I'm sure many people with a good collection of travel photos has had the compliment "you should be a professional"...
Up there on most travellers career wishlist is travel photographer. But the number of those that actually make a living from it is very small. Is it because not enough people want to buy original photography?
So some questions to explore this;
Have you ever brought a print of someone else's travel photo?
Roughly how much did you pay?
Where is it now?
Where did you first see the photo?
Reply to this I bought two pictures from Ken Duncan while in Australia. Kel and I collect art from our travels and allowed ourselves to buy only four things on the whole year long trip. two of them were Ken Duncan pics. Between the two of them we spent almost US $2k but, like I said, we actually collect art and have a pretty decent collection.
One of them, a picture of Uluru is hanging in our family room, the other, two pictures of shark's bay are hanging in our bedroom. Both of them bring us great memories and are beautiful. Well worth the money, specially since they will increase in value over time due to their limited run numbers.
I hope to sell some of my pictures from the past year but don't plan to make a career of it. I only hope to pick up enough money to continue to supplement my camera equipment budget. The picture thing has become a bit of an addiction...
Mike T.
Reply to this Maybe someone could give us some advice on Where to sell your photographs... many people may be dreaming about it, but unless you are printing, framing them, approaching people to sell them for you....
maybe the best you can get from the internet is that another "site" may want your photo or you might be approached for it to be in a print magazine/newspaper/travel brouchure
Now I am not a good photographer at all, and my friends tell me that my photos are great and I should do something with it, but luckily I know the truth and am not persueing a professional photography career (yet!)
I have never bought someone else photos. Maybe a coffee table book would be the closest.
If it is truly your dream, then you would work very hard at it and hopefully be successful - It aint gonna fall in your lap most probably.
Reply to this This is slightly off topic, but I've met several people on my travels who make money from stock photography. This is where you put your photos online at a stock photography site (perhaps for a fee), tag them, and then if people (usually magazine or book art editors, travel brochure compilers, etc) like an image they can "buy" it at a low cost. Money will accrue in your account without you having to do anything more, and you can realise that cash once it reaches a certain level.
Since this is now an established way to bring buyers (i.e. the art editors) and sellers (i.e. photographers) together, then as long as i) you have decent photos, and ii) you photograph subjects that are popular, you may be able to derive some income. This will of course depend on you getting a high enough volume of buyers, but has the advantage over waiting for that National Geographic commission because you don't need any connections in the industry and need do nothing in the way of marketing other than take the pictures (and tag them well). Obviously some stock photography sites have restrictions, so they may screen your work or only allow certain cameras, but others don't.
Digital photography has brought so many people into the market that attempting to find commissions has become harder and harder. You can see that simply by looking through Travelblog - even though it's not primarily a photography site, there are lots of good photos. If you then look at Flickr or more serious amateur photographer-oriented sites, you soon realise the world is awash with great images. So I would think that stock photography is the best way of attempting to derive some cash from your photos without requiring contacts and a marketing machine behind you.
Reply to this I thought I would revive this thread.
What are your thoughts?
Reply to this 
