Five Ways to Make Money from Photography

1. iStock

After reading Mike Cherim’s article going through the last 12 months upon iStock, I was reminded that I also have an iStock account. So I must thank Mike for invigorating my activity on iStock. But twenty minutes upon the site reminded me why I never did go back after I first registered. The process to upload is long-winded and monumentally unnecessary. It all floods back to my memory now: Users have to submit three photographs, they get adjudicated as to their relevancy and aesthetics, and if you are lucky you become a money-maker.

Yet I will try again. Mike’s iStock journey tells of the two months it took to finally get his work recognised, plus the 12 month journey to start making some serious money. Hmmm… It’s early November 2009 now: A 2010 beginning on iStock would be good present to myself. Like any process, I’ll play the game and upload three photographs. First to answer the quiz!

2. Redbubble

I am a veteran of Redbubble, having been registered since its early days. A member since April 2007, I’ve watched it grow in lots of different ways, take a few tumbles, and survive a few interesting screams from the forums.
My reasoning for using this site is to present the best of the best of my photography. Whilst many use it as a photo-depository site, I consistently only upload artwork that I feel will sell … and it does.
The biggest advantage of Redbubble is their amazing ability to produce your artwork quickly and post it out in a reasonable time-frame. (Just remember: The closer you order to Christmas, the longer your delivery may take!) I regularly promote my Redbubble artwork around friends and family and work-colleagues: I sell a few cards once a fortnight. I had the good sense early on to buy a lot of my photography in the early days: I can now offer clientele cards at a moments notice.

3. Image Kind

I am a newcomer to this site, so it is still growing on me. What makes it easier than most is the upload-program, very similar to the one that Flickr.com utilises. A quick download to you desktop, and you can begin uploading images straight away. Much like flickr.com, images are easily titled, tagged, described and presented for viewing.

4. Zazzle

This is an interesting site. All manner of artwork is accessible and allowed. I often upload illustrations and text-based imagery which I then present on T-shirts, mugs, mouse-pads, ties and various other apparel and accessories. I am currently working on uploading a select few photographs that I refer to as still-frame and stock images. Look out for these in the near future.
Zazzle is actually surprisingly easy to navigate. Initially you might find it navigation-bloated, but it gets easier as you get more involved.

I’ve now set up a section of my computer so that each artwork has its own directory. This also holds a README.txt file that holds the mark-up value, Titles, sub-titles and description. This enables me to easily fill in the blanks when creating a new product.

4. Promotion and Marketing

Yes, the best way to sell your photography on the internet is to promote it wherever and however possible, and to market it so as to present your artwork in it’s best light. In the same way that you prepare a location before you shoot a subject, it is important to present your artwork on the internet so that people can appreciate the effort, it’s beauty and it’s intrinsic value.

Three Extra Websites

I am not listed at any of these sites, but they look very interesting. If you are a photographer who catalogues and sells work with any of these, feel free to leave a comment reviewing any of them.

• Dreamstime not only allows artists and photographers to upload their best work, but also enables contributors to keep a blog of related articles!
• Fotolia provides a compromise between photographers and buyers, by protecting a photographer’s intellectual property rights and offering high commissions, while legally lowering the price barrier so that everyone may enjoy/afford these beautiful images.
• Shutterstock has tips and tricks to help your photography look and present better.

That’s all. Now it’s your turn to sell your artwork and photography upon the world wide market!

Having Fun Creating Graphic Art

What did I do tonight? Not a lot really, at least for me.

1. Designed two backgrounds for @Digsby:

1a. Background #1. This was a quick idea, nothing more, nothing less. Figured it might as well be submitted.

1b. Background #2 is still in the moderation queue. I spent a whole hour on it, having fun testing features of GIMP. All whilst watching 2.5men. Tomorrow night the TV stays off!

2. Compiled all my old t-shirts that have funny messages

Because Redbubble shirts are so comfy and warm, I am recreating many of these shirts I originally spent money on because I had to have them, uploading the results to Redbubble.com and then buying my own shirts. Great idea, right?!

That’s it. Not much of an evening really. Must say I really should have stuck to what I did last night:

3. Making @Benaud’s little Andrew appear in different scenes.

Last night he appeared on Tatooine and in Manhattan. Soon he will be fighting Godzilla, hopefully to severe the monster’s head with a red light sabre. I’m pencilling up an idea to make him into a cupid that wields a sabre not a bow-&-arrow! If that works, I’ve another idea that will make your head spin. Hmmm… head spin. Anyhow, for now check out last night’s effort:

Creating New Graphics and Galleries

After ten years online, I now have my photography and graphics available to view and purchase at FIVE different online locations, and each under a different pseudonym:

• Redbubble – ‘stephentrepreneur‘
• PhotoWhosalers – ‘Stephen Mitchell‘ - Yes, my real name!
• ImageKind – ‘ezcreate‘
• Zazzle – ‘eztephen‘
• Flickr – ‘stephenliveshere‘

Tonight I discovered and started adding the best of my redbubble artwork onto ImageKind. I am going to use this to display my work that I have most-enjoyed photographing and capturing. I hope you also enjoy what I have to offer.

I’ve attempted to match the prices of Redbubble, at least with the cards. Their pricing system is far different. What I like most is that they have a upload program similar to flickr that enables artist to upload as many as 100 images at a time!

So now my opportunities for sales have exploded!

On a related note, I have had to create my own button/icon for ImageKind. No where upon google.images could I find an existing button, icon, graphic nor logo of a sufficient size to manipulate for my use. So I built my own. Here is the simple method to do this. FYI: I don’t recommend this to anyone, this is a temporary fix whilst I design and build a better option.

The biggest image available upon their website is the default background image for image-galleries for artists. Five seconds in GIMP and I had it converted from a GIF to a PNG. Why … because I had to retain the colours, or it would convert to monochrome!

Then I over-saturated the current colour. This made it a burnt orange, designed to stand out in the crowd. I cannot say I like the orange splatter as a logo, but it does stand out in the crowd. Maybe they should run a competition to design a better option!

From there I increased the image from 60pixels up to 400pixels. Very carefully I lassoo’d the edges of the ’splatter’, then sharpened the border. This made some really weird things happen that I was not happy with at all, so I created a background box with curved corners. Yes, somewhat cliche’d and overused, but a quick fix for now!

My head is swimming with new ideas that I plan to work on over the next few nights. Until then, this simple logo will suffice. Please don’t judge my skills by this one logo, it is a temporary measure until I build something new.

Tomorrow I’ll pencil new ideas together and tomorrow night I’ll begin building.

My Four Twin Brothers

I’ve accomplished the seemingly impossible: I’ve cloned myself!. After many phone calls around Australia, all four of us met in my backyard for this photo shoot.

Below are my four twin brothers wearing two of my Redbubble shirtsand two t-shirts purchased from other Redbubble artists, and me wearing an un-official Apple iPhone shirt:

Yes, I had a bit of fun with a sturdy and steady Manfrotto tripod, most of my shirt-purchases plus GIMP. Far from perfect, but since this is not my usual style of work, I’ll accept this. I’m leaving this to those that enjoy this style of photography.