My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica: How Jamaicans can make money from Stock Photography – Moneymaking from taking photos of the everyday Mundane

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

How Jamaicans can make money from Stock Photography – Moneymaking from taking photos of the everyday Mundane

In my blog article entitled “Animation After KingstOOn – Free Photo Editing Software and How to get a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 absolutely Free” I’d hinted at the fact that while you’re on your way towards developing an Animation Studio, you can make money a Photographer.

This isn’t just by opening up a photo studio and taking Passport sized Photographs, family Photographs and doing Wedding Photography. You can also make money online as a supplier of Stock Photographs as explained in the article “Stock Photographs as explained in Students! Make Money From Your Photographs”, visited October 8 2013 by Lindsworth Deer, e4s and “How to make money selling your photos online”, visited October 8 2013 by Lindsworth Deer, Money UK MSN.

In fact, you don’t even need the gear referenced in my “Animation After KingstOOn” series of articles; once you have a smartphone that’s packing at least 8 Megapixels, you can become a Stock Photographer. Stock Photography is a great way for UWI (University of the West Indies) and UTECH (University of Technology) students to make money.

This is additional income to whatever your parents are sending you from the country to survive. It’s also a great supplementary income for the aspiring Writer to survive on as well! So back out your smartphone or Digital Camera and let’s get snappy!

Making money on Campus – From Call Centers, e-book Writing and e-book Piracy

First a quick review of the ways you can make money online while on Campus or if you’ve graduated and have a lot of time on your hands!

If you’re cash strapped at UWI and you’re in Second or Third Year, you may be already working part time in the Call Center World on Campus make extra money to afford University as stated in my blog article entitled “UWI opens Call Center to employ Students - Call Center Work before Six Degrees of Hell in the Working World”.

You may be a bit apprehensive about this as you may have heard about Call Center Workers or CSA (Customer Service Agents) possibly having to endure their pockets being staples and in some respects their Personal Privacy being taken away as described in my blog article entitled “How to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - Global Outsourcing Limited CEO Devon Crump comments indicate Paper Free Environment needed at Call Centers to prevent Scamming and attract more BPO's”.


You can even download e-pub and *.pdf books via torrenting and even make money from the downloading of your Lab Reports and Projects as well as pirated e-books as an e-book Pirate online as described in my blog article entitled “How to become an e-book Publishing House via e-book Piracy - Tablets in Schools sets the Stage for Rampant e-book Piracy”.

Finally, you can make money online as Writer for other Blogs or publications, even as a GhostWriter, which cranks in good money illegally as a Writer as explained in my blog articles “How to make US Dollars as Freelance Web Content or Blog Affiliate Writer Online in Jamaica using your Scotia VISA Debit Card or Credit Card” and more legitimately as explained in my blog article entitled “How Jamaicans can Legally make US Dollars as Freelance worker Online - Jamaican Flexworking to make money from the Internet”.

With so many way to make money online once you have a Credit Card or Scotia VISA Debit Card or CIBC VISA Debit Card in your spare time as described in my blog article entitled “How Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalyst for Increasing Jamaica's Internet Penetration”, how can you starve while on Campus? Especially when you have most of the tools are at your disposal, possibly even given to you as gifts by your parents such as your high-powered smartphone and your Laptop?

Stock Photography – Moneymaking from taking photos of the everyday Mundane

That leaves you open to freelance to make money via other means on the weekend or in your spare time. Even if you’re in the Faculty of Science and Technology, formerly the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, you MUST b able to find time to freelance, if you’re properly organize. Thus with that spare time you can make money as a Stock Photographer.

First, develop and eye for the mundane. Whether it’s taking snaps of food you’re eating, flowers or thing you see around you, walk with your smartphone or even your Digital Camera and be ready to take pictures. Make sure to always take them with the highest megapixel settings available for your camera, the pictures are always in focus and you have excellent lighting for your subject.

Then offload your snaps onto your Laptop and sort them into categories, be they pictures of food, pictures of people, pictures of object, etc. If you’re looking to be a photojournalist, you can also sort the photos into separate groupings according to the nature of the photo. The main thing is to not tamper with the photo, using your original snaps as a template for making copies for sale.

This makes it easier to handle them, as your images they can get very large at times, sometimes even as big as an *.mp3 file! For handling very large Photographs, IfranView and XnView are great Freeware programs that allow you to replace Windows Photo Viewer as well as Paintbrush for basic Viewing of very large Photographs.

Alternative Photo Editing Software such as Adobe Photoshop CS2 can also found online as noted in my blog article entitled “Animation After KingstOOn – Free Photo Editing Software and How to get a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 absolutely Free”.

It also helps for the next stage, that being the selling of your Photographs online.

Online e-Commerce of Photographs – Digital Watermarked Mini’s to avoid getting swindled

First, you can test the waters a bit. You can send a few of them to the Jamaica Gleaner or even the Jamaica Observer to see how they do in the Newspapers. You can also set up a blog or a website (on a budget of course!) and post watermarked mini *.gif copies of your photos online, NOT the originals.

Then you have to build a website to host your pictures .My top recommendations for Blogs based on my personal experience as well as the article “How to Build a Website”, published September 4, 2013 By Eric Griffith, PC Magazine are as follows:

1.      Wordpress e.g. Geezam Blog

For a website, I’d recommend building the Website first using one of several online Companies that offer templates to design websites such as weebly as explained in the article “Create a website the easy way”, published Jan 9, 2014 7:37 AM by Lincoln Spector, PCWorld then migrating the website to a Web Hosting Server such as HostGator or GoDaddy. The ones I recommend based on personal design experience are as follows:

1.      Jimdo
2.      Sidengo
3.      Squarespace
4.      Weebly
5.      Wix

Website design is a topic I’ll touch on in another blog; for now be content to check out the above links!

Once you’ve built your website then you can place Buttons or Shopping carts  linked to a Payment Gateway such as Paypal in order to allow visitors to your website to buy the original photos as stated in my blog article entitled “How Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalys for Increasing Jamaica's Internet Penetration”.


Then once your online customers have paid you, they would be allowed to download your snaps in their highest quality from your Cloud Storage platform using either Dropbox or Google Drive as described in my blog article entitled “How to use Dropbox, Google Drive and Sound File Sharing Websites to Share and Promote your Content online - Sharing is Caring”.

All this knowledge relating creating mini versions of your snaps, digital watermarking and payment gateways can be learned via DIY (Do It Yourself) and experimentation as written out in my blog article entitled “Animation After KingstOOn – Free Photo Editing Software and How to get a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 absolutely Free” and “How Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalys for Increasing Jamaica's Internet Penetration”.

As usual, your website or blog has to be well put together but lightweight, allowing anyone to be able to visit, browse and make a decision to buy your pictures. There are several websites where you can promote your blog or website in order to get increased sales for your photos.

This is not dissimilar from the blog world where you can promote your blog via Search Engines and Social Media as stated in my blog article entitled “How to integrate a Facebook Fan Box or a Google+ Plus Box in Blogger to increase Blog Traffic - The power of a Dedicated Social Media Profile Page”.

The list is fairly short and detailed:

1.      Easy Store Creator
2.      Image Display Works
3.      Lulu
4.      Photoblogs.org 
5.      PMA 
6.      ProBlogger.net 
7.      Show Me Proofs 
8.      Shutterpoint
9.      Smug Mug 
10.  Zooomr 

Stock Photography websites – Less Technical but more exposure

If you’re not technically inclined and you’re not so keen on even setting up yet another website for Photographs when you already may have a blog for your writing, perhaps sending your photos to a Stock Photography website may be a little easier on you. Trust me, I’m looking in that same direction, as I already maintain and write for 3 separate websites; I can’t handle much more.

After perusing the Internet, I’ve come across a few Stock Photography websites that allow you to make money via uploading Photographs as stated in “33 Ways an Amateur Photographer Can Make Money Online”, published Friday, June 18, 2010 at 5:55pm by Site Administrator, Business Credit Cards. This is in much the same way you’d upload an e-book to a Cloud Storage Platform. Except as opposed to above, you don’t “own” the online storage or using a Stock Photo Website to promote your website, merely renting it.

Thus, most of these Stock Photography websites make money from taking a cut from sales of your snaps to news organizations, newspapers looking to do feature stories, Television stations doing commercials sport and interested Third parties looking for that perfect photo that reflects the message they’re trying to bring across for their products and services. Here’s a list of some of the best in the Stock Photography Business:

1.      123RF
2.      Alamy  
3.      Backprint.com 
4.      Buy a Photo 
5.      CameraDollars.com 
6.      Digital Railroad 
7.      dotPhoto Pro 
8.      Dreamstime
9.      Fotolia 
10.  Instaproofs 
12.  MorePhotos.com 
14.  PhotoBiz.com 
16.  Share A Pic 

ShutterStock for my photos – Paypal Account Required

I’m currently doing some experiments with Shutterstock to make sales with my own mundane photos that I’ve collected over the years. Remember, they have to be of the highest Quality; most of these Stock Photography websites have very rigid rules as it relates to your photo submissions, so you’ll have to put your best foot forward at all times!

Payment is via Paypal or other Payment Gateways, necessitating that you have a Scotia VISA Debit or Credit Card as described in my blog article entitledHow Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalyst for Increasing Jamaica's Internet Penetration”.

So there you have it, dear college student! If you have a camera, a smartphone and a Laptop or access to a computer with the Photo Editing software, you can become a freelance Photographer. You can make money not only as a photojournalist, Passport picture Photographer and a Wedding Photographer but also as a reseller of Photographs online via Stock Photography websites! 

No comments: