If you have a good digital camera and are skilled at using it, you can become a freelance photographer with hardly any experience. If your deliverables look great to the recipient, that’s all that matters. You can make a part-time or full-time living as a freelance photographer, even if you’re learning on the job.
Here are some of the things you can do:
Sell Stock Photos on Stock Sites or Make Your Own
There are numerous stock photo sites that allow you to upload your photos and earn money if someone downloads them. Sites like Shutterstock, Fotolia.com, iStockphoto.com, and others have instructions on their websites about how to earn from your photos. Follow their directions, and you can be in business tonight using photos you’ve already shot. Alternatively, you can set up a shopping cart using Amember.com or Gumroad.com on your own and sell digital works via the platform.
Make Original Clothing Patterns
You can do this in several ways, but one way to do it is to use a site called spoonflower.com or weaveup.com. Upload your patterns for other people to buy and use or sell fabric directly through drop shipping and printing on demand.
Design T-Shirt Art for T-Shirt Sellers or for Yourself
You can set up a design shop for others to buy, or you can sell your designs right on t-shirts by using platforms that already exist or by finding a t-shirt printer and manufacturer to work with. Look into working with Amazon Merch or Printify.com.
Sell Photo Art on Art Sites
Sites like Art.com, deviantart.com, etsy.com, and others offer you the ability to sell your photo art.
If you want to be in control of all aspects using your own materials and printers, Amazon Handmade and Esty.com are good choices, but you can also simply upload your designs and let people print them on whatever they want on some of the other platforms.
Create “Coffee Table” Photo Books
If you’re good with editing your photos and laying out a book using professional software, you can
create a print on demand photo book if you have a good theme going. For example, someone might love seeing a photo book of all the beaches in the Americas or all the birds you found on your adventures.
Develop Fun Calendars to Sell
You can also determine a theme and create yearly calendars that are fun to sell. If you come up with a good theme, you can make good money selling the calendars. You’ll need to find a printer like Printful.com or Printify.com to help you.
Turn Your Photos into Coloring Books
A good editor can take photos and turn them into coloring pages. People love to color, and the more creative the images, the better.
You can start a side business recommending the right pens, pencils and crayons to use too.
Do Pop Up Headshots for Businesspeople
If you want to be more personal with people, you can offer headshots at a reasonable price to businesspeople in your local area. Real estate agents, authors, ministers, and others often need headshots that make them look pleasing.
Work with Local Organizations to Offer Family Photo Packages
One way to really make some money is to work with groups. If you can get in on one good church or organization to do family photo packages, you can make a full-time living.
Become a Wedding, Birth, or Other Event Photographer
Most people want more professional photos of their family and all the events they have, but often it can be costly. Since you’re a freelancer with low overhead, you can usually do it for a little less to make it affordable for more people.
Be a Resource to Local News Organizations
Your images can be seen far and wide if you share with your local news areas the photos you’ve taken about anything going on in your community. Be sure to put information on your website and social media platforms about how to use your images.
Start a Fun Gig on Fiverr.com
If you live in a beautiful touristy spot, you can offer fun, creative opportunities on Fiverr.com. For example, if you live on a beautiful beach, you can write people’s names in the sand or with seashells to create a t-shirt or other art for gifts.
As you can see, if you’re good at photography, there is always a way to earn money doing it as a freelancer. It really depends on what you want to do. If you love taking photos of food, for example, you can work with local restaurants to help them capture better photos for commercials and their menus. You could even take pictures of what you cook to create stock photo options for bloggers and others. The sky and your imagination is really the limit when it comes to photography and freelancing.
