I suppose it’s a dream of nearly all dedicated amateur photographers to start their own photographic business
I suppose it’s a dream of nearly all dedicated amateur photographers to start their own Photographic Business. To go out and take pictures for a living, earn your wages from doing something you love – taking pictures.
But what about the reality of a business where you earn money with your camera? You are maybe the greatest landscape photographer that the world has seen but how do you sell your work. Maybe portraits or glamour photography is your thing but again it’s getting yourself known. How about wedding photography, there’s a test for any man (or woman)? Do you really fancy being outside a church, whatever the weather every Saturday afternoon? The conditions don’t matter you have to deliver the goods. No reshoots or going back, take the shots that need to be of a very high standard in one take.
I suppose the burning question is do you really want to build a business around your hobby? That depends on you and you’re commitment to building a Photographic Business. Then you need to look at your photographic talents and ask yourself if the quality is good enough. It’s O.K. for your family and friends to say that your pictures are good enough to sell, but would anyone buy your images or pay you to take their picture.
One idea that could help you to decide, access the marketplace and judge the quality of your photographic images is to submit your digital images to a Microstock Photographic Library. Recently, due to the increased market and the number of contributors, the main libraries have got very particular in the images that they accept and I (and many other photographers) can tell you that if you can satisfy their needs then you are pretty dam good. It won’t cost you anything to contribute, but you will get an unbiased professional opinion of you digital images.
Another factor about Microstock is that you can upload your images as and when you want to. If you want to really go for it then you can. However, if you simply want to earn a bit of extra cash then you can. You are in control of what you shoot, when you shoot it and how much time and effort you want to dedicate to your business.
If you feel that would like to take the opportunity of trying out the Microstock Photographic market, which incidentally, is the biggest growth market for your photographs take a look at my website www.gbphotostock.com as it will give you an idea as to the subjects and quality of the images that are accepted. If you do choose to go ahead and build your own Photographic Business and earn from you hobby, I wish you all the success.
