Courses to help sell photos/get better at photography

DaelpixPhotography

DaelpixPhotography

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David
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I was made redundant JUST before xmas.

I'm not struggling what to do as a job after working at the same place for 10 years.

What sort of courses could I do to help sell my photography? And what courses should help to get better at it ?
 
It is kind of difficult to know what kind of sites and courses to know what to recommend without knowing what kind of photography you are looking to do and/or sell. If you could give some more information that would help.

If it is stock photography, or even fine art, then the BFP isn't a bad starting point - but I would caution as to how quickly you are going to start making money.

Obviously we don't expect details on your redundancy, or what your timeframe might be to start replacing income - or indeed how much you need to earn - but if you are genuinely at an early stage in making money from photography then I would honestly recommend that you find some full-time employment using your current skills and experience and then start to build up some part-time photography income with a view to potentially making it full-time if things work out. Making money from photos is not an easy thing to do, it doesn't turn on as quickly as you want it to - and January isn't a great month for portraits, weddings, events, or even building up a stock library.
 
Don't fall into the trap of spending too much time and money learning and listening.... It's only going to happen if you DO.

At the end of the day, the true arbiter of your work as a professional is a paying customer. Professional photography is about 10-15% photography.... The 85% is about finding customers and markets for your work, and satisfying the demand in those markets.
 
Landscapes are one of the areas where I want to succeed. But I realise I won't produce much money just doing that and there's so many people already 'specialising' in that area.
I was thinking about taking photos of models etc but I have literally no experience and have never taken a photo of a person before.

Two years ago I wanted to sell my trout flies in coffee coasters (link) but no one has taken any interest in them. I also got an A1 size print (of Malham Cove, North Yorkshire) printed by a company called SupersizePrint.co.uk. But didn't add it my dad's website as I need more good views from Malham and other villages etc.

There's a Flickr link below which you can look at and see what photos I take.
 
OK (deep breath).....

[all spoken with no insight into how much you need to live on, other family income sources etc, and my previous comments on redundancy terms - you might need to earn £5k, £50k or nothing for the next 5 years - per annum... and with the best intentions]

- Landscapes. Very very very few people can exist as a FT landscape photographers - most of the exceptional ones - Joe Cornish, Charlie Waite, David Noton etc also run tours, sell books and give talks and obviously you need some reputation to be able to do all of those additional things. Your views are nice but compared to what pros and talented enthusiasts produce you have some way to go, critically you are missing exceptional light in them.

- The rest of your Flikr stream in my honest, but I'm afraid relatively blunt, opinion is that there is very little in there that is saleable even as secondary editorial stock. Sorry but as you have noted in your initial post you need to improve to be able to sell.

- Models. Right. With no experience, and having never photographed people before you are going to struggle again in the short term. There is a long queue of talented, experienced photographers, shooting fashion, beauty and glamour. There is an even longer queue of "male enthusiasts" willing to pay models for the privilege of shooting them or supplying work on a TFCD basis. I couldn't quantify the size of the market, but I suspect it is hard to make any kind of living from it unless you are established - very few models are going to pay *you* to photograph them when they will get higher quality images for free.

- Coasters. Part of me thinks that you have lucked out not selling them. £3.60 for 3, including 1st class postage. I'm not sure you are making any profit on that let alone proving a decent hourly rate of income. That has to be a limited market - and I suspect you might only sell them in gift shops at or nearby fly fishing areas it is a hobby income at best.

This industry is really tough, saturated in many/most areas, and fees and rates are dropping not increasing. It takes a while to get established if you already have the technical, artistic and business skills to succeed and with every year the competition gets harder. I'm by no means saying you couldn't ever become a professional photographer in time but I have to point you back to my original post and say that my recommendation is that you find yourself some paid employment - and then spend some of your non-working time to learn, improve, understand where your strengths are, build a portfolio and a professional looking website/marketing material and start to win some clients, sell some images and gradually increase the revenue you make as a photographer - with the safety net of a job to fall back on. If it all goes well you can quit and go full-time. Where you start on that I'm afraid is very hard to recommend without some focus of what you expect to earn you 60%+ of your income. So many courses teach very little or prepare you for the real aspects of running a photography business that you could spend a great deal and progress very little.

Right now you have limited skills, no clients, and no idea of where to focus. IMHO if you tried to earn a living solely as a photographer now, in any genre, you'll fail. Sorry but I'd rather tell you the truth than try and sugar coat it.
 
Thank you for your input.

Although not photography, another area which I could sell things, is tying salmon flies. But I won't get much out of it because I don't know the right people. I do however tie flies for one person who asks me to tie some for him about 3 times a year. (I've actually just sold 10 for around £25 which is minus the cost of the hooks). My dad had an idea of framing these (something like this), but haven't done anything about it.

The only area where I'll be able to earn anything is selling fully dressed salmon flies. But I'm not skilled in tying them.


I haven't photographed anything since I went on holiday in May due to health problems and need to get back into it when I'm fit and well enough.
 
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I can only wish you the best, and hope you get back to full health as soon as possible. You sound like fly fishing is something you are really into, and have a skill in - I know it is specialised but wouldn't this be a good area to really work out if you could find some suppliers, clients, and a market for something that is clearly skilled.
 
No, not really. It requires a lot of time to become skilled in the area (especially if you want to tie the 'fully dressed' flies) and it will require me to tie around 100-150 to get a decent 'wage' every week, I will just not get this amount of money each week. Even my dad has bad weeks where people don't order any thing.

Thinking about salmon flies, and me looking at my dads' website where they are on display, it has occurred to me that I need to re-think about the flies that are on the website and tie some different ones :)

I think I'll have to think about all the things I could do make this work and have a job out of it.

I'll let you all know what I come up with.
 
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I went through the same situation in 2009, being made redundant a week before Xmas! And not just me - my husband worked for the same company which went into liquidation. I have been taking photos as a hobby since about the early eighties, with film SLRs back then. So, I thought it would be a good idea to use my photography as a business. Take it from me, it is not easy AT ALL!! I needed some courses, particulary in people photography, and a bit of business knowledge as well. My problem was that I did not have enough money to do those courses. I picked and chose a few, but some were worth the money, and some were not, and it really irked me that I had wasted money I could ill afford. A lot of information can be gleaned from the Internet, and you might find some low-cost courses, but on the whole it's a very hard slog. My husband took up picture framing and we did craft fairs - apart from one very good day, it wasn't worth getting out of bed for.

Think carefully about what you want to do and how much money you are prepared, or are able, to invest. And good luck.
 
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I'm going through a difficult time at the moment since I was made redundant. I also have a problem with my health where I have 2 leg ulcers one of which is rather painful, this is one of the reasons why I was made redundant. And I'm sick to death of them. They've actually caused me to lose confidence in everything.


Two years ago a lass at work asked me if I could take photos of her mate for her birthday, but I had to let her down as I wasn't experienced.

Last year I researched some online courses and bought a set of Karl Taylor's dvds. They've helped me in some ways, but I just haven't been taking photos much lately.

I really need think what the next step is in finding a job that I'll like.
 
I hope you find something soon. Thankfully, I am now back in paid employment, although that is looking a bit doubtful at the moment (apart from which I hate it now due to changes over the past six months). I was unemployed for two and a half years, during which time our savings dwindled dramatically.

The lack of experience was my downfall too, especially with portraits, and it took me some time to get up to speed. There are lots of resources online that may help, and I joined a network group and offered free shoots for members which gave me a little insight as to where I needed to improve.
 
Thank you so do I Diane.

I cannot pursue anything in fly tying as it won't gain me much money, so I'll have to rethink about what I want to do as a job.
 
Just looking into stock photography at the moment. See what people want. I'm looking at Shutterstock and MostPhotos at the moment.
 
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Dael_Pix said:
Just looking into stock photography at the moment. See what people want. I'm looking at Shutterstock and MostPhotos at the moment.
Click to expand...

Stock photography is the least predictable and longest term investment for making money from your images that there is with the possible exception of unrepresented fine art photography.

I posed the question above, and as before don't expect a detailed answer, but if you are looking to replace an income with photography soon then stock isn't the way to go.

You'll need either hundreds of very high quality (read commercial/advertising style) images at somewhere like Getty, Corbis or a speciality agency for a specific type of subject matter - or you'll need thousands of secondary editorial images at somewhere like Alamy, probably not a MostPhotos where you'll be getting pence per sale before you'll even see a regular set of sales and that might still only net you £300-£500 a month if you are very lucky in the first year or so of having that quantity.

You originally asked what makes for a successful photography business and I think if anyone had the clear cut answer to that then they would make millions by selling that recipe to aspiring professionals. The answer isn't that simple - certainly a lot of hard work, some talent in taking images, and a very very good understand of business and self-marketing. How successful you need to be depends entirely on *your* circumstances. You'll also have to be able to change your business model every 18-24 months to cope with the general decline of the industry either picking up the new trends, adding new markets, or resetting your expectations.

Really, and I can't keep going back to it again - there are far more reliable and long term ways of earning money than with photography - whatever your current skills and previous employment experience.
 
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