Transitioning to Stock Photography
 As my territory of available photographic tropes expanded, I noticed I had a large inventory of pictures not being used for one reason or another. These might exterior pictures of an attraction or business, or an angled shot of a shadow or interesting shape. The resolution with a 12 Mega pixel camera was amazing. How could I utilize these for revenue?
Fun and profit is available to active using digital camera owners who are willing to roll up their sleeves. While many times for various websites I had added a few shots or taken too many random photos on the hunt, I now saw there were multiple opportunities online to personally vend my extra images. This is the new stock photography market.
I had started to view the file results of any photography excursion as the “take”. Photography made the perfect hobby for me because it was a cover crop of leisure and relaxation while providing website images and potential revenue.
Stock photography makes the perfect part time job. Every photo I took was unique, saleable product. I could snap a megabyte memory stick full of shots for real money like photography assignments and fodder for websites and text I could write. Often I would see a sight that would prompt an article idea or serve as a reminder.
Suddenly I had my own personal image portfolio of serious size and dimension to draw from. This opened up business opportunities to develop domains lying fallow.
Video submissions were welcome at almost every website I ever registered at. that’s a quick way to get a traffic lead or inbound link out there. The value add to my leisure time was immense and profitable. I could snap generic stuff in a pleasing composition and remember it later when writing about some article topic I hadn’t envisioned months before.
Video became my new fling. In my quest to invest in myself, the video capability of my new 12 mega pixel camera was fantastic. As much memory and batteries as I could afford to bring with me in fair weather dictated my potential revenue stream. But cloudy weather provided some interesting photo opportunities as well.Â
Up to a certain point, photography was still just a hobby. But the focus and energy i was bringing to it was repaid with product, feedback, and revenue. I knew I was doing the right thing when photos that looked like mine started showing up in stories. This was the right way to go. Then a friend started remarking that friends who had seen my website and photo galleries thought I could sell to online photo stock sites.
But not all online photo stock sites want the same thing. Surveying my resources, I realized I was going to have give myself “assignments” to get what the sites wanted. Taking photo hunt breaks made an excellent way to get a walkabout. If you have your mind taking pictures, your focus is not on sedentary living and snacking. Maybe stock photography is the diet secret everyone is looking for!
