Do I Want to be a Pro Photographer?

The answer is I think so. But the cost for entering the field of selling prints online is a bit of a hurdle.

A little backstory leading up to this entry here. About 2 weeks ago, I checked out a really nice lens, and took it with the rest of photo kit to a waterski tournament where I shot a little over 1500 photos. All this with the hopes of selling a few prints to people. Now on with the research….

The first place I looked at was ExpressDigital’s PhotoReflect (I’m not providing a link, they’re not worth it, keep reading), because it’s where the 2008 AWSA Western Regionals photos were posted. I looked around the site, looked a little clunky but usable. Their rates sounded high at first glance (I’ve since found out they are indeed relatively low). For low-sales-volume accounts, they scrape 18% off the top, but don’t charge any bandwidth or storage fees.

The second place I looked at was PhotoWorks which also has free upload and storage, but their pricing markup is severely limited. The only options are a solid $ increase (ex. adding $10 to the cost of the print, regardless of size), or a solid % increase (ex. add 400% to the cost of the print, $1.14 4×6 and $209.70 for 20×30) Continue reading Do I Want to be a Pro Photographer?