Turn Your Vacation Snapshots Into Cash

Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008

Learn more about making money overseas in International Living Postcards--your daily escape

To most travelers, a vacation is a time to relax, take in a few museums, enjoy coffee in an outdoor café, eat out, and meet new people. But to me, a vacation is also the ticket to some easy cash…

Take Paris, for instance. I enjoyed the cafés…the lavish meals…the leisurely strolls along the Seine. And I took pictures as I went--just like we all do when we're on vacation.

The big difference for me is that I don’t just slide my pictures into an album when I get home. I sell them. And the truth is, thousands of websites, magazines, and travel agencies buy vacation photos from travelers like me all the time. And it’s not hard to find buyers…

Online stock photo agencies, also known as “microstock sites,” are how I make most of my cash. Enough, in some cases, to cover the cost of my trip.

They’re happy to work with amateurs, but they do expect near-perfect photographs, so you’ve got to have a good digital camera and an eye for composition.

Travel agencies, magazines, art directors, and even high school kids looking for photos to illustrate their geography and history papers are all customers of these online stock photo sites. It doesn’t cost you anything to upload your vacation shots, and buyers can download whichever pictures they choose for anywhere between $1 and $20 a pop, depending on what size image they want.

You, in exchange, get a percentage of the sale. But the beauty of these sites is that 20 cents might not sound like a lot now, but I average 80 cents per image per month for all the photos I have on file at the stock agency I use, iStockphoto.com. The advantage is in sales volume.

Over time, I’ve collected several thousand images from my travels and even pictures from inside my hotel room and inside my house and backyard at home. I don’t have to do any marketing. I just upload photos and they sell in my sleep. At the end of the month, I get a check for a thousand or so dollars for my efforts.

It's fast, easy, and fun.

Here are three things you can photograph on your next trip to sell for stock. Keep these in mind when you travel and you can have fun, take lots of pictures, and make some extra cash, to boot.

1. Farmers’ markets. Farmers’ markets are teeming with stock shots...from the repeating patterns and colors of seasonal fruits and vegetables to signs scrawled in chalk and people picking out their wares.

Almost every online stock agency requires that you submit a model release for images that contain recognizable people, so I suggest you focus on the fruits and vegetables at first. Model releases are specific to each site, so get your account up and running before you try to submit people photographs.

2. Your hotel. One photo of a front desk bell has sold 1,021 times on iStockphoto.com. And I've sold photos of curtains, tassels, pillows, and more. Do some research and look up hotel pictures on these stock sites before you leave and take inventory of your competition. You can photograph the same thing--just be sure to make it unique. But look for what’s selling and what’s not. Put your attention on the type of photos that sell best.

3. Textures and patterns. People like to buy photos of simple textures or patterns to use as backgrounds for their websites, fine art on their wall, and a myriad of other things. Keep an eye out for these as you travel. Peeling paint, rusted metal, brick walls, cracks in the sidewalk, bark on a tree…can all make for interesting patterns and textures.

Make sure you read the site’s technical requirements and submission guidelines before you start uploading pictures. Some of the leading sites are: iStockphoto, BigStockPhoto, Shutterstock, and Dreamstime.

Shelly Perry
For International Living

Editor’s note: Shelly Perry specializes in lifestyle portraits. Her images have been seen all over the globe on CD covers, books, magazines, catalogs, websites, ad campaigns, and even on the American Music Awards. She’s a contributor to Turn Your Pictures Into Cash: A Comprehensive Program in Taking and Selling Amazing Photographs.