Making some pocket money out of interests

[duanyu]

Good Day Folks,

I take an interest in travel photography and have been doing it at beginners' level for quite some time. Recently, my brother was looking through some of my folders and was recommending that I have my shots shared commercially; i.e. either publish them out in a travel memoir or sell them to famous travel guides.

I am at a loss of how to get about 'selling' my photos. I tried e-mailing lonely planet, but no reply. Publishing my shots in a travel memoir seems like a herculian effort. I went through some websites like Yessey, which claims that you can 'sell' your work piece on their websites, but it also boils down to copyright issues, which I am not sure of how the procedure is like. Perhaps, some of you folks can give me some idea.

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

I believe there are a few books "How to make money with photography"...or something like that.

You could try to register your shots with some sort of stock photography site...but you have to remember that there are millions of people out there...many of whom also take great photos. To make any real money, you have to be special.

 

[cosmonaut]

Try opening a free web site. Try Tripod or another free service. You never know and it's free....
Cosmo

 

[duanyu]

Mike,

Perhaps you can briefly enlighten me how stock photograpghy works

 

[fmw]

I don't know the quality of your work, but if it is good enough, present it to one or more of the stock photo agencies. I'm sure you can find them with a search engine. Corbis is the largest, I believe, and one of the ones I used to use.

 

[Big Mike]

Mike,

Perhaps you can briefly enlighten me how stock photograpghy works

I don't profess to be an expert...but I'm thinking that there are two main ways. Either you sell your image to an agencey...and that's it. Or you register you image and they list it. You get a penny (or whatever) every time it gets used. You would either need some great images, that get used a lot...or you would need a lot of images...to make any real money.

Some agencies are more demanding in what they will accept...but they probably sell harder and pay more.

 

[Pirate]

There is a book that you can get at most large bookstores. It list places that buy stock photographs, how much they are willing to pay, contract info, and how to submit them. The book is very thick and is the best reference I've ever seen.