Wildlife Photos

[Rats]

Hi,

Don't know if this should be in this section, or the jobs section. But, just wondering if anyone knew how I would find out about submitting wildlife pictures to magazines etc. for money?

I am a very keen wildlife photographer, though due to not having a fantastic camera, I mainly take close ups of fungi, flowers etc. But just wondered if there's a way I could make money from my hobby??

Thanks

[zan]

Hiya
I've just started down this route as well (hobby business, not a career change!) and I'm still trying to work out how best to go about it. Try searching for stock agencies that specialise in wildlife, especially the type of animals you shoot. I haven't gone down this route yet as I'm looking to expand my portfolio for a while first. If you have any local press, they may be interested in running short articles with your pictures (although you may have to write the article as well). Local wildlife charities or organisations may also be interested in using your shots for advertising and although you may not get paid for charity work, you could get your name out there.

Having a website is probably also a good idea so you can produce a gallery of your work as a showcase\online shop.

Hope this is some help to you

Zan

[Brocker]

Hi Rats,
I have been looking at this for around a year now and have been quite successfull in getting some published images. Taking saleable photos is not massively difficult but marketing them is harder. The oldest rule in free-lancing is 'don't take pictures and then look for the market; find the market first and then shoot specifically for that market.'
Having a website is a bonus and these can be achieved very easily nowadays for around £70 yearly for a very good looking site. Enter photo competitions and get your images seen. Build a portfolio preferabled on your website.
Finally, the submission. Once you have seen the market and have the images then submit them in the correct format and to the right department. Picture editors see hundreds of images a week and if it doesn't fit the criteria it will not get a second look, even if it is superb. The best book for this is 'The Freelance Photographers Market Handbook 2008' (ISBN 978-0-907297-59-8) priced at £14.95. It lists all the magazines, newspapers, post card publishers and book publishers with contact details, what images they want, how much they pay and how to submit them. It is exactly what you need if you want to make money from your images.
Above all, patience is needed. Keep going, keep submitting and it will happen. Good Luck and let me know how you get on. . . . .

[koltregaskes]

Hi Chris,

This is great information, thanks. I've see there is another book called '2008 Photographers Market: Where & How to Sell Your Photographs', ISBN 1582975019, which according to the publisher, "No other book contains as many market listings". Does anyone know this book? The project book they recommend accompanies 'The Freelance Photographers Market Handbook 2008', called 'The Freelance Photographers Project Book', ISBN 0907297560 seems interesting too.

I've currently out of work while nursing my parents but giving myself time to pursue my interest in photography. So the time is right to get serious about this, else I'll be back at the office desk and stuck there forever. So any advice is much appreciated.

I've had a few photos bought and used for various things purely from someone finding them on a photo-sharing site (which has it's uses too).

I agree about finding the market first, one thing I'm about to do is this, For example, what are people searching for on sites such as Google, Flickr, etc. If you have pictures already online, what ones are generating the most interest/highest traffic?

If you need help setting up a website give me a shout. You can set-up something pretty easily, for example, you can buy a domain name for about £2-3 a year, get a package that gives you some web space for about £60 maybe less and then use a free 'photoblog' application that is fairly painless to set-up and start you off. Can you tell what my background is? ;-)

I have a photoblog here: Squashy Frog Photography which as some of my not so bad photos, plus I have a blog here: Squashy Frog Blog which uses similar software and is fairly easy to generate some traffic to. I'm also getting some help from a former colleague about advertising, which he earns about $300 a month for about 15mins work a day. So putting in more time should produce more return.

It all sounds very technical and corporate but the marketing/sales side is just as important as the art/creative side if you want to make money from photography.

Kol

[big bill]

Hello rats like most have said above are good points for information what you also have to take into account is the size of the image ,submitting to photo libraries require images of at least 25mbs and unsharpened so that picture editors can do any sharpening in the own processing.There is a good library that I used to submit to 2 Years ago which is quite good and fair the take 20% commission on any sale and that is Photographers Direct professional stock photography images buy photo stock images there is no minimum amount od images that you need to submit and they cover all aspects of photography from wildlife to architecture it may be worth a look

[matt_xyz]

preparing images for stock libraries is very time consuming. Many require images greater than 48mb (uncompressed) and literally perfect in terms of technical quality (no softness when viewed at 100%, poor exposure, dust spots etc). The market for stock images, especially wildlife stock, is currently oversaturated and sales are notoriously difficult to come by. Price per sale has also fallen in recent years.

Most stock agencies require a steady flow of images, no mean feat given how good they have to be. Those agencies that don't have a minimum requirement for the no. of images tend to have a vast number of photos on their books and I am very sceptical as to how many are ever sold (e.g. Alamy currently has over 10 million images!).

If only it were easier to make money from photography....

Matt

[koltregaskes]

Yeah I'm not so sure on stock images. You seem to get very little back for such a lot of hard work. There are 2 types of stock though, micro and macro or royalty-free and rights-managed. I've not researched in too much depth yet but was going to at least test the water with both. I get the feeling that for the 2 types of stock are 2 types of photographs. RF is more the chocolate-box stuff and RM is more original quality.

An article on MoneySavingExpert regarding photography can be found here:
Selling photos online... official MoneySavingExpert.com discussion - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums

Kol

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by koltregaskes

There are 2 types of stock though, micro and macro or royalty-free and rights-managed.

just to clarify, micro stock is royalty free and sells for, literally, pennies. Non-micro stock (or macro stock) can be either royalty free or rights managed. I tend to agree with your summary though - RM images have to be exceptional, RF images tend to be more 'run of the mill' e.g. standard species shots etc.

Matt