You could be missing out on making some extra dollars

This post is more of a short note to my fellow travel bloggers. It’s something to think about and perhaps it can be another way for you to make money while you travel.

I recently stumbled across this artistic photography site which got me thinking about how travel bloggers can make some extra money. Pumping out a plethora of mindlessly written articles every day certainly can’t be the only way to fund your travels across the globe.

Why aren’t more travel bloggers selling their beautiful photographs online? Every day I come across many new blogs and I notice that the seasoned writers who have been working on their blogs for a few years also have some very beautiful travel photos in their portfolio. It seems that there is some direct correlation between time spent traveling and the quality of photographs on these blogs.

Colorful-Hats-Cartagena

Like with everything else in life, it is my opinion that the more practice you have photographing while traveling, the better your photos become. I have certainly noticed a drastic improvement in my photography over the past three years. If you already have a blog or you are about to go traveling and you are considering starting a blog, I would highly recommend investing in a good camera. Quality, well-composed images will really help to set your blog apart from the others who are either using stock images or drab blackberry captures.

 

Ocean-Syk-Clouds-Colombia

If you are a travel blogger and/or a budding photographer, you are probably asking yourself the question – ‘Are my photographs good enough?’ and ‘Will someone actually pay money for the photos I take?’ The best response I can give to this is the famous adage ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’. You may be surprised by who and how many people might be willing to pay for a copy of one of your prints.

If there is one thing I have learned about photography and art in general, is that beauty is in fact in the eye of the beholder. I have taken photos that I could have easily deleted and never thought of them again but instead a friend stopped me because she loved the photo so much. “Oh that’s so beautiful. Do you think I can get a print of it?”

So what am I suggesting? If you’ve ever looked at your photos and thought – ‘this is pretty damn beautiful’, or your friends and family are always telling you how much they love the photos from your travels, consider making some money from it.

For now, don’t delete the shots you take. Instead buy a 1TB portable hard-drive and back up the shots you take while you’re on your adventures. If you don’t have time to go through them all while traveling, wait until you get home and see what others think of your eye for art and beauty.

You could potentially make an extra hundred dollars (or two) every month by selling your prints through a company that specializes in selling photography prints or better yet, directly from your own blog.

I will be doing a separate post on the different ways of selling your photos online, so if any of you have already made some sales and dollars from selling your prints, be sure to leave a comment for us all.