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CAMERA PROFITS: USING YOUR CAMERA FOR EXTRA MONEYOne of the easiest ways to make extra money is with a camera. More people own cameras than ever before, and photography is the fastest growing hobby in the world. Yet, using a camera as an extra income tool is largely overlooked! With a little imagination, a flair for showmanship, and just a hint of salesmanship, the average man, woman, or teenager can easily make an extra $300 a week with a camera. You don't have to own a darkroom or a lot of high priced attachments or equipment to begin making money in photography. In many instances, a Polaroid or other "off-the-shelf" camera will suit your purposes perfectly. The only special piece of extra equipment you may want to invest in would be a tripod to mount the camera in certain situations. One of the easiest ideas is to visit a children's clothing store in a busy shopping center in your area, or the children's section of a large department store. Sell the manager or store owner on the idea of your setting up in a corner of the store or department and taking pictures of the shoppers' children. He can promote the fact that you'll be in the store taking pictures for special prices during certain hours--perhaps on Friday evenings and all day Saturdays--in his advertising, thereby drawing more patrons into his store. You'll need a backdrop of plain, dark or mottled material, or some other sort of imaginative set for a background. This you can easily make or build yourself. You should also have an eye-catching poster that calls attention to what you're doing and the prices you charge. Unless you're a commercial artist, spend the money to have this sign made for you by a professional. Finally, you'll need a two-part receipt or coupon. Your receipt can be a simple piece of paper about 2" wide by 5" long. Keep the coupon brief and simple. On the left side have a space for your customers to fill in their name, telephone number, and address. You might also want to include space for additional information--the child's name, age, and the number of children in the family--for use in future advertising efforts. On the right hand side of this coupon, have your business name, address, and telephone number, plus a quick outline of the different types of photography work you handle. If you like, include a business slogan such as "Guaranteed To Make You Smile." To add a little bit of class to your coupon, take the basic outline to an instant print shop. Tell them what you want, show your outline, and have the entire receipt typeset and printed on a two-part, perforated form. Use a light-colored paper--perhaps a pastel. Make the whole piece as eye-catching and attractive as possible. You can call attention to your "in-store" set-up and bring in more business with a few merchandising and promotional ideas. Here are the highlights of two ideas that have worked well for others. However, you should keep your eyes open for additional promotional ideas that could be adapted to fit your new business. Dress a helper in a clown suit, and take pictures of the children on his lap or with his arm around them. Put a sandwich advertising board on your clown and let him stroll through the shopping center advertising the fact that you+ re in the Kiddie Clothing Store taking pictures. Promote a "Baby of The Year" contest. Take pictures of babies, display the pictures on a "show board", and offer $100 cash plus a merchandise prize in a big drawing at the end of the year. There are numerous other instances where you can earn extra income with your camera. Most stores, golf courses, bowling centers, and other retail merchants will be glad to have a photographer in their place of business because it brings the customers into the business and provides a sales opportunity for the merchant. Set up a booth in the mall and promote "Instant Snapshots." Be a roving photographer and take candid shots of shoppers and promote a "Shopper Of The Year" contest at a local mall. Work with a clown and have him attract children and their parents, asking if they'd like to have their pictures taken with him. You could snap instant pictures of children with the clown for a modest fee, or have a nicer 35mm shot taken and developed for later delivery. Build an inexpensive and portable set, such as an airplane, a race car, bucking bronco, hand-shaking scene with a famous person, or "balloon figures" and take pictures of people standing in or on these sets. Live-action sports photos sell well. Get out to the golf course and take pictures of the golfers teeing off. Visit the bowling centers and take candid shots of the bowlers in action, or arrange with the bowling leagues to photograph each member as he or she bowls, and then take a team picture as well. Do the same thing wherever there's a sports event taking place. Be on the spot and ready whenever there's an opportunity to take team pictures. You might follow, or hire someone else to follow, a Little League team through its season, taking candid and action shots. Arrange the best of these pictures in a photo album with the team's name and year on the front. You should be able to sell one of these albums to a number of team members. Find out if your local newspaper will buy action photos taken at local sporting events. Set up a schedule with the editor to determine what games the paper would like covered. There's also the idea of "just strolling through the park" on a Sunday afternoon. Take pictures of couples, children, and people spending time with their relatives. Keep tabs on the announcements of new births. Send advertising literature to the new mothers, and follow up with phone call efforts to set up photography sessions. Read the engagement notices in the weekend papers. Send your sales literature to the brides-to-be, and follow up with phone call efforts to take the wedding pictures. Set up a household and business photo inventory service. Contact the insurance companies and determine if they will approve and endorse photographs you take of their policy holders' household, personal, and business property in loss claims. Most will. By working either with the help of an insurance agent, the agency itself, or on your own, contact owners of property and sell them on the idea of your taking pictures of the household goods they have insured. You take photographs--a pictorial inventory of everything they're claiming or would like to claim on an insurance policy--and then identify the pictures, giving one set to the property owner and the other set to his insurance agent or company. Contact businesses in your area and offer to photograph the entire staff of employees out in front of the company. Many businesses like to use such photos in their advertising and on sales literature. Group photographs. Civic and social organizations are perfect for shooting group photos. They might also like candid shots of their parties, meetings, or other functions. Use your imagination. The possibilities are endless. If you look around, you will find a never-ending supply of people who would like to have a photo to remember some special event or time in their life. Make a list of all of the possibilities, then get busy making it a source of extra income. When you take a person's picture, regardless of whether it's an in-store set-up, out on the golf course, or along the street, give your customer one of your coupon-receipts and inform them that their prints will be ready in a couple of days. They fill in the information portion of the coupon and give it back to you, retaining the "business card" half for themselves. When you've finished shooting a role of film, have it developed at a one hour or twenty-four hour developing center. Decide in advance if a glossy or matte finish will look the best given the lighting conditions of your shooting location. When the prints are ready, you can phone the customer and volunteer to deliver and collect or send them through the mail with a bill, or make arrangements with a store to take care of them until the people call for their pictures and pay at that time. By all means, be sure to include an advertising circular with each set of pictures you deliver. This circular should explain how the customer can get more prints or get enlargements of his favorites. Also provide details relating to all the other photography services you offer. Once you've decided to use your camera as a source of additional income, plan exactly what you want to accomplish and how you're going to get it done. Make a list of all the possible things you will need: supplies, printing, who to contact at the store, mall, sports arena, or other location in which you plan to shoot your pictures. Decide when you will begin and how you will advertise. Then, get out there and start taking pictures! Given the opportunity and the right circumstances, you can develop your spare-time hobby into a lucrative business. Regardless of how small you begin, the important thing is to get started right away.
Once you get one job, you will learn from that experience how to get others. You will
progressively build up both you ability to promote your business and your reputation as a
photographer. Now that you have an idea of the basic plan, the rest if up to you. Grab
that camera and start snapping those pictures! Do it today! |
