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

[Cora]

I have Canon camera and I love taking photos. I really love photographing nature, animals, and football. I am in yearbook at my school and I enjoy taking photos of sports. I have a lot of questions! Can you help me with some of them?

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

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.

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...

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.

Thanks for all the help!!

[Keating]

1. I don't upload my photos to a website and directly sell them online. My photos are sold in person with my client. So I can't really give you any ideas there. You'll have to do the research on your own and Google it. A lot of photographers use different sites to display their clients' images so that they can order them online. SmugMug is one I hear about often.
http://www.smugmug.com/

2. You need to figure out how to use the programs you have available to you. I use PhotoShop CS6 and turned my logo/watermark into a brush that I can just paste onto my photos. It makes it a million times easier. YouTube is great at helping with things like that. Word is a very basic program and isn't going to do what you want it to do. It's for word documents, not photographs.

3. I have everything. A Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, website, Pinterest, Flickr, etc. Having an online presence is HUGE. But not only do you need an online presence, you need to be out there in your town and meet people face to face.

4. Don't move onto weddings until you have a lot of experience in families and portraits. You need to be able to think quickly and pose groups well. Slowly move yourself into it. You're going to have to be very flexible if you want to work in the industry. Not everything will be right in your town. You need to be open to travel here and there.

Hope this helps!

[Harold Pack]

I have Canon 5D2 that's good camera...

I add watermark to my photo always, you can also try this software: http://www.watermark-software.com/

[Rick]

Good luck with your dream. You can do it if you really want it. Now for your questions.

I want to sell some of my photos online. Do you know any good sites to do that for free or cheap?
It's very unlikely that you will make any money doing this. You can try micro stock sites like istock.com

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.

A lot of software has ways to water mark. It's rather simple in Photoshop. Don't worry too much about watermarking. It's just a distraction.

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...
Don't worry about that yet. All you are doing on most of the sites is getting likes from people for the fun of it. It will not help you make a career.

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.

You can do whatever you like as long as you are talented, determined and smart. Just learn about photography and find your way. If you like shooting sports it's a long way from weddings. The wedding/portrait business is a world unto itself. You can be a sports photographer, shoot commercially and within that there are hundreds of specialities. Just shoot and learn. Good luck.

[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.