How to Make Money on the Internet Through Photography

Photographers can make money taking pictures of various items and selling them locally. They can also make money selling photos on the Internet. There are several sites to which photographers can upload their pictures that pay them well for their efforts. Two such sites are Seed.com and iStockphoto.com. Seed offers photographers the opportunity to upload photographs based on specified projects and pays them a flat-rate fee, while iStockphoto allows photographers the opportunity to upload photos of random topics and pays royalties based on sales.

Instructions

1

Set up an account. Registering for both Seed.com and iStockphoto is easy and free. Set up your profile by clicking on the "Sign Up" link located in the upper-right corner of the iStockphoto website and the "Get Started" link located in the same general area on Seed.com. Follow the instructions to complete your profile.

2

Set up a Paypal account. Paypal is the most common way for photographers to receive payment from online venues for work that has been submitted. It is an easy and secure way to receive electronic payments. Set up a basic account using Paypal's step-by-step process (see Resources).

3

Locate appropriate assignments. Seed requires you to select the assignments you wish to fulfill before submitting your photographs. Scan through the available assignments and select up to three. IStockphoto does not require you to select assignments to fulfill; instead, you upload photos of your choice that have commercial value.

4

Take quality photos. The key to making money on the Internet using your photography is to make sure the photographs you submit are top notch. The photos should be crisp and taken in a digital format. Although you add keywords to your photos to help people search for certain topics, the photos do not have captions below them describing exactly what people are seeing. Because of this lack of captions, the subject of the photograph must be easy to identify. This is the most important aspect of selling photographs online.

5

Transfer your photographs to your computer. Connect your digital camera to your computer via USB cable and access your import function.

6

Upload the photos. Each site has a proprietary upload function that will allow you to browse your computer and locate the photographs you wish to upload.

7

Market your photos. With iStockphoto, you will not be paid until your photographs are purchased by a customer. You can influence this process by letting people know your photographs are available by using social media sites like MySpace and Facebook as well as by joining forums.