Can an Independent Photographer Profit From Pictures?
I bought my first good camera, a Nikon, in 1965. I've been taking pictures ever since. Since 1970 my wife has also been contributing her artistic eye. We moved to digital several years ago and it is wonderful. The freedom from the cost of file and the decreasing price of larger and larger hard drives means taking more pictures is pain free!
However, it's not totally free and the idea of selling a few pictures or picture products on the web comes to mind. Successfully doing that requires website(s) with organic traffic, and software to handle sales. If you sell physical products you also have to deal with orders, packaging, shipping, returns and all the other issues of a mail order business.
On the other hand, it can all be done from home and improved software tools and online sales venues allow one person to fill roles that would have required specialists in past years.
Stock photos was the first idea that come to mind but when I did my initial research. However, it was easy to see I would never be able to build a website that would rank for that term. The large, established stock photo companies will always rank above everyone else.
I did some keyword research and found there are a reasonable number of searches for "long tail" picture related terms. Grand Canyon Pictures for example. I registered a bunch of key word domains like that and am building a network of sites to take advantage of the benefits of mini sites.
My research also indicated there are a lot more searches for sayings, verses, quotes, & proverbs than pictures. I think combining the two might make for an interesting and profitable business.
Below are listed the stock photo and photography related domains we have accumulated to test these internet marketing ideas. Our programmer has just completed writing custom code that will make it quicker and easier to upload our pictures and descriptions. We are still working out the best way to handle sales.
The choice is between using PayPal buttons and selling our products directly or using Smugmug and having them handle all the physical products. Probably we will need to test both to see what works best.
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A World of Roses
AWorldOfRoses.com This site displays pictures of roses in all their glory. Our plan is to offer prints, note cards, and other products based on these pictures. |
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All The Best Pictures
AllTheBestPictures.com |
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Antique Tractor Pictures
AntiqueTractorPictures.us was the best name I could still register for this subject. Obviously, lots of others find pictures of old tractors interesting. That isn’t surprising considering the number of farmers with fond memories of the machinery with which they started farming.
Farming has changed …
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Background Pictures
BackgroundImages.info
BackgroundPhotos.info
Background-pictures.net is where we expect to publish pictures we think would make good background material.
When graphic designers are creating new works they frequently need a sample of something to use as a starting point. For example, ...
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Backroads Online
BackroadsOnline.com will become a tax deductible way for us to indulge our love for the back country.
My plan for the site is to combine GPS data with pictures taken as we travel back roads and and photograph points of interest. ...
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Barn Pictures
Barn-Pictures.net This is currently a software testing site. Needs to be transitioned to actual Barn Pictures. |
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Beautiful Pictures
Beautiful-Pictures.net is where we plan to publish our best pictures.
Not all the photos we take are beautiful! A digital camera liberates the photographer from the cost of film and developing, but also makes it easy to assemble a large collection …
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Bird Pictures
Bird-Pictures.net is going to be hard for us to develop. Like everyone else we have been spoiled by the work of great nature photographers. They use powerful and expensive equipment we can’t match.
However, we have also learned that it you …
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Botanical Prints
BotanicalPrints.info Will need to do some research to see exactly what people searching on this term are looking for. |
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Butterfly Pictures
Butterfly-Pictures.org I will get some of these published soon. |
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Canvas Prints
Canvas-Prints.info Technology has come along and it is now possible to print photographs onto canvas at affordable prices. Software such as Alien Skin’s Snap Art means even a non-artist has a chance to create something beautiful.
This technology should be yet another way for a …
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Canyon Images
CanyonImages.com was a domain we picked up from a list of deleted domains we had seen published on one of the “Domainer” forums we frequent. We had been frustrated by our search for a good domain on which to display our pictures of the Grand …
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Chili Pepper Photos
ChiliPepperPhotos.com is part of our Chili domain collection. It will become part of the development of those websites and become a place for us to publish exceptional pictures of chili and chile themed scenes.
Since we live in …
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Christmas Photos or Christmas Pictures
ChristmasPhoto.info
ChristmasPicture.info
Christmas is a huge shopping time and millions of pictures of family are exchanged. I wanted a place to feature our photographs related to this wonderful time of the year but was a little late in figuring that out. ...
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Cow Pictures
Cow-Pictures.net
CowPictures.net
When we were doing our research about what kinds of pictures people search for we were surprised to find quite a few for cows. In retrospect, that doesn’t seem so surprising. Cows were a big part of the old …
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Cross Pictures
Cross-Pictures.com combines images from two themes. The cross is the symbol of Christianity and as such included in churches around the world. Churches also inspire some of the worlds best architectural innovation. Photographing these crosses, many of which are high in …
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Forest Pictures
Forest-Pictures.net
Forest-Pictures.com Forests cover a significant portion of the earths surface and are an interesting ecosystem. Lots of interesting cultural implications of living in a forest based culture. |
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Horse Pictures
Horse-Pictures.net The plan is to publish a collection of horse pictures for use on note cards, posters, etc. |
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Hot Pepper Photos
HotPepperPhotos.com This will make a fun site on which to publish and sell note cards, posters etc. made from pictures of hot chili pepper photo collages.
We have lots more Chili or Chile (The plant) related domains in the Chili/Chile Category....
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Ice Pictures
Ice-Pictures.com Ice forms amazing shapes, both man-made as in ice sculptures and natural formations such as glaciers. I plan to have photos of some of these available for use on note cards and/or posters. |
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Landscape Pictures
Landscape-Pictures.net Landscapes are probably the most photographed subjects on earth. I think some of our landscape pictures are exceptional and plan to offer them on cards, prints, or posters. |
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Less Traveled Roads
LessTraveledRoads.com will be a site that combines the words of this famous Thoreau poem with pictures of back county roads that are much less traveled.
New Mexico, USA has a lot of roads that are not maintained, with magnificent scenery in the background. The …
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Morning Has Broken
MorningHasBroken.us This is where I plan to offer my sunrise pictures with this saying superimposed on them for sale as pictures, prints or posters. |
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Motivational Prints
MotivationalPrints.org |
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Nutcracker Pictures
NutcrackerPictures.com Nutcrackers are obviously more interesting than I realized when I see they are turned into stamps for the USA 2008 Christmas season! We have collected a variety of antique nutcrackers and will be posting their pictures on this site. I think they will make nice …
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Old Adobe Homes
Old-Adobes.com
OldAdobes.com Searches for these terms get mixed up with all the Adobe Systems products. |
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Perpetual Calendar
Perpetual-Calendar.net This is another potential product for picture-sayings-posters combinations. |
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Photo Mugs
PhotoMugs.info |
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Photo Xmas Cards
PhotoXmasCards.info It’s interesting to see that xmas card searches are done less than one tenth as many times as Christmas card searches. More tham 120,000 month for Christamas card(s) and only 3,600 for xmas cards.
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Photos of a Rainbow
PhotosOfaRainbow.com This is a place for me to sell my rainbow pictures as note cards, prints or posters. |
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Pictures of Cats
PicturesOfCats.net |
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Pictures of Flowers
PicturesOfFlowers.net |
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Pictures of New Mexico
PicturesOfNewMexico.com With multiple ecosystems from hot desert to alpine tundra New Mexico, USA is a wonderful place to photograph. |
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Pictures of Spring
PicturesOfSpring.com |
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Pictures of Sunrise
PicturesOfSunrise.com This is a photography site where I publish some of my sunrise pictures. I like to add sayings, verses, or quotes to them and offer the pictures as cards or posters. |
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Pictures of Sunset
PicturesOfSunset.com Sunset pictures are easy to come by when you live in New Mexico, USA. I hope to share some of ours as cards, prints, or posters. |
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Pictures of Trains
PicturesOfTrains.net We get some trains in New Mexico, USA but it’s not the train mecca like Kansas City or Chicago. We do have the Durango and Silverton and Cumbres and Toltec steam trains in norther New Mexico and Southwestern Colorado. |
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Poster Prints
Poster-Prints.info and ArtPrintPoster.info I wasn’t sure exactly why this phrase was so popular until I looked it up. A search for it brings up lots of vendors selling prints of all kinds, made by enlarging photographs and printing onto exotic materials. It will fit …
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Promotional Mugs
PromotionalMugs.org About 8,000 monthly searches.
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Real Photo Postcards
RealPhotoPostcards.net Real photo postcards or RPPC as they are known on Ebay are a very popular item. They appeal to postcard collectors plus historians and genealogists looking for information about their own families. |
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Red Roses
Red-Roses.biz Red roses make an ever popular gift. We hope to publish some of our red rose pictures for digital download as well as cards, prints and posters. |
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Seashore Prints
SeaShorePrints.com Seashore prints are always popular, although we don’t see many since we live 800 miles from the nearest coastline. |
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Snow Pictures
Snow-Pictures.net Snow is interesting stuff. I am told the Eskimos have many words to describe all the variations of snow that are important to distinguish in their environment. We just think the way snow is molded into shapes by the wind is …
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Spring Pictures
Spring-Pictures.com Spring is a special time of the year and it’s fun to get out and take pictures. We think some of our spring pictures are good enough to publish as cards or posters. |
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Spring Flower Pictures
Spring-Flower-Pictures.com
SpringFlowerPictures.com The fact is, many of the best spring pictures are flower pictures. We decided we had enough good pictures to fill both sites. |
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Tree Pictures
Tree-Pictures.net Trees have some many dimensions just waiting to be photographed. We have taken pictures of needles, leaves, bark and as many other aspects as we could think of. We will get them published as prints, posters, or cards. |
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Western Prints
WesternPrints.info This should be a great name to use for selling posters and/or prints made from our extensive collection of pictures of the American Southwest. |
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Wildflower Artist
WildflowerArtist.com I can’t paint or draw but Alien Skin software has come out with a Photoshop plugin called “Snap Art” that applies a wide range of selectable filters to photographs to create brushstrokes and other artistic effects. I’m sure it won’t be as good as …
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Wild Flower Field Guide
WildFlowerFieldGuide.com I struggled with plant taxonomy many years ago and was never able to use the binary keys that were the only way to identify plants at the time. In the forty years since then I keep thinking that computers …
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Windmill Pictures
Windmill-Pictures.com Living in New Mexico we understand that water is precious. Windmills are a way to provide water to livestock grazing on miles and miles of low quality land. If the cows have to walk to far to water they walk off …
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Wood Pictures
WoodPictures.info I can have fun with this. Maybe even get some wood grain shots under the microscope. |