Selling digital photography to stock photo sites or selling photos over the internet can be a very profitable business if you know all the nuances that will get you a good amount of sales. Learning the technical aspects is very important, and really paints the fine line between making money and wasting your time. I don't mean to discourage anyone, because it should be conveyed that anyone with a digital camera, an internet connection and a little spare time can do quite well. I will say that a good prerequisite feature to have in order to start is the love for digital photography. If you are going to take hundreds of pictures you better be enjoying yourself. With that being said, there is one factor that can be hard for beginners who are just starting, and that is finding a good profitable photography theme.
A lot of people sell their freelance photos through stock photography sites or through their own page/web host without a particular theme and do fairly well, but I will take more time and effort. A better battle plan is to find a particular type or subject of digital photography that you can easily focus on. It might be hard to think of one specific subject that you are able to take hundreds of pictures of, but it is probably easier than you think. To clarify, I do not mean subject in the sense of taking a ton of digital pictures of one thing or entity. If your subject was "chair" (for example) you can take pictures of anything that has to do with chairs, not just one particular chair you find in your house.
Why Choose a Photography Theme?
To explain further what picking a theme really does for photography sales, it helps consumers easily find what they are looking for when they type in specific descriptions or set of keywords. This benefits you because if a consumer types in your specific subject there is a good chance that it will bring them directly to your freelance photography. If you just had tons of random themed pictures, then they might get lost by another photographers pictures that have stronger amount of keywords of the same subject. If you don't already have the program called
Camera Dollars, then labeling and specifying keywords is something you have to learn, but this tool will help you. And after you read the Camera Dollars lessons, you need to sign up with these companies and do a bit of research in order to figure out a profitable theme to pick for your photography.
The Method of Taking Digital Pictures as a Theme
The first type of theme or motif to talk about is types of photography that deal with the method of taking pictures. These can be very basic themes that are sometimes very saturated, and very competitive. Picking a type of photography is usually the method of getting a theme based on the way you take the photos, and, not necessarily, what the pictures are of. Some examples are: Macro, scenery, black and white, geometric, architecture, abstract, micro, motion, portrait, panoramic, and I could go on for two more pages. These subjects of photography are usually known by almost all digital photographers so they can be very popular subjects. Instead, I recommend adding these themes as sub-context to a more niche subject of photography. For example: instead of the theme "Waterfalls," you could have "Panoramic Waterfalls." This will help people easily find what they are looking for.
Nominal Objects
The second type of digital photography theme is based on actual nominal things or subjects. This means it can be any object, place, or person. It might be a theme based on taking pictures of lamps, cement, paintings, glass, circular objects, etc. To think of what subject would be best for you remember to keep in mind that it should be something that you can easily have access to or find. So don't use the theme "Palm Trees" if you live in Canada. Try to think of original objects or places that people may see everyday but take for granted. It may not seem like the most excited thing to do is take pictures of your kitchen but it may be a worthy niche or motif.
Basing a Theme off of the Consumer
To take another look at this dilemma, you could take in account what people are going to be buying your freelance digital photography for. Are they going to use it for graphic design, web design, brochures, advertisements, magazines, or something else? To anticipate what buyers are going to use your photos for is another way to define your theme. You could cater to specific job and use keyword descriptions to attract buyers and give purpose to your digital photography. For example, a lot of the time graphic designers want simple pictures with matte backgrounds in order to crop the objects/images they want. They might want something as simple as leaves on a white background. In this case you might want to call this theme "Graphic design foliage."
Intangible Themes
Finally the last subject or type of theme is the intangible theme. These are themes that don't actually exist in one form or thing and they can be represented by anything. Examples of intangible themes are: freedom, love, protection, causality, hate, anger, pretend, or just think of any human emotion and that could be a theme. This might be a little trickier to think of pictures to take in order fulfill this criterion. But just pick a topic and dissect the meaning of the word. For example, if you use the theme "love," you could take a pictures of two people holding hands or doing something to convey the emotion, it's really up to you. Just make sure that your photo clearly conveys the meaning of your theme.
Mixing up Themes
Your digital photography doesn't have to be specified by just one form. Any of these three types of subjects can be put together to make an even more specific category of photos. An example of mixing two themes would be like "Motion and friendship," which can be a picture of two friends doing some activity together or otherwise being in the state of "motion."
This is just a set of guidelines for getting your first theme. Don't think that you will only have one theme your whole picture taking career (unless it's a very profitable one). You could have hundreds of themes by the time your done, but it is better to focus on a few at a time. Do your research and find out what the world needs more pictures of. And in order to learn about how to sign up or start your own business, we offer resources that you are going to need in order to get started, check out the link we mentioned before and go to
Stock Photography.