Great Escape Publishing

Posted August 3rd, 2014 by Kristen Bentz & filed under Travel Photography.

If you want to know the secret to making money with photos, it’s simple: you need to jump that first hurdle and get them out there for people to appreciate.

The first two photography sales I made were total accidents. Even though neither generated huge profits, I think you will like how effortless they were. The first happened while I was editing my vacation photos at the end of our Alaska cruise. When I turned around to realize I had quite the audience, a gentleman piped up and offered me $20 to email him 10 images of his choice from that cruise… using a Nikon Coolpix P80! This was the first time the possibility of selling my photographs ever crossed my mind! Even funnier… I didn’t even realize this camera had manual settings until I went to pack it for the Ultimate Money-Making Photo Workshop in Santa Fe. Those Alaska shots were all shot on full-auto before I even knew what aperture or shutter speed was. My second sale was at a small holiday party at my house. I printed a couple 8x10s of my first lightning photographs and hung them in my hallway. At the end of the night, a friend I worked with walked over and offered $50 to take the shot right off my wall! This shot was taken with a nicer camera — my Nikon D40. But I still had to Google the settings before we left the house and have my husband program them in. That’s how little I knew two years ago. What I really like about these happy accidents is that it goes to show that jumping over that first hurdle of just getting your photos out there for people to see and appreciate really is half the battle. Here are a few things to keep in mind…

It’s about quantity and not quality at first. Practice makes perfect. Shoot a lot and the “talent” will follow.
Try something new. For me, it’s taking pictures of storms, but you might find you like photographing animals, moving water or cars on the road at night with blurred headlights. Try a bunch of options until one sticks. If you like what you’re doing, you’ll keep doing it and you’ll get better over time.
Consider printing your images on different mediums. I once printed my lightning photographs on metal (there are print shops that do that here: xxx) and they sold like hotcakes. Maybe your photos would look better on wood, glass or plastic. You won’t know until you try.

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