Learn The Easy Money Making Art Of Freelance Photography

Freelance photography, like any freelance or piecemeal work, requires dedication to the task and good organizational skills. This is because it is inherently less structured than a regular job and you must motivate yourself to get a full eight useful hours out of the day or whatever you know is necessary to earn a decent income. Like a sales job, you need to pursue many leads at once, even if they only bear fruit several months down the line. Placing an ad and getting immediate returns is not always possible.

Organisation is key in a money making freelance photography business. Do not simply leave previous work lying dormant in an non-descript folder on your PC. If you are called upon to reproduce old work, you need quick and easy access to it. Moreover, actively update your portfolio on a regular basis -- this way, if you are called upon to show your portfolio as representative of your technique, it will be up to date and useful to potential clients.

Customizable web galleries, in particular, are especially useful in this regard. The better ones allow you various tagging and filtering options. In this way, you can enter a keyword or click on a theme related to your previous freelance photography work and within a few seconds, all relevant work will appear.

The great thing about freelance photography is that many different subjects will sell. It is not only what you may see in the newspapers such as sports events, current affairs or famous people that you may fear you cannot gain access to. There is a huge market in stock photography -- even a picture of an apple or an orange can make you money. These types of pictures also have the added advantage that they do not date over time -- an apple will always be an apple! Magazines and other print media (and online media these days also) will always have a need for stock photography.

Regarding pictures of people in a studio -- it is standard practice to obtain what is known as a model release. This is a short written statement authorizing you to use pictures of the model in media as you see fit. Whilst it is a requirement throughout the freelance photography business, it is so routine as to not even be considered red tape, and you can find many standard model release example scripts on the internet. This is a small point but worth remembering if you want to avoid having useless photos after investment of your time in shooting them.

Much has been said about camera resolution and the size of your prints. These days, unless you are shooting poster size prints, it is not really a concern. A few years ago, when technology was in a less advanced state, freelance photography experts had to be careful that they were shooting with enough megapixel resolution. Today, you have so much resolution available that it is no longer a real concern. If in doubt, take a few sample pictures yourself before the shoot and blow them up to size. Also, check with the client if they have any particular requirements.