How To Make More Money From Digital Photography Online

This is a question that all photography lovers will ask themselves at some time or another. Even professional digital photographers will at some point need to have a think about where their photography businesses is going. So the question that needs to be addressed is just how can we make more money from digital photography online.

It doesn't really matter whether you are a professional photographer or an amateur, you only have to spend your time doing what you love most in order to make money from digital photography online, and these following tips will help you make the most out of your photography business.

What you are about to learn will help your business to flourish whether you are selling digital photography online through stock photography sites, or even to your local market place, so let's discover just what you are actually able to do to sell more of your photography work.

1) Do more online marketing.

All of us fail here at some stage or another, so you need to sit down and take a look at where you are at and what you should do to market your photography more effectively. Use a mind map so you can clearly see how your business is currently making money, and focus your marketing efforts on those elements that produce most income. Build a web site around the work that sells most, and then market your web site to a wider market. You may need help from a professional Internet marketer, but you will soon see your photography business grow 10 fold in a very short time.

2) Write an online photography guide.

So you're a great photographer, and have picked up a lot of tricks and useful knowledge along the way, so this could be your chance to put pencil to paper and produce your very own photography online guide. There are so many people out there who are just yearning to learn your photography skills, and the best way to market that guide would be to include it on your brand new web site. Your newly attained marketing skills will also help you to promote the photography guide to a world wide audience, so you can market it for just a couple of bucks. Include a monthly update subscription too, which will allow your income to grow even more.

3) How about giving photography online courses.

Now, have you ever thought about being a teacher? It doesn't sound very glamorous, but apart from just teaching locally you can also get out there on the Internet once again, and offer a step by step digital photography online course. Once again you are able to turn your photography knowledge into something you can share with a very wide audience, and you would be amazed at just how many people are turning to online courses today. You could offer courses from beginners to advanced, and don't forget to include a few lessons about how to make money from digital photography online.

Now as you can see, there is a whole new market out there who not only want to buy your photography work, but also want to learn from you. So just follow my advice, and you will soon have a really thriving photography business.

Digital Versus Film Photography

Most people today own a digital camera. The superfluous number of models on the market has made photography a hobby and activity that is no longer restricted to the professional. Further, with social networking websites and the online world, digital photos are easily shared and stored. But as with most technological developments that signify a departure from traditional or longstanding practices, a dialogue has emerged as to the benefits of digital versus film photography. The portability and ease of the digital camera makes it a more popular amateur photography option. However for professionals, there is still an argument as to the merits of both film and digital photographic cameras, with both versions still in use today. Here's a quick rundown of the advantages of both digital and film photography.

Advantages of digital photography

1. Instant review of pictures. Digital cameras allow photographers to assess the lighting and composition of their work immediately after taking a photograph. If need be, they can simply recapture the image.
2. Fewer ongoing costs. Once a digital camera has been purchased, it costs very little to take, and store, hundreds or even thousands of digital photographs.
3. Various functions and settings. Digital cameras can be used to capture videos as well as photographs, and there are a number of settings through which the photographs can be taken, such as sepia and black and white.
4. Metadata. Digital cameras are embedded with metadata. The time, date and model of camera are all recorded with the image and form part of the image's memory.
5. Digital manipulation. Once a digital photograph has been transferred from the camera to the computer, it is easy to digitally manipulate, retouch or affect the image.

Advantages of film photography

1. Better to capture detail. Film photography can pick up and capture greater variations between light and dark, making black and white film photography preferable to digital.
2. Photo quality. Film cameras produce photographs with higher definition than digital photography. For larger photographic prints, film cameras produce much higher definition and clarity than their digital counterparts.
3. Cost. For amateur or hobby photographers, digital cameras are affordable, easy to use and perfect for capturing special moments. For the professional, however, quality film cameras are significantly cheaper than their digital counterparts. Furthermore, because new digital models are continuously hitting the market, digital cameras tend to lose value rather quickly while film cameras usually retain their value over the years.
4. Aesthetics and tradition. Many photographers vouch for an aesthetic quality to film photography that cannot be replicated by digital cameras. Such advocates are also often drawn to the tradition and history of film photography.

There are pros and cons to both film and digital photography. For many photographers, however, the final decision rests on their personal style and their budget. Or, many dabble in a little bit of both! To find out more about photography and the differences between digital and film, there is a range of photography courses available. If you don't have time to attend classes, it is possible to study via distance education and learn the ins-and-outs of the trade on your own time.

Beach Photography

One of the most photographed scenes in the world is the beach scene. The reason is that (a) the locale is beautiful by nature, (b) people are usually relaxed and having fun and are not "stiff" and (c) a combination of the first two reasons. This means that beach photography can be either landscape or portrait photography or a combination of both.

Unlike most other forms of photography, beach photography is about movement. The water is always in motion and if this plays a major part in the composition, you have to be able to balance this movement with the stillness of the rest of the image. The best way to do this is to keep the amount of motion in mind. If there is crashing surf, you will be best served by limiting the amount of surf in your composition or it may overshadow the non moving parts. The less the water movement, the more of it you can include in your compositions.

In beach photography, light is not always your best friend. We are accustomed to seeing bright sunlight in beach photos. But remember that if there is white sand, it can cause a lot of glare and result in stark high contrast photos that do not capture the feel of the beach. As in all landscape photography, the best time to shoot is in the mornings and evening when the light hits the sand obliquely, resulting in less glare and harshness and thus warmer colors.

Don't despair if you are at the beach on a cloudy day. Using the "cloudy" setting on our camera you may be able to capture some great images that show the dramatic contrast between the gray clouds and water. Try taking black and white photos. And if it's not totally overcast, cloud formations against a blue sky with blue water in the foreground can result in dramatic effects.

When photographing objects or people on the beach, remember that you have a long flat unending background. Keep the focus on the subject and allow only as much background as is required for setting the tone or mood of the picture. Trying to do a "half and half" usually results in not doing justice to either the landscape or the subject.

If you are trying to capture just the openness of the beach, use a wide angle lens. The small lens will exaggerate the perspective and result in the background seeming to stretch away into the distance and thereby add a 3 dimensional effect to your photo. If you are shooting up the beach, the wide angle lens will let you keep everything, from the water in front of you to the rocky headland in the distance, in focus. If you want a person or object in the image to add a sense of perspective, remember that the wide angle lens will make the object seem more distant than it really is so compensate for this by moving closer to it.

Beach photography is really all a matter of perspective and the best way to learn how to use the flatness of the land and water to your advantage is to keep experimenting with distances and depth of field.