GUIDE: MAKING MONEY FROM YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

INDEX

0 - Introduction1 - What do buyers want?2 - Be Inspired3 - Taking photos that sell4 - Editing5 - Keywording6 - Why Picfair?

Page 1 - INDEX

INTRODUCTION

The short answer is… yes! If you’ve got a good eye for photography, there are designers, advertisers, marketers, newspapers, magazines, journalists, startups, global companies and even individuals who might want to use your images.

Page 2 - INTRODUCTION

Can I make money from my photography?

INTRODUCTION

But how?

There are lots of ways to make money from your photography: image licensing via stock agencies, selling canvas prints,commissioned shoots, or selling via yourown shop. Picfair is the only place that gives you the power to earn via all these methods from one central platform.

INTRODUCTION

What does ‘stock photography’ mean anyway?

Stock images are traditionally professional photos of places, landmarks, nature, objects, people or events that are taken for the purpose of being used multiple times fordi!erent projects. Photographers usually keep ownership of the images and make them available for licensing, whereby they are paid for a specific usage.

Picfair’s image licensing marketplace operates a little di!erently to mostagencies. On average, stock agencies take a74% cut from the photographer. Picfair’s commission is only 20%. Picfair also allows all photographers to choose their own prices for their work, unlike most agencies who set prices themselves.

INTRODUCTION

What is image licensing?

Making your images available for licensing means you can make money from the same images multiple times, in multiple places, from multiple buyers. Many services, Picfairincluded, are non-exclusive, meaning you can maximise your earning potential.

When you use a service like Picfair, you are not selling your images outright. You are making them available to license. Every time someone licenses your image, they are paying to use it according to a licenceagreement. Licence agreements di!er between agencies, but as an example, all of Picfair’s licence agreements allow a buyer to use your image for just one project perlicence purchased.

At Picfair we speak to image buyers on a daily basis, and while their needs vary, there are some common desires.

Page 6 - WHAT DO BUYERS WANT?

WHAT DO BUYERS WANT?


Authenticity

Buyers want images that feel real. If the image includes people it is better that they look natural rather than posed or staged.

Images that they’ve never seen before. For example, there will always be a demand for images that represent love - but if you can represent it in a unique way, it will be much more attractive to prospective buyers.


Uniqueness

Images that accurately display our culturally diverse modern world. How can you help buyers to celebrate diversity honestly and accurately with your photography?


Diversity


Copy space

This is a good

example of copy

space

Often, a designer will want to overlay some text or their logo on your image. Consider this when framing your shots - leaving enough clean space for copy could help your images sell more!

BE INSPIRED

BE INSPIRED

Almost any image could make you money - you never know how unusual an image buyer’s brief could be! However, there are certain things you can keep in mind to maximise your sales…

What topics are trending culturally, socially and politically? If the world cup is approaching, authentic football images will likely be in demand. Big story about climate change coming up? Then it’s time to upload any images you have that could represent it!

A good inspirational tip is to take a look at Google Trends, which gives you insights into topics that are trending on Google right now and how they change over time.

Page 12 - BE INSPIRED

Stay up to date

trends.google.com/trends

BE INSPIRED

Keep an eye on the calendar

Images of major national and global holidays are always in demand, but by using something like National Day Calendar you can be inspired and prepare images for things like Earth day, Pride week, or… National dance like a chicken day.

www.nationaldaycalendar.com

Images celebrating diversity and documenting social changes are in high demand. Are things changing where you live? Think about how you can illustrate that change with your photography.


Look for change

Travel photography is extremely fun - why not make it profitable too? There are already millions of images of popular landmarks, so try to find unique angles or viewpoints. Try to illustrate what life is like for the locals. Look for the things that most tourists don’t see. What are the local foods and traditions? Be as specific as possible and try to leave your destination with images that nobody else could have taken.


Travel

TAKING PHOTOS THAT SELL

This is one of the golden rules of photography - use it to produce more aesthetically pleasing, balanced images.

Imagine every image is dissected into a 3x3 grid. Important compositional elements should not be centred, but placed along the vertical or horizontal lines or their intersections. Most modern cameras have a feature which will overlay a 3x3 grid on your viewfinder to assist.

See how the photographer has aligned the subjects with the lines of the 3x3 grid to create a beautifully framed image.

Page 16 - TAKING PHOTOS THAT SELL

FRAMING YOUR IMAGES…use the rule of thirds!

If you don’t have a tripod, try resting your camera on a stable object like a table, fence or bollard. Images need to be crisp and focused to maximise their commercial value (though out of focus images do have a market if done correctly!)


AVOID CAMERA SHAKE

The background can be the difference between an average shot and a fantastic shot. Make sure it contrasts enough with your subject, that it is not too busy or noisy, and that is is aesthetically pleasing to compliment the shot as a whole.


THINK ABOUT THE BACKGROUND

Shooting on auto is a good way to start, but learning how to use manual settings gives you ultimate creative control. And it’s not as hard as it looks! There are three settings thats make up the ‘Exposure Triangle’:


LEARN TO USE THE EXPOSURE TRIANGLE

Aperture is the measure of how wide the iris of

the camera lens is open. Narrow apertures

(higher f-numbers) give a greater depth of field

and are good for landscapes and keeping the

whole image focused. Wide apertures (lower f-

numbers) create a narrow depth of field, which

isolates the subject and can create a blurry

background effect (called bokeh).

Aperture

This image uses a low aperture to focus on the subject and achieve the blurred background e!ect

Refers to how long the shutter will stay open and

thus how much light the lens lets in. Higher

shutter speeds are required for moving subjects,

though lower shutter speeds allow for more

detail in a shot. In general, you want to use a

shutter speed that will ensure your subject is

clear. For fast subjects like birds, this may be

1/1200; for kids it may be 1/200.

Shutter speed

You can experiment with very low shutter speeds to create images like this

Increasing the ISO allows you to work with less

light - however, the higher the ISO, the more

grainy your image will turn out to be. Always aim

to have the lowest ISO possible that still gives

you a good looking shot.

Why would you use a high ISO? Working with

lower light, you may find yourself using the

widest possible aperture and slowest possible

shutter speed available for the shot - at this

point, your only option is to increase the ISO.

Better to have a slightly grainy image that can be

improved in post production than an unusable

blurry one!

ISO

TAKING PHOTOS THAT SELL

A WORD ABOUT MODEL RELEASES

To make your images available for commercial licensing, you need model releases from any recognizable people.

If you don’t have model releases, you can still make any images you have with recognizable people available for editorial licensing,though!

You can download our simple model release form here.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/picfair-production-files/static/Model+release+template.pdf

You should try to avoid cropping unless you need to. Take time when shooting to concentrate on the composition of your image ‘in camera’ - getting it right first time and it will avoid unnecessary fiddling around later.. But if you need to:

Stick to the established aspect ratio:DSLR cameras, like their film ancestors have a default aspect ratio of 3:2. Keep your cropped image within that if possible. Image buyers want to be able to do their own cropping when designing their products if possible, so give them as much room to play with to let them craft their own story.

Cut the clutter out:It needs to be as clear and as clean as possible, make your image is as uncluttered as possible. If you have a stray foot or a stray arm sticking to the left of the frame, that should be cropped out. Anything which isn’t essential to telling the story needs to go. Where there are figures in the frame, animal or human, try to keep them complete. Cropping figures can lead to awkward positioning and could potentially even ruin your photo. So, avoid it at all costs — no one likes to see feet chopped off human beings.

Page 21 - EDITING

EDITING

CROPPING

Professionals shoot in RAW and process their images after for the best results. There are lots of free resources online for learning to use editing programs, and it is definitely a worthwhile time investment.

Page 22 - EDITING

POST-PROCESSING

If you are processing your photos in an editing program, it is worth keywording your images in the program via the metadata settings. This will embed the keywords, titles and captions as IPTC metadata, and any time you upload your images to a site like Picfair, the data will be read automatically. This can save you a lot of time if you intend to make your images available through multiple agencies!

METADATA

KEYWORDING

Keywords (or tags) are incredibly important - good keywording is the only way to ensure your images can be found. Here are some keywording tips:

Put Yourself in an Image Buyer's Shoes

One of the simplest ways to get your head around how to keyword your images put yourself in the shoes of an image researcher or picture buyer. For example, if you were looking for images to illustrate a travel feature on Morocco, what keywords would you use to find a suitable image?

Page 23 - KEYWORDING

KEYWORDING

BASE YOUR KEYWORDS ON THE FOLLOWING:

It is a must to keyword a location-specific image

with that particular area, city, region, and

country. Ask yourself also, does the image show

a noteworthy street, famous landmark or

building?

Place

Does the picture depict any traditional ways of

life or typical scenes, or something unusual or

alternative? Does the image include a person,

multiple people, a crowd or show anything

noteworthy taking place? Include this in your

keywording.

Noteworthy Features of the Scene

Does the image feature any patterns,

architectural highlights, designs or obvious

formal elements? Or are there any particularly

dominant colours in the scene? These should be

tagged and included in the keywords.

Formal Elements

Examples: Marrakech, Morocco, North Africa, Main Square, Jemaa, el Fnaa, Tourist, Crowd, Dusk

Examples: Morocco, Traditional, Scene, People, Game, Street, Sport, Working Class, Lens Flare

Examples: Famous, Tilework, Architecture, Moorish, Indoor, Courtyard, Bahia Palace, Pattern, Wide Angle

KEYWORDING


Concept Keywords

As important as highlighting any visible features

in the photo, other keywords describing relevant,

but 'unseen' elements of the picture can be

paramount to the image buyer.

Often buyers are looking for images where there

is a ‘clean’ area to place copy: this is often in the

form of the sky or large blocks of a single colour

in an image.. The keywords and tags used across

the board are 'copy space’, or ‘copyspace’ - include

both.

Copy space

Examples: Love, Summer love, Lovers, Marriage, Relationship, Young, Couple

Examples: Copyspace, copy space

Include Latin names for flora/fauna

When a buyer is looking for an extremely specific

species, the Latin name is extremely important

as it is used as a global standard.

Examples: Puffin, Fratercula Arctica

KEYWORDING


Describe people

Make sure you are as specific as possible when it

comes to keywording an image of a person.

Keywords describing gender, race, age, and

appearance, profession and actions are all of

importance and are used regularly by buyers.

Include seasons and weather conditions

Many image buyers work on features and

campaigns based on particular seasons, and if

this is particularly obvious in your photo – make

sure that it is keyworded as such.

Variant spellings

For common words that appear in image

keywords such as harbour/ harbor, and center/

centre. Include both the US and UK spellings.

Examples: Sun, Sunshine, Golden sun, Autumn Examples: Young, Boy, Bald, Shaved head, Monk,Orange Robe, Asian, Thai

Examples: Plow, Plough

KEYWORDING

Copyspace, Copy space, Person, Man, City, Parkour, Africa, Tunisia, Kairouan, Stunt, Pose, Buildings, Medina, Curly hair, Backflip, Athlete, Street, Dance, African, Blue sky, Clear sky, Dusk

AND FINALLY…

Try to include at least 10 keywords, but don't spam with unnecessary keywords. The more specific keywords you can include, the better!

Start your Picfair journey here

WHY YOU SHOULDTRY PICFAIR

Page 28 - WHY YOU SHOULD GET STARTED

Non exclusive

Your images are still your property and you can sell them elsewhere at the same time if you want to.

It’s phenomenally simple

All you have to do is upload your images and set your price, and they’ll be available for image licensing and wall art on our marketplace and your personal Picfair powered store, and we may contact you for any suitable assignments we receive.

Most agencies don’t let you control your own price for your work. Picfair lets you choose prices you’re comfortable with and change them at any time.

We have the highest royalty rate

The average agency cut is 74%. Picfair’s cut is a flat 20% on ALL sales.

Everybody’s welcome

Control your own prices

Picfair is open to everyone, from beginners to seasoned pros. If you’re an amateur with anamazing eye for a photo, you could be ranked alongside professionals.

www.picfair.com/ultimateguide

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