Do you love to travel? Is there anything better than throwing your belongings in a bag and heading off into the great unknown? Maybe you live for the weekend when you can visit amazing locations like The Lake District or the Highlands of Scotland? Perhaps you can't wait to get on your next airplane and jet off somewhere luxurious and where the sun shines bright. If you have the travelling bug, you probably take a camera with you. Or at least make use of the decent lens on your smartphone. How would you like to make money with travel photos? This could help fund your trips or give your a little bit more in that dream destination fund for that big trip you're saving for. And you don't have to worry if you don't have advanced photo editing skills. All you need is basic photo editing know-how such as knowing how to remove unwanted objects or changing the image background to make them more aesthetic.
Let's have a look at how to make money with travel photos.
Make A Blog
If you do a lot of travelling, have you considered getting yourself a blog? No only will you be able to document all of your adventures, it is somewhere you can upload your images to. When you write about your travels, other people will be interested. Consider informative and entertaining titles that will pull in a reader. Top tips when travelling in Prague. Hot spot destinations in Los Angeles. How to stay safe when travelling alone in Alaska.
These types of articles will inform other people who are considering travelling to these places. Also those who could only dream of that type of travel. One of the huge plus point is that these articles and photos will also pull in advertising revenue. You can get paid whenever someone visit your site. So even if you're on an airplane or catching up on sleep because of jet lag, you could be earning an income. Check out these 5 steps to earning money blogging.
Go Down The Influencer Route
Great photos aren't always taken by great photographers. With the accessibility of photography today, anyone can be a photography influencer. Simply market yourself and your images with the right hashtags and key words and you can soon become Instafamous. This will mean that you have a large following, one that brands will want to pay you to tap into. If you are loving living life in the wanderlust zone, you could charge companies to sponsor your content or for you to wear some of their clothing in one of your images. Some of the biggest celebrities do this day in day out. many of which haven't become celebrities via traditional methods. Take fantastic images of your travels that people will aspire to see themselves and you could make money with travel photos all year long.
Sell Stock Imagery
There are lots of stock imagery sites that would love to have your images. From Shutterstock to Getty Images, if you manage to capture incredible photos, you can sell the rights to them via one of these photo selling sites. They could be basic photos of hard to reach places that companies would rather pay for than try and get themselves. Or incredible situations at well known tourist places. Imagine capturing a rainbow over The Angel Of The North in the sunshine. Or snow on top of Buckingham Palace. That's just in the United Kingdom! The world is your oyster and if you capture great photos you can make money with your travel photos by selling them on stock photography sites.
Run A Photography Tour
Do you have a place that you love to visit over and over again? It could be a set of fells in the Lake District. Maybe you have found the perfect points for great shots in Cornwall. You might know the Snowdonia Mountains like the back of your hand. If you love taking photos of that place, why not use that knowledge and run photography tours? Your images will speak for themselves and if people love them, they might pay for you to take them to those destinations.
If you're running a business like this you might need to look into insurance, however it will be well worth suggesting to participants that they have their own insurance too. This could be a weekly or monthly thing that you organise, with limited people on each tour to keep it extra special and unique. For full days you could expect to charge at least a couple of hundred pound per person. Your photography knowledge and imagery that people see from these places, starts to make your cash.
Sell To Newspapers
Have you considered selling photos to newspapers? So many times people take photos and upload them to Twitter about a breaking news story and newspapers get in touch asking if they can use the image. They need content. Never forget that they need content from people just like you. Don't give it to them for free! They charge people to advertise with them and pay staff wages so they have budget to pay you! It could be that you are at a festival and captured a key moment of the set. You might be on a march in London and take a photograph that sums up the feeling and atmosphere of that situation.
Sometimes you just find yourself in the right place at the right time. Take the right photograph and it could be on the front of national newspapers and all over news sites online. Whilst putting some money in your back pocket. You might get more success working with an agent but they will take a cut of the payment. Sometimes the best photographs are those you simply capture in the moment. They can be the times you make money with travel photos.
Now you know how to make money with travel photos, where will you beheading off on your next trip? Whether it's by train, plane or boat, pack your camera, plenty of batteries and a couple of SD cards and you could be making money with every push of the shutter button. It could be a few extra pounds in your travelling trip bank account or it could become a whole new career for you. Travelling around, enjoying holidays, taking photos and living a dream life. Sounds pretty awesome to us!