My dream is to be a Professional Photographer. Help me with some of my questions?

[Tim]

-I want to sell some of my photos online. Do you know any good sites to do that for free or cheap?

For prints, you can try sites like cafepress, smugmug, or photoshelter which are all cheap or free. Unless if you have really good marketing campaign to get people to your site, don't expect a lot of results. I have found most people will not buy prints online unless they see your work in a gallery first.

For stock, check out sites like dreamstime images or istockphoto.



-How do I add a watermark to my photos? I have tried doing this in word but whenever I add the watermark it goes straight onto the work document and not on the photo. I have adobe photoshop 11 but its sooo confusing.

Why on earth would you be using Word to work with images? Word is for text. Don't let you photos near it. Software like Lightroom and Photoshop both have the ability to easily add watermarks to your images. For Photoshop you will need to do it with actions. Elements will not allow you to create your own actions, and you will need the full version of Photoshop to do that, or you will need to download existing actions. Make sure not to overwrite the original photo.



-How can I get noticed as a photographer now? I have an instagram but I don't use it anymore because it kills my phone too quickly...

Getting noticed should never be a goal for a photographer. Photographers are not rock stars. You don't get noticed by a producer and then end up having people throw money at you. Your goals should be specific and typically related to sales figures. A bad goal is to get noticed. A good goal is for something more concrete like hitting a certain dollar amount in print sales for a given year.



-Any tips from photographers out there? I'd like to photograph weddings but I live in a really small town and I don't want to leave here. I'm open to other options for photography too I'm just not sure what all is out there.

Avoid weddings until you have more experience. If you lack the ability to photograph a wedding successfully you can really ruin one of the most important days of a couple's life. It takes thousands of dollars in equipment and hundreds of hours of practical experience to photograph a wedding successfully.