Some Knowledge

Photofiddle is a website that will take any photo and process it into a piece that looks like it was painted.  They have various styles of processing available, like oil painting or pop art.

Once you have finished cropping and processing the photo you upload to this site you can email the resulting picture to friends and family.  All this is free.  The way Photofiddle makes money is on selling custom canvas framed prints of your artwork.  They have a turnaround time of four days on making up your print.  Prices range from $15 to $3500 depending on the size.

The Photofiddle website has been very busy this morning due to exposure on the Today Show.  If you send them an email you can get a 10% discount coupon while their site is busy.  There is also a gallery of images produced by this company that you can view.

If you want to make money with photography, you will need some basic equipment.  You will need a camera.  Most modern photography is done with digital single lens reflex cameras.  You will want to get the highest resolution you can afford.  A camera with interchangeable lenses is preferable to one with a single fixed lens.  Eight mega pixels is generally considered bottom of the line when talking about professional photography.  You may have to spend seven hundred dollars or more to get a decent camera.

You will also need a computer.  If you are reading this you probably already have a computer, but you will also want to have image editing software.  Photoshop is considered the industry standard.  If you are going to sell prints you will either want to have a good quality photo printer, or more likely, you will send your photo files out to be printed at a lab.  The cost of printing will of course be passed along to the customer.

There are several kinds of photography businesses you can operate.  You can set up a studio and take portraits.  You can specialize in wedding photography.  You can take shots at newsworthy events and attempt to sell them to newspapers and magazines.  You might want to specialize in travel photography or in shooting landscapes.  Some of these businesses are considered stock photography, because you will assemble a stock of photos and attempt to sell them to various buyers.  You can sell prints or copyrights to your work.  If you want to persue photography as a business you should investigate your markets and think about how you are going to sell your work.

If you are more interested in artistic photography you may be able to interest a gallery in your work.  You should have a portfolio of slides or a CD of your photos that you can use to query galleries.  A gallery will take fifty to sixty percent of the sale value of your work for representing you, it is very much like a business partnership.

There are many resources available online or in book stores to get you going on your new career as a photographer.  You will probably want to set up a website to display your work and arrange for online sales.  Any amount of publicity you can get for your work will help you make more money.  You might look into making up some framed prints and then asking local shops or restaurants if they will display your work in their establishments.  If you specialize in weddings or other occasions consider getting an advertisement in the yellow pages or placing classified ads in the news.

Running a photography business can be a rewarding occupation.  Establish a reputation as a knowledgeable and reliable photographer and you will be on your way to financial independence.  It takes some investment in equipment and learning to get started, but, this will pay off once you start getting jobs.