subject: Ways To Start Your Own Digital Photographic Business! (part Six) [print this page] Your own digital, photography based, home business could start here. . .
* PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTICLES. This involves a bit of writing. You can write about the photograph, or use a photo to illustrate your article. This market is changing too, instead of having to be a recognised journalist, you can now supply the market. A lot of web based news mags welcome material from its viewers, as do tv companies, well known manufacturers. The whole are of reporting has changed. Which means more opportunity for you.
* COMPETITIONS. You can not only make money here but win lots of cool stuff. There are professional competition entrants out there who have won lots of cash, holidays and loads of other stuff. Why, because they are always entering. Good thing is these days its all online, you don't have to carry a ton of magazines back from the newsagent! Get cracking.
* PORTRAIT. Here is another lucrative market. Family portraits, babies, pets. Don't forget to offer 'paintings' on canvas! A mobile portrait service is a good idea, not only for families, but businesses too, sporting arenas, car shows, motorcycle shows, the beach. Instant portrait service!
* RESTORING. Old cracked and grainy photographs can be given a new lease of life when scanned in to a computer. A lot of people have these photos of old relatives in drawers and cupboards that they would like to pass on to younger family members. Make old memories new for your customers. Advertise in supermarkets, shops, over fifty press, they are out there.
* BUSINESS EXTERIORS. Go into any hotel, restaurant or bar and you will see a photograph on the wall. With your computer you can offer much more than just a straight photograph. Any artistic interpretation that you want, printed on any number of speciality paper. From canvas to film, from metal to silk. I'm sure you could come up with something striking that lends itself to your subject.
* GUIDES. Another writing/photographing assignment. Do you know good walks, cycling routes, good places to fish? Is there anything historical near you? Lots of guide books and travel writers in the bookshop. Take a bus trip, take pictures and write a few words. Offer it to local shops at a discount, or on sale or return. Or offer it online for a download.
* AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY. I don't mean flying in a plane, but good aerial shots can be gotten using other methods. Cameras are lighter and better now, most do video, its easy to run through video now frame by frame and print out individual scenes. Kites, model aeroplanes and helicopters, helium filled balloons, rockets. There are numerous ways to get a camera into the sky, you may have a lot of editing to do, but it will be worth it to find that great view. People, businesses buy aerial shots. Artistic skyscapes are unusual subject matter.
* MAGAZINES. There are so many magazines on the shelves now, from general subjects to specific interests. Do any of them interest you? You can submit photos and or short stories to any of them. Find out how they like their submissions to be made and submit away. Try the smaller magazines first, where the competition may be a little easier.
* NEWSPAPERS. As above search out the publication you feel an affinity to and then search out stories. Check out the local press for ideas, follow up on quirky or unusual stories, redo them in your own style and with your own photos and submit them to national papers, or online agencies.
* BOOKS. Books need illustrations and don't forget with a computer and some software you are not limited in what you can provide. Check out the book market, see what books appeal and start creating fantasy images that could illustrate the cover of the latest science fiction masterpiece. Someone does it, why can't it be you?
This is just to get your creative juices going and your brain storming with ideas! The internet has opened up a never ending need for images, of anything and everything. Stock photography has changed, gone are the highly professional, large format shots of models and beaches, that had to be technically perfect, well they are not gone, but they are not the only opportunities for aspiring photographers who want to make a living with their hobby, their passion. Images that you would'nt believe started life as a photograph end up everywhere these days and the ability to transform these images is available to everyone, and in the comfort of their own home.
Don't forget a lot of well known high street businesses started life on a kitchen table, why not yours?
