but to you actually see those photos selling? Having a photo for sale and having photos that sell are two different things.

 

[Starskream666]

Ok thanks could you elaborate on the focusing issues? I can
Go here to the Birds & Critter album. In 409 shots there are less than 20 that might be salable (I wish they were salable).
Picasa Web Albums - monte
Compare your stuff to those pictures. And THEN go to a professionals site and look at their galleries. I really hate to discourage you but you are neither equipped nor ready for this type of shooting.

I honestly don't see any that are as interesting or miles better other than the one Hummingbird picture, taking away the subjects are more extravagant.
But if you could select which you could give an example of a saleable one then it would help

 

[Didereaux]

Okay gsgary that wasn't contributing to my question, it just sounded like your ego was trying to put me down and sounded rather belittling...

Thanks for the advice from the others, as I say though i've seen alot worse being sold which is why I asked the question in the first place

*EDIT* Yeah Didere, the Robins were really not bothered by me being close so I managed to get quite close with the 50, im not sure how a telephoto would of benefited in this scenario i was in today but agree obviously its not a wildlife lens.
Also which one would you say was saleable?

None of ones you posted are salable. As for your question concerning a telephoto I will give an example: the shot below was sone at less than 10 feet with a 400mm lens.
Here is a salable shot.

 

[Starskream666]

I know I meant show me the ones of yours that are salable and the one you've shown is also the one i thought. But only that

 

[Didereaux]

I know I meant show me the ones of yours that are salable and the one you've shown is also the one i thought. But only that

lol If that was the only one in those 409 you picked as salable then how in the world do you think you can sell something like the ones you posted?

 

[Nevermore1]

I'm no pro but I think you need to get an appropriate lens and get out and practice more before you think about selling. I'm on my cell phone and the shots look slightly blurred. In the first one the bird stands out pretty well but the blurred branches in the foreground are very distracting. The second and third ine you have to look for the bird amongst all the branches and dead leaves. There's definitely some potential but at this point I can say that I personally would not pay for photos of this quality.

 

[matthewo]

its tough to sell bird photos. I cannot say I have put a lot of time into marketing prints, but I do have accounts at the 4 top stock photography sites, it sure takes a long time to get your portfolio big enough to make any decent money, i make maybe $10 a month on one site with my 100 photos, once, you get a good big diverse portfolio of all subject maters then they can make some ok extra money, but you will end up spending the time of a full time job on doing it to make anything decent.

the best bet would be to probably try to sell prints and work at getting full frame shots in good light at low iso so the print quality will be good, spent a lot of time getting the shot you want and edit it well for best print quality.

 

[gsgary]

Okay gsgary that wasn't contributing to my question, it just sounded like your ego was trying to put me down and sounded rather belittling...

Thanks for the advice from the others, as I say though i've seen alot worse being sold which is why I asked the question in the first place

*EDIT* Yeah Didere, the Robins were really not bothered by me being close so I managed to get quite close with the 50, im not sure how a telephoto would of benefited in this scenario i was in today but agree obviously its not a wildlife lens.
Also which one would you say was saleable?

I'm telling you how it is Robins will not sell Kinfishers coming out of the water with a fish in their beak will, I'll find a member at our clubs flickr, sorry but there are not many on here man enough to tell you the truth