Can you make money from your photography?

Especially since digital cameras have become so easy to use, it seems everyone daydreams about selling their photography.  But what are the ways to actually start selling?   There are a variety of outlets, and they vary in both work involved, setup costs and chances for profit.

Here's a table showing my subjective opinion of various approaches, based on 35 years in stock film photography and 5 years in microstock digital photography.  I've also maintained my own website in various incarnations.  I've ignored the costs of equipment, travel, etc, since it be be similar for all solutions.  I've also ignored detailed techie debate on what camera to use.  If your camera can produce sharp, noise free images in the 8-10MP range, it's good enough.  Bottom level would be the better point and shoot cameras.

 I've rated each approach by several criteria.  'Setup' and 'Outlay' are the initial work and cash to get a reasoanble portfolio active and noticed.  'Ongoing' is the amount of work you need to do after the intial phase. 'Volume' is the minimum number of quality images you need to achieve the potential income indicated in the last column.

Of the possible sources, most can be ignored by most photographers.   The free sites like Picasa & Flickr will not generate any income. eBay was possible at one time, but they now prohibit digital downloads, so you'll need to invest some effort in producing prints of CDs for slae, and the market is saturated.  eBay has become a hostile and expensive place for small sellers, especially in the arts, except for a few niches.

By 'embedded' I mean the use of your images in another program or collection. For many years, I sold jigsaw puzzles using my images, with programs I produced and programmed. It's a lot of work, and harder for individuals to compete now. That leaves microstock and specialty sites, and running your own site. You can do both.

Specialty sites are those such as fineartamerica, threadless t-shirts, greetingcard universe and others. You upload your images and buyers can order printed cards, clothing, mugs, posters, etc of your work. Easy to set up, not much potential.

Running your own site can include setting up a presence on sites like snapixel or redbubble where you present your portfolio and again orders will trickle in.

Creating a site through Smugmug [my choice] or other service will give better sales, but it's going to depend on your ability to drive traffic to your site. GALLERY2 is open source software to host your own site, has excellent tech support, but does require some php programming knowledge. That leaves only microstock agencies as a place for most photographers to try to create an income.

Microstock Photography lets you, the photographer, assign the business of selling your photos online through a Microstock agency. MS agencies are similar to traditional stock photography - they offer images for sale at a low cost to buyers (typically $.50-$10). Many microstock users are graphic designers who use microstock to keep their overhead costs down.

There are many microstock agencies which will accept and post your images. The bigger question is whether they can sell them. However not all agencies have enough traffic to generate decent sales. Among the best performing agencies are:

• · iStock
• · Shutterstock
• · Fotolia
• · Dreamstime

I'd suggest submitting to Dreamstime and Fotolia first since they have the easiest admission rules. But at the same time, try Shutterstock.  It may take several tries to succeed, but produces the best sales overall for many photographersiStock is one of the oldest and most demanding technically, but all agencies require a technical level that can surprise even many professional photographers.  You'll learn a lot just by going thru the submission process and each agency has forums full of helpful guidance and critiques.  Leave your ego behind if you start submitting to microstock agencies. Images must be sharp, but not overly sharpened in post processing. Colors should pop, but don't oversaturate. And finally, the main rejection reason for most newcomers - images must have a low noise level. Remember too that stock is about generic images that can be used commercially. Artistic evocations, blurred treatments, etc won't make it here. Each agency differs in how it accepts new artists, so it's best to look at several sites. .

So what's the answer to my initial question? a highly qualified "yes you can".  It's still possible, but it gets more competitive all the time.  You must have excellent images to start with, but then also a ego-less approach to criticism, and willingness to do the work involved, and to keep providing fresh images.  It's also a lot of fun, and for many people, earning a little extra cash to pursue their hobby is incentive enough.