Are my photos good enough to sell?

The23rdman said:
I look at stuff I did when I first started and laugh at it. It was niave and flawed. My latest stuff I think is much better, but I know damn well I'll look at it in 6 months and think it's trash. When I can look back in 6 months and think the shots I took were of a high standard then I'll think about selling them.
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Honestly, enter the photographer of the year comp here. It really forces you to improve. It helped my photography greatly.
 
Byker28i said:
Honestly, enter the photographer of the year comp here. It really forces you to improve. It helped my photography greatly.
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That's a good idea. I've never even considered entering the comps here.
 
Often what sells has more to do with how good you are at sales and marketing than how good your pictures are. I often look at the work of some pros and wonder how they manage to make a living at it. There are amateurs out there (and on here) who are far more talented. I suppose if you tell enough people you are good, some might believe you. It's all subjective after all. Lord knows, I've sold some stuff that I think is average at best that the customer has been delighted with. I suppose what I am saying is 'get out there and have a go'. Someone, somewhere may like what you do to the extent of giving you money for it.
 
AliB said:
OK ,let's have a look at these since you were kind enough to post them.

#1. There is no focal point and the horizon is wonky. It is also half way down the image which does it no favours in terms of composition.
#2. There is a bit of building sticking out on the left of the frame and the whole building looks like it going backwards because of those converging verticals. That said because of the nature or the tower you can almost get away with it. Won't work on most buildings. Look at the angle of the building on the right! The tower sort of appears from nowhere on the left too.
#3 yeah, it's a train. Slightly slow shutter but it does nothing for me due to the lack of a focal point.
#4 Again, no focal point, it's some light coming through some trees and has rather a lot of lens flare.
#5 suffers from blown highlights in the sky, random people in the foreground and a whole lot of orange fencing by the tower.

Tim, none of these are sellable images I'm afraid. They do show some imagination on your part but I'm afraid my hands would be firmly in my pockets if these were in front of me.
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Hello AliB, Hope you don't mind my leaping into this thread in respect of your response to Bombermans original post. I am completely new to photography and to this forum and have been fascinated by this topic. Particularly I would like to ask your advice to help me with my own photography. My main subject will be sport/action shots but I will also do a lot of more general stuff too and, with this in mind photo's #1 #4 and #5 taken by Bomberman are precisely the sort of shots that I would/will take and if I had taken these then I would be really pleased with the outcome. However, your experienced eye and comments now tell me that I will need to be doing something different. For instance, you say that in pic #1 there is no focal point and that the horizon is wonky. I am aware of the thirds rule and can see that this horizon does not fall on a third line but am having difficulty in seeing how it is wonky, if you were to take this shot would you opt for more sky or more water? Would you opt for sky and make the bridge the focal point and how would you ensure that it isn't wonky? In pic #4 again you state that there is no focal point, Would that problem be overcome by bringing more of the large tree on the left into view, if not and you were in the same spot and wanted the picture what would you do? With regard to pic #5, are you generally happy with the photo but would have expected to see the problem areas that you have indicated processed out with some editing prior to presenting the picture? I really to want to learn and asking questions such as this will help me a lot I think, I hope that you don't think that I have come in a bit on the basic side but I am totally new. Thanks for any input from yourself or anyone else for that matter.
 
Hi Bluenose, no problem at all in attempting an answer, my apologies for the lateness, been away shooting a wedding and had guests over too! Phew....

OK in the first one the giveaway on the horizon in when you scroll up and down on the pic. If a horizon is level it should line up on the PC screen and this does not. :) It really can be that easy! How would I improve it? Well, I have to say I would probably not have shot it in the first place. (and I don't mean to be derogatory when I say that) It's the lack of a focal point or a lead line to take the view into the bridge. I'm left wondering what I'm supposed to be looking at....is it the bride or is it the clouds? What was the intention of the shot because it is not clearly communicated. (perhaps I'm just a simple soul)

#4 Again, missing a focal point, what am I supposed to be looking at because the dominant feature of this pic is actually the lens flare. It's a hard one to correct compositionally and the only thing I can think of that would make it a stand out shot would be shafts of light coming through the trees, For that it's a case of shifting feet and seeing if you can get good directional light streaming through from the left or right. That wouls work because that would be the focal point.

#5 is a shot I just would not bother taking. Why? because I can't do anything about the horrible orange fencing. Come back when it's not there is the answer. Early morning or late at night when you don't have people roaming around in the frame too and the light is at it's best.

I hope the OP does not mind me posting this. I really don't think Bomberman is a mile off, just needs to read up on composition and get some practice in. He's only had the camera a couple of months and I'm not too old to remember that it took me 6 months to learn a 20D, another 6 for a 5D and yet another 6 for a 1Ds. It takes time to get familiar with them so take the time and have some fun and in the meantime study pics you like and read some books.
 
You have some really nice shots - so get them OFF flickr - or you'll find anyone who wants them will just nick 'em! At least watermark them.
 
Byker28i said:
I think we'd all like to make a little money from our hobbies, but the thing is finding the niche. Out of all the markets for photographs ad-hoc sales seems to be the worse route.

The normal ways are probably wedding, portraits, events or of course, catch a celebrity with their boobs out or snorting coke. Now that's a money making, life changing photo.

The trouble with digital photography is that there are lots of similar photos around, most of them for free, just look at the BBC - rarely have to pay for photo's. How many photos on Flickr - 2 billion?

See as fellow 'togs, we're not saying they are crap photo's, just honestly answering the question "are they sellable".

Lets be honest here, friends and family are the worse people to judge/encourage - otherwise X-Factor wouldn't have a show :D
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very true

and as a caveat to the OP...first you must find a (potential) buyer
i have been a wannabe for so long my shutter finger aches
now i relax, do 6x4 prints of specialist subjects like...MY family
and on holidays...spend hours after returning home deleting 'winners'

one must be real(y)
 
mrcrow, sorry but i think that's a defeatist attitude. Nobody ever got where they wanted by "being real" in the way that you describe it. Reality is different for all of us and it's quite sad that you delete the winners.

AliB, how can you tell that the horizon is wonky with all the buildings on it? I would have said that the water line of the river behind the bridge is a better indicator which looks pretty straight to me :)
 
OK having looked at it again since the building on the right is taller than the one on the left i thought that might have been an illusion, but i think the only TRUE indicator of horizontal plane on this pic is where the pillars holding up the bridge intersect with the water level. How else are you going to tell?
 
#1 is low on the left mate. The horizon line, the buildings, and the clouds give it away. As already said though, there are more important things to concentrate on.

Nearly all my shots come out slightly off straight, two seconds in Lightroom and they're right though. It's just a little presentation point, and isn't going to make or break a shot.
 
Frankly no one on this forum can speak for everyone who will ever visit your site. If you want to know if your images will sell then set up a site and find out your answer. I'm not a huge fan of HDR but I know some people really like the look. The tube one I have seen one very similar selling at magnum photos.

Some of the compositional tips in this thread are still useful though.
 
Who is your market? For me, and I am sales and marketing, not so much a photographer, you haven't picked a specific genre and gone for out - there is a real mix there. You need to define what you market might want images of.
For instance, one of our employees had a local shop stocking his landscapes - framed up, ready to hang. This is far more lucrative than trying to sell prints over the internet.
For a start - who would even know your images were there, if you have money to spend on marketing.
Likewise another friend's son has an independant shop selling his images.

I would take your images to the place where they would sell (your mate's shop?) and ask HIM if he thinks they would sell, as a finished product.

L
 
I think, looking at the examples in the first page of the this post, who's going to buy those pictures. No doubt friends and families will be impressed, but there's nothing ground breaking that we haven't seen before. You need to find something unique and sort your marketing if you seriously want to sell pictures.
 
OK thanks i do get it now - just because it's a nice pic doesn't mean someone will want to hang it on their wall.

In a way, going out just to take pictures that i think people might want to hang on the wall seems a bit limiting so i'll just carry on as i am taking pics of things that interest me. I'm sure i'll cut a niche in time :)
 
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