There has never been a great time to be a photographer in Zimbabwe than now. With rapid advances in camera technologies and a competitive marketplace, you can purchase a superior camera for a reasonable cost. This fact, combined with the advancements in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, along with the rise of the Internet as a publishing platform for photographers, means that you can unlock the true potential of your digital photos

Photography was one of my very first home businesses. I focused mainly on weddings, parties, funerals and home portraits. Part of my work is still available on my wedding blog http://wedding-kiss.blogspot.com Today I rarely shoot weddings and functions. I have done only five wedding shoots from January 2012 to date. My business model has changed drastically ever since to be in line with the industry changes. Every Zimbabwean is now a photographer but few people desire to put the time and effort into producing good photography. A lot of weddings have been messed up by people who think themselves to be photographers not knowing that photography is an art which rarely involves the movement of the zoom function and pointing and shooting. I shall write a post on how to start a successful photography business, but this post is for the few true photographers whom I believe still exist in Zimbabwe. For them, it will be much cheaper and easy to boost their income as outlined in this post.

I have made a significant amount of money from photography this year. The question then is how have I made money when I haven’t been doing functions like I used to in the past. I have discovered a niche market in photography that is exploited by a few in Zimbabwe. Stock photography. So what is stock photography?

A growing number of advertising agencies and corporations are using desktop publishing technology to develop marketing collaterals, print advertising, and Web graphics that promote products and services in a variety of creative ways. One necessary ingredient is economical, ready-to-use, high-quality photography that stands apart from all the tired old clip art out there. A stock photography company can provide these clients with 24/7 online access to an extensive portfolio of great photographs for use in their marketing materials. So for a start, you can go to a stock photography site and upload all those original photos you took which are clogging your hard drive. I personally use shutterstock. One of my photos earned me $527 per month on average for three months.

To be a stock photographer, you will most definitely need a powerful camera an online payment system like paypal, moneybookers or a visa card and you should have a valid passport. Alternatively you can create your own stock photography site were people come and buy photos from.     In Zimbabwe, the cost of printing a photo ranges from $0.25 to $10.00 depending with the size of the photo. A stock photo is charged per download and the cost of downloading a stock photo ranges from $0.25 to $30.00 per download depending with the selected download size. I teach a class on successful stock photography on Sunday afternoons. Stock photography when done right has the potential to convert into passive income and like me, may end up being your main photography business. I get invitations to photograph weddings every week which I always pass on to industry friends so that I concentrate on my stock photography business.

With the rapid increase in technology, your photography business should not be left behind. I have discovered 11 ways to earn money with photography in Zimbabwe different from the traditional photography money making ideas. One of them is stock photography. So don’t wait. Go on and boost your earnings with stock photos. Subscribe to shutterstock. It takes about three months to be approved and about twenty one working days for your initial batch of twenty photos to be approved. But once you are approved you are on.

To your success