Five Ways To Make Money With A Digicam

Do you want to make some extra money?

If your answer is yes, then your photography skills combined with your digital camera can be a great way to put extra cash in your pocket. While you don't have to be a professional photographer to get started, solid photography skills, creativity, and basic business skills will help provide a strong foundation.

This article provides ideas for specialty photography ranging from pets and people to events and ceremonies. While the ideas are general, they can help jump-start your thinking about how to apply them to suit your interets, time, and the opportunities within your local community.

And, who knows, along the way, you may find a photography niche that becomes a continuing source of extra income and enjoyment.

This article offers five suggestions for earning money with your digital camera. But before you consider these or other ideas, you'll want to ask potential customers and other photographers lots of questions and research existing services. Here is a checklist that includes a few of many things that you'll want to consider in the early planning stages.

• Start by evaluating your camera and accessories. If your camera has a relatively slow response time and frame rate, then it's unrealistic to use it for action photography. But it may be fine for photographing slow-paced events such as award ceremonies and for taking online auction photos.
• What size prints will customers want and what is the largest print that you can make from your camera at high-quality settings? Whatever the answer is, it's important that your customers know in advance what to expect.
• How will you display pictures so that customers can review them and order prints?
• How will you provide high-quality, long-lasting prints?
• Will you provide prints only or prints and digital images to your customers?
• Will you need extra insurance to cover potential accidents, and will you need liability protection such as a standard form that clients sign?
• What will you charge? Many factors go into answering this question including the quality and components of the product you offer, your time and materials costs, and, of course, what price that the market will bear.

Along with these questions, consider how you will let people know about your new service. A little creative, home-grown marketing is usually enough to get the service started.

For most people, pets are beloved members of the family. Surprisingly, however, pets are seldom singled out for individual portraits, and they often are excluded from the family portraits. If you have a way with animals and the facilities to photograph pets, then pet photography may be a "natural" for you.

Considerations  Before blanketing the community with flyers advertising your new service, decide whether you want to photograph the full range of pets regardless of size and temperment. While you may love dogs and cats, ask yourself if you are prepared to get up close and personal with snakes, lizards, or spiders? And once you've identified the range of pets that you're willing to photograph, be sure to include it on your marketing materials.

Consider whether you want go to the subject's location or have the subject come to you. Doing photo sessions at your home or on your property allows you to control the setup, lighting, and backgrounds, but some pets don't acclimate quickly to unfamiliar surroundings. It's also good to ask the pet owner whether the pet is trained. Also ask the owner or a trainer will accompany the pet or be on location with the pet.

If you have pets of your own, plan ahead for how you'll deal with them during the photo sessions. If your pets interact with guest pets, it's a good idea to check with a veterinarian about potentially communicable diseases.

As with all photography, be sure that you are covered in case of an accident. And as an additional precaution, you may also want the pet owner to sign a liability waiver in advance.

Just because it look as if every parent at kids' sports event has a camera, it doesn't mean that they get good pictures of their kids. Parents are the first to say that it's hard to watch the game and get great shots of the kids at the same time. That's where you come in. For many parents, your presence means that they can enjoy the event and still get memorable pictures.

While many photographers already cover kids' sport events, thousands of events don't have dedicated photographers. In short, there are lots of photography opportunities in kids' sports.

Considerations  You'll get the best pictures if you can shoot from the sidelines and from the announcer's box, if there is one. Talk to coaches and officials beforehand to get permission and tips on keeping you and your camera gear out of harm's way.

Beyond having a fast camera, suitable lenses, and fast response times, you'll also need a way for parents and kids to review the pictures. It's become standard practice to post pictures on a Web site, either your own Web site or a site set up for this sort of photography.

The way you set up the site is important. To ensure all-important privacy and protection for children, sites must require a log-on and password. This allows parents and kids to view only a specific set of game pictures. Pictures are usually organized by date and team name. The site includes information on enlargement sizes and prices as well as a way for parents to order and pay for images. Also be sure to include details on turnaround and delivery time and your contact information.

Any kid's milestone event is a candidate freelance photography. By having a photographer at the event, parents have one less task to juggle, and they have more time to enjoy the festivities. Even if you only attend the party for an hour, you'll likely get more and better pictures than a busy parent would have time to take.

In addition, birthday parties offer an opportunity to sell photos to the parents of the birthday boy or girl as well as to the parents of the party guests.

Considerations  Fast action photography, such as birthday festivities, requires a responsive digital camera. If your digital camera has shutter lag, or a delay between the time you press the shutter button and the time the camera takes the picture, then this idea may not be the best photography opportunity for you. And because parties tend to be a jumble of kids and different activities, consider using a single zoom lens with a focal range that includes a moderate wide-angle (for group pictures) to a short telephoto (for individual portraits) focal length. Finally, depending on the venue, be sure that you can take full advantage of your flash unit.

You can carve a photography niche for yourself by photographing adult events. Opportunties include local sailing and rowing competitions, tournaments, retirement parties, walk-a-thons and marathons.

In adult events, the pictures you take may be the only images participants have to mark "personal best" or a personal milestone?whether they win the event or come in at the back of the pack.

At sponsored sports events, event organizers often hire one or more photographers to cover the event. But they may also be willing to have additional photographers present. Before the event, talk to organizers and explain you objectives. Let them know that plan to sell the images to participants. You'll find out soon enough whether they will allow you to photograph the event. If the event is a fund-raiser or for a charitable organization, you may want to donate a portion of your profits to the cause.

Adult life events offer additional photography opportunities. With the onslaught of baby boomers who are retiring or who are close to retirement, you can capture these milestones. Getting started is as simple as contacting local companies to offer your photography services at retirement ceremonies. You can also offer to photograph awards ceremonies, as well as morale, off-site, and other company events.

Online auction experts agree that one of the keys to selling items online is to have a clean, clear picture of the item being sold. This may sound easy to you, but not everyone can get a good, clear picture of the items they sell. This is an opportunity for you to provide photography for sellers. And you can set up a small portable natural-light studio fairly quickly and easily.

A good place to start with online auction photography is to decide the maximum size of items that you're willing to photograph. Also decide whether you want to photograph at your location or at the seller's location. And, of course, it's a good idea to have insurance to cover any possible accidents.

As you think about making extra money with your camera, consider donating your time and expertise to non-profit and charitable organizations. Local children's hospitals, homeless shelters, elder-care centers, schools, and other organizations will likely welcome your services.