Camera Ready

October 9, 2008 6:17 PM

I have: A great camera (Nikon D700), a great printer (Epson 3800), a good eye for urban travel photos (a recent local gallery showing). I don't have: A decent website or any pictures on Flickr, a photography network of any kind. My objective is to supplement my current income with income from photography. What's my next step?
posted by Xurando to media & arts (5 answers total)

Well, you seem to recognize that a website is a good idea. Start there! Flickr? Not necessary, but definitely a good way to get your images seen - even if only by casual viewers.
What are your sales goals? Do you want to sell prints, license images as stock, both? A variety of tools are out there depending upon what you'd like to do.
You can build that network by exploiting the various social networking sites as well. I get a great deal of business via myspace, facebook and livejournal.
posted by blaneyphoto at 6:29 PM on October 9, 2008

Deviant Art is a nice free site you can sell prints from. As a free site, it's awash in teenage angsty crap, but there's plenty of phenomenally good stuff there too. The benefit is that you can sell prints from a free account. (Advanced print selling options require a paid subscription)

I've got a couple prints from Deviant Art hanging in my apartment. The quality of the actual print (paper, finish, etc) is great.
posted by bilgepump at 7:36 PM on October 9, 2008

Mary Virginia Swanson is a consultant on marketing for photographers. She regularly speaks and gives workshops across the country. Her website and blog have much useful information:

http://marketingphotos.wordpress.com/
posted by conrad53 at 9:39 PM on October 9, 2008

With all due respect, I found the Mary Swanson site useless - just links to events. So I'll offer up a better alternative for you: Photopreneur. All about how to make money from your photos, in lots of different ways.
posted by twiki at 4:30 AM on October 10, 2008

I would second the recommendation for Mary Virgina Swanson's book. Our professor in Professional Practices in Photography strongly urged us to buy the "Business of Photography" book from her website.

Also, in terms of getting a website up and running, I would highly recommend LiveBooks. It is ideal for photographers because it allows you to upload your images and create professional galleries without any knowledge of web design or HTML. Even though I work for a web design company, I think that photographers should not be web designers, unless that's one of their passions. They should focus on shooting images and developing their work. LiveBooks makes professional websites easy for Photographers.

Beyond getting a website up and running, the best thing you can do is to continue showing your work in galleries and pursuing selling your work to specific markets. Persistence is the key!

Here are some photographer's websites running LiveBooks.
posted by mtphoto at 12:55 AM on October 31, 2008