Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Making Money from Thanksgiving Photographs

Hmmm, sounds unrealistic, doesn't it--making money from your family's Thanksgiving dinner.

You can, though make money from the photographs you take at your Thanksgiving dinner.

Think about the photographs you've seen with respect to Thanksgiving.

As you can see, there are many examples you can find if you type "Thanksgiving dinner" into the Google image search engine.

Many of these are stock photos. Stock photography can be very lucrative as there are many shops set up where you can submit your photos online and get paid when people use them.

I offer some tips for taking stock photos here.

You have to remember the following if you're going to be photographing stock--

1. Your image needs to be absolutely clear at 100 percent of it's actual size.
2. You need to have releases for your subjects (people you're photographing).
3. You'll need to take some unusual shots, shots of subjects and objects from unusual angles and perspective.

With these tips, you're likely to gather some really great stock photos of the Thanksgiving dinner!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

How to Photograph Architecture and Make Money Doing It

Capturing images for use in the real estate industry requires that the photographer be skillful in composing a picture. And having good equipment helps too.

You'll want to consider various options when digital camera shopping--options such as how much the lens zooms and how wide and tall the frame of the picture will be through the lens. The easiest way to do this at the camera store is to simply look through the lens, zooming both in and out to see how you'll be able to frame an image taken with that camera.

It used to be a realtor was judged by the car he/she drove--a good omen if he/she drives up in a Beamer (that's BMW) and taking clients around with flare and style.

Nowadays realtors also may be judged by how good the images are on their Web site. This is where you can find work--seek out these people, go door to door to real estate agencies and hand out your card.

Realtors and builders also need photographs taken so that they can produce the leaflets that perspective clients will grab under the for sale signs of homes all over the world.

If you're considering a camera for this type of photography, you might want to look at the sub-thousand dollar model SLR (Single Lens Reflex, or a camera that lets you switch lenses) instead of the tiny boxes that contain upteen megapixels of fun, but many less options for indoor photography, the type of photography that is the lifeblood of the real estate business.

A Nikon D-70 or Canon Digital Rebel XT, both cameras costing a little over $800 have the options that realtors will need to take glamorous indoor photos with little effort. The sensor in the camera is bigger than in the point-and-shoot models (the little boxy cameras), so that you get more detail, an important factor in architectural photography.

For example, in order to take a good picture of an interior, the camera can be set to A-DEP mode (written the same way on the knob of the camera) before shooting away. The camera automatically focuses using multiple points within the frame of a picture so none of the picture will be blurred.

Some cameras don't have A-DEP mode, so instead set your camera to many focus points, then set your camera to aperture priority mode (Av mode) and use a large f-stop (f/11 or smaller). Set your camera on a tripod and start shooting. You won't even need a flash!

Last, every good real estate/architectural photographer has a wide angle lens. I have a 18-28 mm zoom. It can cover a very wide room inside and full house outside, which is just what your client will want.