The Complete Guide to Selling Your Travel Photography

If you enjoy travel photography, a good logical step is to try and make money from your hobby. Selling your photographs takes time and dedication, but it is possible.

The nice thing about selling photography is that anyone can do it – you are not dependent upon physical ability, age, or background. It’s all about attitude, effort, and outlook.

Presenting Your Portfolio

Step 1. Organize Your Photos

The easiest way to store and share your photos is with an online photo album site. There are many to choose from, and your choice of site would depend upon your application. Here are two examples: Flickr and Smugmug.

There are photo communities, photo blog repositories, file storage services, printers that will store your photos, photo album sites supported by advertising, and paid-subscription sites that allow you to license your images.

Many sites are free. Some have restrictions. The sites may have limits for image file size, storage space, and duration of storage (e.g. your photos may get deleted after 90 days of non-usage).

For a monthly subscription, you can often upgrade to a “premium” service, which may increase the size of files you can store and reduce the amount of advertising you endure.

Some sites permit printing and licensing, so you can make money off your photos, similar to stock photography.

Step 2. Make Your Own Web Site

Creating your own website has become almost mandatory if you want to sell your photographs professionally. If you are motivated you can learn web design yourself. Or else, hire a professional to create a website for you.

First find a web host. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) may offer this, or you can sign up for a paid account with a hosting company.

Web hosting rates are going down and can vary between $10-25 per year. You can get your own domain name for a few additional dollars.

Include text to describe the pictures so your site will get found on search engines such as Google. Include an email address and/or phone number so you can be reached.

You can include copyright info if you like (e.g. Copyright Trent Burkholder Photography 2007). Don’t get too nervous about people stealing your images.

Magazines and other companies respect copyright rules. Besides, an image on the Internet is usually too poor quality to be printed well.

Remember- it’s better to display your images on the web risking theft, rather than hiding them in the closet, where no one can see them except spiders.

Where To Sell Your Travel Photography

Now that you’ve uploaded and organized your best work, here are 11 places you can market and sell your photographs:

1. Magazines

Magazines are a good way to see your picture in print. There are many magazines covering a wide variety of subjects, and they need pictures for each edition.

The Photographer’s Market is an excellent directory that lists hundreds of magazine listings where photographers can submit their images.

The book also provides valuable insight into what types of pictures each market desires. The brief description in Photographer’s Market will help you to make intelligent decisions about which pictures and articles to send to the various editors.

2. Web Photography

The Web is the easiest place to get your photos published.

Websites are constantly in need of photos to showcase on their web sites. Different types of web sites require certain genres of photography.

Web sites use low-resolution images, which means you don’t need an expensive, high-megapixel camera, and you don’t have to worry about unauthorized usage in other media since printed media requires higher-resolution images than typically found on the Web.

For example, an office site will require images of people in office settings, equipment, or images conveying a work environment, whereas a website offered by a travel agency will depict images of exotic cultures and open-air market settings of different countries.

Real estate agents, tourist/convention-and-visitor bureaus, and companies in the tourism industry are also often looking for good travel photos.

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Preethi Burkholder is a professional grant writer and author of ten books. Learn more about at Gifted Hands Writing.