Do you enjoy making money? If you answer no to that question then the rest of this article would be a waste of your time. If your answer is yes, then consider this:
Time, to the creative person, is more important than money. It’s something money can’t buy -- so if you’ve been squandering your time, you’ve been tossing away your potential profits, much like the lemonade stand proprietor who, without disciplining himself, drinks his profits.
Creative people are famous for wasting time by spending it trying to make money to support their creative habit. They spend time moonlighting at a fast-food restaurant or a construction job to gain the money to buy tripods, cameras, disks, lenses. Because they take time away from their picture taking and picture marketing, they find themselves going financially and professionally backwards.
THE SQUANDERS
Others squander their time on activities that have little to do with their mission of marketing their pictures. If you are a home gardener, did you ever figure out how much time you spend in your garden? One hour a day for 6 months is 180 hours. What kind of solid Market List could you build if you devoted 180 hours to your Market List this spring and summer? Once you discover which editors are out there with $10,000-a-month photography budgets waiting for your specialized photographs, those golden homegrown carrots won’t be so liable to distract you from operating your own real gold-making machinery.
I’ve heard all the alibis gardeners, golfers, dog trainers, hikers, and tennis players have when I ask them why they are pursuing these hobbies rather than building a solid Market List. I have a three-word reply for them: “Excuses, excuses, excuses.”
SAVING TIME
And finally, there is the ambitious go-getter who moonlights as a short-order cook, in-between night classes and a full time job. “I really have no time!” This sounds like a foolproof excuse, but consider this: Just 15 minutes a day is 91 ¼ (that’s ninety-one and a quarter) hours a year! In one year a person could be well on his/her way to successfully marketing their pictures, if they disciplined themselves to spending 15 minutes a day on building a Market List, adding text descriptions to their PhotoSourceBANK*, or refining those descriptions. In one year they could quit that counterproductive short-order cook job (4 hours a night = 800 hours a year!) and become a valuable resource to a number of editors who have a constant need for photos in the subject areas the photographer specializes in.
How to get started: If you have a copy of one my early stock photography books, or find one on Amazon.com for $3.95, get it, because the marketing information in it is invaluable to you. The digital and Internet delivery information may not be right up to date in an older copy, but the marketing system is ageless. Review Chapter Four (pages 75-78) in "Sell & ReSell Your Photos." In four weekends, you could be off and running-- and kissing excuses, excuses, goodbye. –RE http://www.photosource.com\bank
Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA Email:info@photosource.com Fax: 1 715 248 7394 Web site: www.photosource.com
Welcome
to Pre-OwnedPhoto.com. Here's where you'll
find information about photography, digital cameras, social photography, photobuyers, photography marketing and business, stock photo agencies, and selling pictures.
Another Photography Profit Center…
Décor Art
What makes a good Art Décor photograph?
With scenics, a major thrust is to make viewers “wish they were there.” Choose a view or subject you would like to look at 365 days a year. If you don't like the view or subject, chances are your customers won't either. Keep in mind that most buyers of Décor Art enjoy pictures of pleasant subjects because they find in your pictures an 'escape' from the routine of everyday chores. That's why for this purpose it's important to take your scenics without people in them. Your viewers would like to imagine themselves strolling through the meadow or along the beach. They consider recognizable 'people' in your picture as an intrusion of their own quietude and privacy. In addition, if people are included in Décor Art pictures, this can 'date' the picture due to the style of clothes, hairstyle, etc.
Nature close-ups are always a sure-seller. They rarely become out-dated: dandelion seeds, insects, birds, leaves, etc.
Art Décor buyers tend to buy easily recognizable subjects. For example, an antique windmill would consistently sell better than a modern wind generator. Keep your Art Décor simplified by isolating your subjects. (Feature only one at a time...rather than a group of something.)
Animals are always a popular subject -- usually wild ones; but also pets, domestic animals, dogs, cats, and horses.
Dramatic Landscapes are good bets, in all seasons, and especially with approaching storm clouds, complete with lightning.
Another area of Photo Décor that is growing: abstracts.
Abstracts
are finding favor for use in waiting rooms, attorneys' offices, professional buildings -- as well as homes.
Sports scenes lend themselves to game rooms and family playrooms; portraits (exotic or interesting faces) to legal suites; erotic subjects to private clubs; industrial scenes to manufacturing company offices.
It goes without saying -- your pictures should be well composed, visually exciting, and of high technical quality.
SOME POINTERS: Prices depend on whether you sell by volume, individually, or large format, to corporate clients. At art fairs, individual buyers will pay about $45 (11x14) and $30 (8x10). Before you decide on your own price, see what local department stores are getting.
Limited editions of prints are another issue. You can demand a higher fee. And, of course, if you keep a couple such prints for the grandchildren, your grandchildren just might become heirs to a very valuable print. What to charge for limited editions? Keep the professional artist in mind who once said, "If you are going to price your watercolor at $15, you'll find a $15 buyer. If you price it at $75 dollars, you'll find a $75 buyer. And if you price it at $850 -- you'll find a $850 buyer. Just takes time." Current going rate for a 16x20 (color) décor photograph is between $75 and $150. PRINTLETTER (Zurich) lists international going rates as reported by galleries. Some samples: Eugene Smith: $750; Ben Shahn: $1500; George Silk: $1500; Aaron Siskin: $1200; Howard Sochurek: $950. Nice tidy sums?
B&W or Color? B&W prints sell well as Décor Art, and particularly so if they are sepia toned. Color, however, has the edge over B&W. Shoot in transparencies rather than negative--for these three reasons: 1) You can project them effectively when you are demonstrating your subjects to a potential client; 2.) Processing lab technology can handle transparencies cheaper and more accurately than negs; 3.) As a stock photographer you'll also want to market your color through regular publishing channels --and most publishing markets require high-resolution digital images or transparencies.
Size - If you sell your prints on a single sales basis, you'll find the larger print (16x20) with higher fees will result in more year-end profit than trying to market larger numbers of the smaller prints (11x14 or 8x10) with the lower fees. On the other hand, if you go to multiple sales with smaller prints, and aim for the volume market in high traffic areas such as art and craft fairs or shopping malls, you will be equally successful with the smaller-sized prints.
Production. Resin-coated papers make B&W production on your own, very easy. Color production is usually best accomplished by a lab such as www.reedphoto.com. . Shop around. In New York, for example, an 11x14 costs $46 and a 16x20, $95. Quality is superb and the delivery is one day.
Frames. Framing or matting your prints definitely enhances appearance and saleability. Dry mounting materials and hinge mats are available everywhere. And finally, try making frames on your own. How-to series are often featured in photo and hobby and craft magazines. Consult the web for ideas and sources.
Promotion is the key to your selling success. If you've sold a series of prints to one bank in town, let the other banks know about your Décor Art. Work for ways and places to exhibit your pictures often. Offer your services as a guest speaker or local TV talk show guest. Produce a website displaying your work; sell prints on e-Bay, produce brochures, flyers, or catalogs of your work.
Government agencies often buy groups of Décor Art. Check out the “Art for Buildings” program in your state. -RE
Business
Notepad
STOCK PHOTO AGENCIES
can be an outlet for some of your pictures. Do agencies object to you marketing your own pictures when they also represent you? No, not the established ones. They encourage you to also market on your own. They want to share the sales with you, and also to share the setbacks. They know that a photographer who markets pictures on his/her own will understands the pitfalls (and glories) of selling ... Full
Story
Program maintains it's easy to earn extra
funds by establishing a photo business out of your home and
photographing local businesses, corporations, churches, schools,
sports teams, and families in your community.
TO NICHE OR NOT?
My book, "Sell & ReSell Your Photos," is now in its fifth updated edition. The marketing approach, which is the foundation of the book, is still the same: "Find what area appeals to you, find markets for that area of interest, and then photograph it." Specialization of this type, whether film-based or digital, continues to be the smart way to go, rather than attempting to photograph everything under the sun.
As commerce on the Internet develops, we are beginning to see successful Internet merchants taking a similar "niche" approach: focusing on specialty areas, rather than massive portals where they might have a few of the specialty item(s) you are looking for, but not the deep selection you might wish they had.
However, if you have no specialty area, and your photo collection is across the board, the web now offers a new remedy.
Today's web search engines offer photo researchers the opportunity to type in a single word or phrase and find the source of a highly specialized photo for their project. If you have included captions with your photos at your web site, or have listed text descriptions of your photos, the new search engines will locate your photos and follow up with your contact information. A photo researcher will contact you for more information on your stock photo collection, and you'll either make a sale or earn a good contact for future business.
My new book, "sellphotos.com," can help you get a handle on how to use the new electronic tools available, to increase your sales. You'll learn how our stock photo industry is in a transition between digital and analog (film) images. Depending on what your aspirations are, and where your target markets lay, you'll be able to decide which niche markets (or none) are the most beneficial to you.
Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of "Sell & ReSell Your Photos" and "sellphotos.com," has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: "8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer," visit http://www.sellphotos.com
Yosemite in Time: Ice Ages, Tree Clocks, Ghost Rivers by Mark Klett, Rebecca Solnit, and Byron Wolf, Trinity University Press, claudia.querra@trinity.edu, sarah.nawrocki@trinity.edu
Yes, a single photograph does give the illusion that time has stopped, but rephotographing does more than change that illusion. In this book, about rephotographing Yosemite National Park, it brings us face to face with now, and all that that implies. Its combination of "then and now" black and white photographs, color foldouts, and great locations, makes for an astounding visual experience.
The original photographs of Yosemite were taken by Ansel Adams, Carleton Watkins, and Eadweard Muybridge and are still the best images of this American landscape. Places like: Clearing Winter Storm, Jeffrey Pine, El Capitan and Cathedral Rocks are but a few the authors rephotographed.
I, for one, was amazed at how, just turning the pages of this book, took me back to when these great photos were taken. And then, with one turn of the page, I was looking at giant panoramas of these beautiful sites that show how they look now. This to me, is truly what photography is about. To reveal something or rediscover something, or maybe just revisiting that "then" with these "now" photographs. This "somewhere in time" book, takes us back and reminds us that there is a Yosemite National Park in all our lives worth rephotographing as well as revisiting.
This is a book I highly recommend to stock photographers. Not just for the wonderful experience that these great photographer/authors inspire, but for the clear example they offer, in bringing history of a place back, and breathing life into it once again. This "then and now" (rephotographing) is an idea I'm thinking about pursuing with my own "home-town" history, as well as some old country barns.
Joseph Stanski has been an agricultural stock photographer for the last twenty-five years. He has published in many ag-oriented magazines as well as national publications. He retired as a schoolteacher and is currently teaching photography and running his stock photography business in Southeast Iowa. morningstar138@hotmail.com
Of
Interest
HOME OFFICE PERKS . . .
KNOWING THE ROPES
TO PUT MONEY IN YOUR POCKET
Advance Notes: If you’re self-employed, you’re eligible for specific tax deductions that can, in effect, “give yourself a raise.” There are many tax deductions you can claim that relate right to the place you probably do much of your work, your home. Here are some tips from the book, “422 Tax Deductions,” by Bernard Kamoroff, C.P.A.
The IRS accepts that a “home” office can be in a house, apartment, loft, condominium, trailer, mobile home, or boat. The term also includes any separate structure that is part of your residence, such as a garage or barn. You can deduct the expenses directly related to your home office, such as utilities, insurance, property taxes, etc. You must, however, meet certain requirements for your home work space to qualify as a “home office,” and be eligible for these deductions. (See below).
The home-office rules apply to sole proprietors, partners, and owners of an S corporation. The ... Full
Story
COST OF TRAVEL OVERSEAS is always prohibitive for the stock photographer
just starting out. One way to skirt around this problem is to become a
Travel Agent.
BETTER VIDEOS COMING Canon, Nikon video-shooting SLR cameras ready for action
Two new SLRs can now shoot high-definition video, taking advantage of
the superior lenses (much better than video cameras,
way better than point-and-shoots) available for SLRs.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-10-01-slr-video_N.htm?csp=34
HOW DO THEY DO IT? Yuri Arcurs - Microstock Entrepreneur - Not content with an
annual microstock income of US$1.3 million and being the top selling microstock photographer, Yuri Arcurs is creating a microstock empire. Here's a summary of his new entrepreneurial activities.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/meet-the-new-yuri-arcurs-microstock-entrepreneur.html
WHO SAID PHOTOGRAPHERS CAN’T WRITE? History in the Buffer - David Burnett, photojournalist, wrote this piece about his experience "in the buffer" covering the election night in Chicago. A remarkable diary of his election night experience.
http://werejustsayin.blogspot.com/2008/11/history-in-buffer.html
TAKEAWAY: When TIME Magazine made “the computer” the Man of the Year, they sent David Burnett to Pine Lake Farm to photograph me and my new Radio Shack TRS-80 Model II. You can see the picture TIME used at:
http://www.photosource.com/rohntime
