In my blog article
entitled “Animation
After KingstOOn – Free Photo Editing Software and How to get a copy of Adobe
Photoshop CS2 absolutely Free” I’d hinted at the fact that while you’re on
your way towards developing an Animation Studio, you can make money a Photographer.
This isn’t just
by opening up a photo studio and taking Passport sized Photographs, family Photographs
and doing Wedding Photography. You can also make money online as a supplier of Stock
Photographs as explained in the article “Stock
Photographs as explained in Students! Make Money From Your Photographs”,
visited October 8 2013 by Lindsworth Deer, e4s
and “How
to make money selling your photos online”, visited October 8 2013 by
Lindsworth Deer, Money UK MSN.
In fact, you
don’t even need the gear referenced in my “Animation
After KingstOOn” series of articles; once you have a smartphone that’s
packing at least 8 Megapixels, you can become a Stock Photographer. Stock Photography
is a great way for UWI (University of the
West Indies) and UTECH (University of
Technology) students to make money.
This is
additional income to whatever your parents are sending you from the country to
survive. It’s also a great supplementary income for the aspiring Writer to
survive on as well! So back out your smartphone or Digital Camera and let’s get
snappy!
Making money on Campus – From Call Centers, e-book Writing
and e-book Piracy
First a quick
review of the ways you can make money online while on Campus or if you’ve
graduated and have a lot of time on your hands!
If you’re cash
strapped at UWI and you’re in Second or Third Year, you may be already working
part time in the Call Center World on Campus make extra money to afford
University as stated in my blog article
entitled “UWI
opens Call Center to employ Students - Call Center Work before Six Degrees of
Hell in the Working World”.
You may be a bit
apprehensive about this as you may have heard about Call Center Workers or CSA
(Customer Service Agents) possibly having to endure their pockets being staples
and in some respects their Personal Privacy being taken away as described in my
blog article
entitled “How
to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - Global Outsourcing Limited CEO Devon
Crump comments indicate Paper Free Environment needed at Call Centers to
prevent Scamming and attract more BPO's”.
Working as a
book Writer is also another attractive option as well as explained in my blog article
entitled “Crowdsourced,
Teleworking Flex-work Publishers needed for UWI and High School Students with
Tablets in 2014 - How Jamaican Writers can make money via ePub Publishing Books”.
You can even
download e-pub and *.pdf books via torrenting and even make money from the
downloading of your Lab Reports and Projects as well as pirated e-books as an
e-book Pirate online as described in my blog article
entitled “How
to become an e-book Publishing House via e-book Piracy - Tablets in Schools
sets the Stage for Rampant e-book Piracy”.
Finally, you can
make money online as Writer for other Blogs or publications, even as a GhostWriter,
which cranks in good money illegally as a Writer as explained in my blog
articles “How
to make US Dollars as Freelance Web Content or Blog Affiliate Writer Online in
Jamaica using your Scotia VISA Debit Card or Credit Card” and more legitimately
as explained in my blog article
entitled “How
Jamaicans can Legally make US Dollars as Freelance worker Online - Jamaican
Flexworking to make money from the Internet”.
With so many way
to make money online once you have a Credit Card or Scotia VISA Debit
Card or CIBC
VISA Debit Card in your spare time as described in my blog article
entitled “How
Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card
purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalyst for Increasing Jamaica's Internet
Penetration”, how can you starve while on Campus? Especially when you have
most of the tools are at your disposal, possibly even given to you as gifts by
your parents such as your high-powered smartphone and your Laptop?
Stock Photography – Moneymaking from taking photos of
the everyday Mundane
That leaves you
open to freelance to make money via other means on the weekend or in your spare
time. Even if you’re in the Faculty of Science and Technology, formerly the
Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, you MUST b able to find time to freelance,
if you’re properly organize. Thus with that spare time you can make money as a Stock
Photographer.
First, develop
and eye for the mundane. Whether it’s taking snaps of food you’re eating,
flowers or thing you see around you, walk with your smartphone or even your
Digital Camera and be ready to take pictures. Make sure to always take them
with the highest megapixel settings available for your camera, the pictures are
always in focus and you have excellent lighting for your subject.
Then offload
your snaps onto your Laptop and sort them into categories, be they pictures of
food, pictures of people, pictures of object, etc. If you’re looking to be a
photojournalist, you can also sort the photos into separate groupings according
to the nature of the photo. The main thing is to not tamper with the photo,
using your original snaps as a template for making copies for sale.
This makes it
easier to handle them, as your images they can get very large at times,
sometimes even as big as an *.mp3 file! For handling very large Photographs, IfranView and XnView are great Freeware programs
that allow you to replace Windows Photo Viewer as well as Paintbrush for basic
Viewing of very large Photographs.
Alternative
Photo Editing Software such as Adobe Photoshop CS2 can also found online as
noted in my blog
article entitled “Animation
After KingstOOn – Free Photo Editing Software and How to get a copy of Adobe
Photoshop CS2 absolutely Free”.
It also helps
for the next stage, that being the selling of your Photographs online.
Online e-Commerce of Photographs – Digital Watermarked
Mini’s to avoid getting swindled
First, you can
test the waters a bit. You can send a few of them to the Jamaica Gleaner or even the Jamaica Observer to see how they
do in the Newspapers. You can also set up a blog or a website (on a budget of
course!) and post watermarked mini *.gif copies of your photos online, NOT the
originals.
Then you have to
build a website to host your pictures .My top recommendations for Blogs based
on my personal experience as well as the article “How to Build a
Website”, published September 4, 2013 By Eric Griffith, PC Magazine are as follows:
1.
Wordpress e.g. Geezam Blog
For a website, I’d
recommend building the Website first using one of several online Companies that
offer templates to design websites such as weebly as explained in the article “Create
a website the easy way”, published Jan 9, 2014 7:37 AM by Lincoln Spector, PCWorld then migrating the website to a Web
Hosting Server such as HostGator or GoDaddy. The ones I recommend based on
personal design experience are as follows:
1.
Jimdo
2.
Sidengo
3.
Squarespace
4.
Weebly
5.
Wix
Website design
is a topic I’ll touch on in another blog; for now be content to check out the
above links!
Once you’ve
built your website then you can place Buttons or Shopping carts linked to a Payment Gateway such as Paypal in
order to allow visitors to your website to buy the original photos as stated in
my blog article
entitled “How
Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card
purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalys for Increasing Jamaica's Internet
Penetration”.
You may need a Payoneer Prepaid MasterCard to encash your
funds from each sale once you’ve made a transaction as explained in my blog article
entitled “Payoneer,
the US based Prepaid MasterCard Debit Card - How E-Commerce MSME's, Online
workers and Reggae or Dancehall Artiste can receive money via Paypal and spend
it in Jamaica”.
Then once your
online customers have paid you, they would be allowed to download your snaps in
their highest quality from your Cloud Storage platform using either Dropbox or Google Drive as described in my blog article
entitled “How
to use Dropbox, Google Drive and Sound File Sharing Websites to Share and
Promote your Content online - Sharing is Caring”.
All this
knowledge relating creating mini versions of your snaps, digital watermarking
and payment gateways can be learned via DIY (Do It Yourself) and
experimentation as written out in my blog article
entitled “Animation
After KingstOOn – Free Photo Editing Software and How to get a copy of Adobe
Photoshop CS2 absolutely Free” and “How
Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card
purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalys for Increasing Jamaica's Internet
Penetration”.
As usual, your
website or blog has to be well put together but lightweight, allowing anyone to
be able to visit, browse and make a decision to buy your pictures. There are
several websites where you can promote your blog or website in order to get
increased sales for your photos.
This is not
dissimilar from the blog world where you can promote your blog via Search
Engines and Social Media as stated in my blog article
entitled “How
to integrate a Facebook Fan Box or a Google+ Plus Box in Blogger to increase
Blog Traffic - The power of a Dedicated Social Media Profile Page”.
The list is
fairly short and detailed:
Stock Photography websites – Less Technical but more
exposure
If you’re not
technically inclined and you’re not so keen on even setting up yet another
website for Photographs when you already may have a blog for your writing,
perhaps sending your photos to a Stock Photography website may be a little
easier on you. Trust me, I’m looking in that same direction, as I already
maintain and write for 3 separate websites; I can’t handle much more.
After perusing
the Internet, I’ve come across a few Stock Photography websites that allow you
to make money via uploading Photographs as stated in “33
Ways an Amateur Photographer Can Make Money Online”, published Friday, June
18, 2010 at 5:55pm by Site Administrator, Business Credit Cards. This is
in much the same way you’d upload an e-book to a Cloud Storage Platform. Except
as opposed to above, you don’t “own” the online storage or using a Stock Photo
Website to promote your website, merely renting it.
Thus, most of
these Stock Photography websites make money from taking a cut from sales of
your snaps to news organizations, newspapers looking to do feature stories,
Television stations doing commercials sport and interested Third parties
looking for that perfect photo that reflects the message they’re trying to
bring across for their products and services. Here’s a list of some of the best
in the Stock Photography Business:
1.
123RF
8.
Dreamstime
11. iStockphoto
15. Picturenation
ShutterStock
for my photos – Paypal Account Required
I’m currently doing some experiments with Shutterstock to make sales with my own mundane photos
that I’ve collected over the years. Remember, they have to be of the highest
Quality; most of these Stock Photography websites have very rigid rules as it
relates to your photo submissions, so you’ll have to put your best foot forward
at all times!
Payment is via Paypal or other Payment Gateways, necessitating
that you have a Scotia VISA Debit or Credit Card as described in my blog article
entitled “How
Jamaicans can set up a Payment Gateway in order to process Credit Card
purchases - E-Commerce the main Catalyst for Increasing Jamaica's Internet
Penetration”.
So there you
have it, dear college student! If you have a camera, a smartphone and a Laptop
or access to a computer with the Photo Editing software, you can become a
freelance Photographer. You can make money not only as a photojournalist,
Passport picture Photographer and a Wedding Photographer but also as a reseller
of Photographs online via Stock Photography websites!
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