Showing posts with label graphic arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graphic arts. Show all posts

Friday, April 9, 2010

Start A Photo Business

Artistic minds come in all shapes and forms. Some enjoy photography. Others may enjoy web graphics or 3D design. There are many fields in the graphic arts and design world. Those that love the graphic arts may function at a level as a hobbyist or a professional. Whatever you enjoy can be turned into a photo business to make a little extra cash or perhaps develop into a booming business. Education training in the arts is beneficial but not necessary. All one needs is an active imagination and creativity within themselves.
One also does not need expensive equipment to startup a business in the graphics arts and photography. A simple point and shoot camera can take some pretty good shots if done correctly. Digital cameras are now also fairly inexpensive to achieve a decent pixel sized photo. There is also free open source image editors such as the Gimp to touch up photos. Inkscape is another open source program to create illustrations and vector art. Whatever you create can become a potential sale. Art is partly about being experimental. Some of the coolest art work is created unintentionally.

Now I will tell about myself and how my interest came to rest in the graphic arts. Many years ago I purchased a used computer that came with Microsoft Picture It! It was the very basic version of the software. I loaded some pics into it and was fascinated with the simple effects that the program produced. Since that day I wanted other little goodies and tools to become more creative in the computer arts. I bought my first camera which was a mere three megapixels. Digital cameras back then were quite expensive. I was happy though and clicked away at nearly everything i saw. As time passed on I accumulated better tools and software according to budget. Then I decided I wanted to publish some of my work. I searched the internet for sites where one could sell their photos and artwork. Most of the sites required that your work be approved before they would even allow you to publish it. On top of it all the earnings were not that profitable once the site took its cut. I thought that was the end and that I would have to pull a fortune out of my pocket for a commercial website just to sell photos.
However, my constant habit of googling caused me to accidently stumble up on a site that was free to join and also for everyone to join. The Clustershot website
does not have restrictions on the types of work that are submitted except for inappropriate content. It is a great way for someone new to a business venture in selling art and photos. They also take a small percentage of a cut which is very generous compared to the high end micro stock sites. The seller is able to also set their own prices on their work which is a bonus. I do believe that this site will become very big in the near future and perhaps bump all those other major photo stock sites down the search engine. You can also sign up for a Pro account for a very reasonable price which is good for one year. The pro accounts allows you to manage your own little store within the site which is pretty cool.
Though this store is yet small there is a wide variety of photographs and artwork. There are also many unique never before seen pieces of work.
Finally, one does not even need a website to sell their photos and artwork on clustershot.com. As with any online store or website, always remember to submit your url to the search engines. A small business starting out can take some time to build traffic. Finding free advertising and market research is very time consuming. However, if you google enough times there is always an answer for your questions regarding setting up a small business.

I hope that this article can be of some inspiration. Good luck on your journey!

Note: below is another source of link referrals to drive traffic to your website. There is a free and and paid membership for this service.