Potography online selling, any guidance you could provide?

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Sup guys, so i live in a quite beautiful place, has unique forests and fauna all around it, a very popular tourist sighting place and one of the 2015 World Travel Awards Winner. I was thinking on starting to take pictures, thanks to the great photographic sceneries and environments availability, for both personal record and monetary income, and while i havent done much research on this subject, i figured that this could potentially be where id find the most professional looking answers, over other sections of this forum, hence why im asking here.

 

So, can you recommend me a good website to get started, average price per photo, useful equipment tips and anything else you find relevant? Thank you. As far as comments regarding, dont get into this subject if you dont have a course or any professional background experience, id appreciate you guys could also guide me to an online website that would potentially provide photographic courses or ill look around one where i live.

[mynameajeff]

inb4 lock

 

Edit: 

 

I read pornographic...

 

Man I am f^%$ in the head

[JamesHeaney]

Hey,

 

Honestly, I am no where near a professional, but I am a student in the same situation as you. I can tell you how I have been doing it and my experiences. I have been selling on Pond5,  ShutterStock and my own personal website. Pond5 takes a cut of 15% I believe, which is almost nothing compared to ShutterStock's 35%. They are definitely the largest in the game, hence the large prices. More people go there, so the higher the chances of you making money is there. 

 

I also started my own website to sell my photos and videos, and that has kind of gone in both ways. I have made money from my own website, but no where near what I have made on the other websites. It is very hard to drive traffic somewhere you will get 100% of the cut, naturally.

 

Also, in terms of "learning photography", check out a Youtube channel named "DigitalRevTV", they are the largest photography based webshow on the internet. However, they should be supplementary to you just going out and doing it. Only way to get better is to make a whack ton of mistakes and learn from them. Buy a cheaper DSLR (550D, 650D for Canon) with the kit lens, and a $60 tripod from Walmart and just get shooting.

 

Best of luck.

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Potography lmao.

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Thanks for the tips, gonna prepare for getting the camera and will surely check out those websites and channel.

[zenodio]

Wait, so you're a complete beginner who wants to sell photos right away (According to your original post it sounds like you're just starting out)?

Location isn't everything, so if you're a complete beginner I would advise against this.

 

Same beautiful location, two completely different photos.

 

Also, I have to admit that this is a terrible place to ask for this kind of advice on this field since there aren't that many pros or even novice photographers around here, I'm not just talking about this section of the forum but rather this entire forum in general.

 

I apologise in advance if I come off as a bit of an arsehole right now, kinda tired.

It is possible I may have gotten the wrong idea of your original post entirely.

[ALwin]

Wait, so you're a complete beginner who wants to sell photos right away (According to your original post it sounds like you're just starting out)?

 

I apologise in advance if I come off as a bit of an arsehole right now, kinda tired.

 

You're not an arsehole, you're a realist.  Just because this forum has a section for Photo/Video doesn't mean that it's a hangout for photographers and cinematographers.  It's a hangout for kids* who repeat what they read/see online and Youtube.  Most of the commenters here focus on the specifications and technical aspects of cameras, whilst photography and cinematography is an art that requires imagination, creativity, experience, knowledge (real knowledge), observation skills, etc.  As far as I can tell, besides myself, there's probably just a handful of knowledgeable members here who try to help steer people in the right direction.

 

*The real arseholes are those kiddies.  A lot of them are only interested in or only know about cameras as far as their lame get rich/famous quick by making a Youtube channel scheme.

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I apologise to ask, and i thank both of you above for the reply, but did you by any misword or "arsehole reference", meant that i was a kiddie, just looking for an easy way to make money? Well if you think like that, theres always a place for people like yourself, its the "report" side. If not, then i apologise, but then again im not making a youtube channel scheme, so hopefully your not regarding to me.

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Nope, you didnt mistought the original purpose of this post, so thats what i meant. Now, its true that this may not be the right place to ask, if there is any online forum/discussion other than a paid course you get in a professional school or institute, but im pretty sure, its not a bad thing to try and get a correct answer as some people just like to say "This place is full of unknow hows, theyr all dumb delusionals", since when you want something and you intend to do it, you have to start somewhere, and if the answers are from subpar intelligent beings, you go to a place with intelligent humans that can deliver a true and helpful prespective, and from 100,000 people, surely someone knows how to give a good answer overhere. I understand completely what you meant, obviously to get the quality of the below photography, it takes a load of skill and gear, and maybe even editing. I might have no background experience on the subject, but i surely want to start out. Im saving some money right now, to aquire all the equipment i need. So far ive got several cleaning cloths, a tripod, a carrying bag and now im just saving for the camera, as i am going for James reply. 

[zenodio]

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Don't worry, chances are he wasn't referring to you, haven't seen you around here before.

What Alwin is talking about is the endless amount of people that show up here only to ask about "The best camera for tech videos under $500" they all think they need DSLRs to become big YouTubers.

Not really sure why so many people think a $500 DSLR is better than a $500 camcorder for video, but that's what people do around here, it seems.

They also fail to realise that you won't really see much of a difference because of the bitrate limitations of YouTube.

What Alwin meant was that those are the kinda people that hang out in this section with only a few of us who are taking this seriously.

 

Alright now,

You can give it a try, setting up a website or signing up for a site that can sell your images but you have to ask yourself why anyone would pay for a photo taken by a complete complete beginner when they can have a much nicer picture taken at the same location by someone that knows what they're doing.

Chances are you're not going to get anything sold for a very long time unless you start really dwelling into photography as a serious hobby instead of just using it as an extra source of income.

 

Also don't forget that it's healthy to be extremely critical of your own work if you want people to pay for it, it'll be better for you in the long run.

 

A lot of work goes into selling photos online (both physical prints and digital images) so you could potentially end up wasting a lot of time on setting this all up only to realise you're not quite ready for this yet.

 

There are plenty of places where you can learn more about these things, it's really as easy as just Googling it, there are also a lot of photography podcasts on YouTube n' stuff like that where they talk about these sort of things.

 

If you do end up deciding to take up photography as a serious hobby and you need advice about.. let's say composition or getting proper lighting in your photos, or maybe even technical stuff like if you want to know what aperture, ISO and shutterspeed means (very basic stuff so you might already know that, but you get the idea)

Then the few of us here who are heavy into photography and/or cinematography are happy to help you.

[ALwin]

There are plenty of places where you can learn more about these things, it's really as easy as just Googling it, there are also a lot of photography podcasts on YouTube n' stuff like that where they talk about these sort of things.

 

Then the few of us here who are heavy into photography and/or cinematography are happy to help you.

 

I'm one of those people.  But as KaptajnKnass said, no one is going to take a beginner seriously for purchasing photos.  You might get lucky by being at the right place at the right time with a rare photo, but that's less than one in a million chance.

 

Anyway, here is a Youtube channel that people who are truly interested in photography should watch and listen to.  Here is a one of their podcasts.  There are other channels too.