Are you a shutterbug with an eye for aesthetics? Photography can earn you a passive income.

If you are passionate about photography, you can look forward to making some serious money out of your favourite hobby. Possessing skill or talent in a field is an important prerequisite to earning a passive income.

How do you Earn Passive Income from Photography?

It’s possible to turn your hobby into a money-making proposition without having to slave at it all day. Here’s how:

• First, develop your photography skills in a particular area of expertise. For example, you could consider specialising in wildlife or nature photography.

• Do some research on your target market: For example, if you want to specialise in business photography, find out how photographs will sell for, the best sizes and finishes etc.

• If selling individual images earns you less money (online images often sell for less than £1), then consider selling a group of photographs in a zip file. For example, you can sell ‘Exploring Africa’ or a ‘Trip to Disneyland’. This is likely to be more lucrative and fetch you a decent sum.

• Remember to watermark your photos. Watermarking helps prevent unscrupulous users from downloading your images for free.

• Get a clear idea about earnings and costs involved. There is a big market for online photography but you should have an idea of how much you can hope to earn. Fortunately, digital cameras do not require film rolls etc so the investment is nil; you do need to invest time though.

• Speak about your work and your expertise in photography through blog postings. Answering queries requires a minimal investment of time and it will help forge a link with clients.

Selling to Online Stock Photo Sites

You can sell photos to an online stock photography site such as Fotolia, receiving a commission payment for every file sold. This is an extremely effective way of building up a regular passive income stream for very little time and effort.

Wedding Photography

One of the most lucrative streams of photography is wedding photography. Everyone loves a good wedding album and they also love posting the images on social media and sending it to loved ones. You can consider taking on well-paying assignments now and then, in addition to posting your images on photography websites.

Real Estate Photography

Real estate agencies love marketing fancy brochures with glossy images of homes, apartments and cottages. If you are good at photography, you might want to offer your images to real estate agents for a reasonable fee.

Have you found a way of making money with your photographs that we haven’t covered? Leave a comment to share it with us!