Why did I start selling my photographs?

Selling my photography was actually something that came up in a conversation with one of my friends. Prior to that, I simply enjoyed going out and getting photographs and sharing them on either Facebook or Flickr. I enjoyed reading peoples' feedback on what they liked and didn't like, and I enjoyed seeing my pictures getting "likes" or "favorites". If you have have read my past blogs you would know that I only did Landscapes, Nature, and Close-Up (they aren't true macro shots) photographs and my friend asked me if I would do some portraits for him for holiday cards. I said sure, not even expecting to get anything out of it but just some practice in taking photos of people. He ended up giving me a few things that I was not expecting and that is when it hit me.

Why not sell my best photos and offer discount portrait photos to help pay for my hobby?

That is when I started looking into going more professional with my photography. I learned there are numerous ways to make money selling your photos, but majority of them required you to do to it full time and this is not what I currently want to do. My current goal is for the sales to be able to pay for my current equipment and future equipment, not for me to live off of. This may change in the future (I'm hoping that it does as photography would be a really neat career), but it is not something I want to rely on to survive. Once I was able to define my career goal with photos, I was able to lay out a pretty good plan. I added up everything I spent in equipment, registration fee's to be able to do legitimate sales of photography in Wisconsin, and other expenses that was only specific to my photography. That is how much I would like to make in profits in a year. I estimated how much I would like to sell my photos for and also if I decided to go into portrait shooting how much an hour I would charge, how much for a photo, and all the other license costs (example giving someone unrestricted license to a photo). When I got through all of this, I was very please to see how many photos I needed to sell, how many portrait shots I would need to do, and how many prints of those photos I would need to print. I then compared those numbers to companies around my location and found that I came up much less than what the current pros offer and I was glad with that as I do not count myself as a Pro yet. A professional photographer to me is someone who actually lives off of their photography, or a majority of their income is from their photography. I count myself as a semi-professional photography or an extreme hobbyist.

I really thought this was a great idea when I actually ordered one of my own photos on a 20x30 print, and actually saw that my photos would make great wall decor and that this could actually work. If it doesn't, it wont bother me in the slightest as it's not my goal to make a living off it but to help with the cost that goes with this hobby. I mean, 1300 dollars for a lens hurts the wallet a bit. Why not offer others the ability to use this lens in a way and have them pay for a bit of it? :D

Spring is coming around and I do have some traveling plans scheduled this year that will allow me to capture some great landscapes. So far this year, I have planned on going to North and South Carolina which will offer great mountain and ocean landscapes not to mention some fun street photography.

Don't forget to check out my Online Gallery  which will have my best shots. If you would like to see other photographs that didn't make the cut you can check out my Flickr page. If there is something on there you like, and is not found on my Online Gallery please email me and I'll post it up there for you to order!

One of my newest photos:

Eye of the Gerbera