10 Ways to Make Money Selling Your Photos

It is said that an average Australian takes five selfies per week.

Although many Aussies do take photos with their phones, there are a dedicated few who still go out there and buy real cameras. Whether you have a smartphone or a good camera – did you know you could make money by selling your photographs? We show you how!

More Reading:

Here are 20 Ways to Make Money by Selling Photos:

1. Sell Your Photographs to ‘Stock Photo Sites‘

There are literally thousands of stock photograph websites on the internet that give you an opportunity to post your photos and if anyone is interested in buying them, then you can sell them or use them for commercial purposes.

The payout is different depending on which site you choose to use but you can get as much as $3-5 per download for one photo. This can turn out to be a lot of money especially if 100 to 1000 people will download your photos.

Hints: Take a look at the photo sites to see which photos are selling well, and use that as inspiration for the photographs you take! It is also great to have a ‘theme’ with your photography.

Here are some stock photograph sites where you can upload and sell your photos:

3. Sell Your Photographs on Your Own Website

You can start your own blog for your photos and hopefully gain a good number of followers who are interested in your photos. One of your followers will ask to pay for some of your photos so that they can use them either in their websites or blogs.

Through this, you are able to make some money out of it. People can either buy your photos or place advertisements on your site and this in turn will make money for you.

This option does take a bit of online know-how – but if you get a good following – you will make more money from selling each photograph than stock image sites.

More Reading: The Best E-Commerce Platforms to Consider for Start-Ups

4. Publish A Photo Book

If you have plenty of great photos on a specific theme, you can put them all together and make a book out of them. You can combine various themes as well to make your book. With your final collection, you can go to local bookstores to see if they would be interested in selling your book.

You could also enlist an editor to help you come up with the book before you visit various bookstores to see if they are willing to carry your product.

You can use the following websites to put together a photo book:

• Photobook Australia
• Snapfish
• Vistaprint does affordable hard-cover photobooks.
• Momento

5. Photograph Events

Many photographers make most of their money by taking professional photos for events. You could be invited to be the official photographer for weddings, birthdays, evening parties, or any other celebration and you will get paid for any of the work that you do.

For this type of work, you will need to reach out and send examples of your work. We recommend you approach companies such as:

6. Class Photographer

Many budding photographers start up by taking photographs at their local kindy’s and work their way up to schools. Class Photography is a great area because it is consistent work – year after year. And if you can beat the big guys on price – you could get yourself a very lucrative photography contract!

To start, approach your local kindy, offer to come and take some random free shots for parents and build up a portfolio of images.

Ensure you have a Blue Card first!

7. News Outlets

When a disaster happens around you and you have your camera with you, you can take photos of the events and sell your photos to news outlets.

News channels like SKY Australia, BBC Australia will pay a lot of money to have access to photos they can use to run on the news.

9. Create Your Own Merch Using Your Images

You can create products with your photos like cups, plates and mugs and sell them to people on the internet. This is a real growing area and many companies out there make it easy – you just upload your image onto the merch you want – and they do a ‘Print on Demand’.

Companies that offer to do Print on Demand for Merch include:

• Vistaprint is a low-cost option that will print your design onto all sorts of clothing, bags and more.
• Zazzle are similar to Vistaprint but also offer your design onto home decor, party supplies and more.
• Red Bubble do a huge range of wall art, phone cases, stationary, pet products and more!
• Cafe Press is similar to Red Bubble and has clothing, drinkware, and a range of officially licensed clothing.

10. Sell Your Mounted Images on Etsy

If you can take beautiful photographs and have them professionally mounted, you can sell them on Etsy. Take for example this shop by Photography by Bambi. Bambi is a local photographer in Gympie and I just adore her eye.

She sells her mounted, gorgeous images on Etsy – and, well you can see for yourself…

As long as you have that keen understanding, passion, dedication, and hard-work towards your craft, you’ll surely be able to have a great income out of it.