russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

I stated in a recent thread that I was making a little over $2,300 from selling my work. That resulted in me getting 11 private messages and emails inquiring about how I do it.

First let me give you some background about me.

I just turned 60 in March, which means I have been taking pictures in some form or fashion for 49 years. I got my start in 1966 (sixth grade) when the principal of the elementary school went around to all the classes asking for volunteer school photographers to document the school year. No experience necessary. The school provided the cameras, had its own darkroom, and provided all the paper, chemicals, water, electricity, and trash service for the darkroom. When she said that volunteers got into all school events free, well, she won me over.

The first time I got paid for my photography work was in November 1973 as a freshman at Texas A&M University. A graduate student paid me $60 to document his botany dissertation via pictures, ten pictures each Wednesday afternoon for six weeks.

The first time I sold a picture was in March 1978. On May 4, 1976, I had front row standing room at the Houston stop for the Wings Over America tour by Paul McCartney & Wings. I had two pictures that I was immensely proud of, one of McCartney playing his bass and one of him playing acoustic guitar singing “Yesterday.” I sold both pictures to a Beatles memorability dealer at a Beatles convention in Houston. He paid me $100 each, but he required the negatives, too. Sadly, I didn’t even save a print for myself. I would love to have those two pictures hanging on my wall right now.

I never tried to make a living from selling my work until March 1, 2014. I didn’t want to keep any inventory, though, so I checked out the print-on-demand services: Zazzle, SmugMug, Fine Art America, Esty, and probably a few others whose names escape me because they didn’t make an impression on me.

My decision was greatly affected by two things:

First, the majority of my income for the previous 13 years came from being a home inspector. I loved being a home inspector because it’s kind of like Christmas morning every day of the year—you get to see how fast you can destroy something. Second, for the cover photo of my home inspection reports, I would place a heavily modified picture of the home. One Client asked me if he could buy the picture. Sure. How much? Not wanting to scare him away, I told him $100 for a digital picture of 5184x3456 pixels at 100 ppi. He was thrilled. The picture is #1 below.

Second, I had lost my health insurance on January 1, 2004. Ten years later and my knees, ankles, and shoulders were complaining about me crawling under houses and up in attics. They wanted out, and since I had no health insurance, I needed to pay attention rather than just going to the doctor and getting pills, cortisone shots, etc. For the record, courtesy of the Affordable Care Act, my pre-existing conditions don’t preclude me from getting health insurance anymore, so I am fully insured. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to get out of the home inspection industry and try to make my original knees, ankles, and shoulders last a little longer.

Since I have been in real estate for as long as I have been a photographer, completing my first landscaping project at the age of 11, a couple of other factors let me into photography as a way to get out of home inspections. I realized that people who have lots of money and buy McMansions usually are in love with their homes, their yachts, their cars. Yachts and cars don’t thrill me anymore like they once did. Been there, done that. McMansions, however, still provide that thrill, so I started an Excel spreadsheet of all the McMansion cities (Rancho Santa Fe, La Jolla, Coronado, Encinitas….) and McMansion neighborhoods (Mt. Helix, Heritage Golf Estates, Sunset Cliffs….) and decided to take pictures of McMansions, heavily modify them, and see if I could sell them. Well, who is the most likely person to buy a picture of any specific McMansion? That’s right! The home owner. So I took pictures, modified them, created custom postcards which included the modified picture, and sent them to the home owner. I got my first sale out of the first batch of 10 postcards I sent, a $300 sale. I figured I could make this work.

My second batch of 10 postcards included a castle-like home. Sadly, the home is so big that only a fish eye lens could capture it. I don’t like fish-eye pictures of real estate. That’s when I discovered Photoshop’s Photomerge function, so I went back to the castle, took 32 pictures, and merged them. However, The only modification I did to the picture was to remove trash cans and green debris. Otherwise, I thought the panoramic view of the home would be adequate. Indeed, it was. The home owner bought a metal print that was 119 inches wide by 34 inches high for $6,000. My cost was $2,331.28 but I had a $3,000 deposit, so that wasn’t an issue. A smaller picture of the castle is the second picture below.

So with a $3,669 profit on that one picture, I could create a marketing budget for my fledgling enterprise and see what would happen.

Since marketing has been an avocation of mine since 1984, I thought it would be rather easy to market my work because I could identify four very well-defined target audiences: home owners, Realtors, title agents, escrow agents, loan agents. Note that they are have something to do with real estate. With Realtors, title agents, escrow agents, and loan agents, I could market my work as close-of escrow gifts and home-buying anniversary gifts. And for those people who themselves understand marketing, they probably would also use my work as gifts for births, birthdays, weddings, graduations, first communions, etc. I was right about that based on these past 17 months.

Since everyone with a phone now considers themselves a photographer, I had to figure out a way to differentiate myself from the masses. Do I buy new equipment or make do? After becoming an expert at Photoshop and many plug-ins such as Topaz and Redfield, I decided to make do. My walk-around equipment is a Canon 550D (Rebel T3i if you bought it in the United States,) and a Tamron 28-300 mm lens. For what I do, it’s far more important to get the picture than it is to wait for the right conditions.

With my Photoshop expertise, I can take many “throwaway” pictures and make something special out of them. I call my work Photographic Art and my tagline is “Taking pictures, making art.”

Currently, I’m making a little over $2,300 a month from my Photographic Art. That’s since March 1, 2014, so it can be done, even in today’s world. At the end of 2015, I expect to be doing $5,000 a month, and my goal for the end of 2016 is $10,000 a month.

Some other things that I do which are unique:

I used 4x6” pictures of my Photographic Art as advertisements in and of themselves. I use SnapFish, Costco, Office Depot, and Walgreens to print them. Whether or not they are exactly what I would have printed for myself is not a concern because the very nature of my Photographic Art makes it discernable as to the fact that they are not mere pictures. On the back of each picture is a little notice glued with Rubber Cement. The notice says: “Used by people throughout the world for special events—
close-of-escrow, birthday, marriage, anniversary & more! THIS PICTURE WORTH $50! Use discount code ______ for $50 off any Photographic Art by Russel Ray Photos at Fine Art America (1-russel-ray.artistwebsites.com). I also do custom work using YOUR photos.”

I mail those pictures to home owners, Realtors, title companies, escrow companies, banks, and loan companies. Very well-defined audiences and very easy to get their names and addresses. I love the Internet world!

Some other things that I have done to make sales: The third picture below is a small version of a montage that I made when I saw several Harley-Davidson motorcycles in front of a house. I created a postcard with the montage on it and sent it to the home owner. Well, the home owner didn’t buy it but I found out that a Realtor in Austin, Texas, bought a huge version for her Client who was a past president of the Austin Harley-Davidson club. So I marketed some of my Harley-Davidson Photographic Art to Harley-Davidson clubs in Southern California and got six sales so far.

I go to the two air shows here in San Diego each year and leave my Photographic Art pictures of airplanes on cars in the parking lot.

I go to Fleet Week and leave Photographic Art advertising on the cars there. Next year I’ll probably have a booth at Fleet Week. I was too late for it this year.

Lastly, I like to walk, bike, and drive through neighborhoods as I explore San Diego County. If I see a house with landscaping using lots of birds-of-paradise, I’ll make a note of the address and send them a Photographic Art bird-of-paradise postcard, fourth picture below.

There’s more to selling your work than just creating an account at Fine Art America, Etsy, SmugMug, ArtPal, or any others. You still have to market yourself. Don’t depend on those sites to do your marketing for you because they have been up and running for years. That means that someone got there before you did, and if those people knew how to market their work, the sites will give preference to them.

One commenter on a recent thread here stated that it’s a Catch-22 because in order to be seen, you have to sell, and in order to sell, you have to be seen. That’s only part of the equation. You don’t have to be seen in order to sell. You have to let people know who you are, what you do, and how to order your product in order to sell. Then, once you sell, you can be seen, and everything builds upon itself.

Lastly, I do make my Photographic Art available as digital files only because many people like to shop locally. When that happens, and it happens about 50% of the time, I let them know where they can go to get various prints made, whether it's a little 4x6 or huge metal, acrylic, or framed prints. I sell my digital files for $99.

I’m available to answer questions but if the bullies come out and do nothing but bully everyone, I’ll either take this post down or answer questions only by private messaging.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Thanks for the ideas! Fascinating story.

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

Super nice of you to share your insights, hope you reach all your goals!
Also, nice art work that you presented.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

Thanks. Hope you can use some of the ideas.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

Thanks.
My wise old grandmother taught me to share.

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

Thanks for sharing. I already have a computer repair business. I'm afraid marketing and selling my images might take the joy out of my hobby. It's still a thought though..

clinnon

I really appreciate you for sharing your interesting and informative story; and photography. You have inspired me!

waegwan Loc: Mae Won Li

russelray

I love success stories. :) Thanks

donnahde Loc: Newark, DE

This is AWESOME, russelray. I have a marketing background, too, and what you're doing is nothing short of brilliant. And your work is gorgeous, too. Thanks so much for sharing your path to success with us.

Raleigh Loc: Reside in Olympia WA

It is very nice of you to share these excellent ideas:thank you

Murray Loc: New Westminster

Thank you for sharing and your sage advice.

robertperry Loc: Sacramento, Ca.

Thanks for sharing. You're an inspiration to those of us who would like to see an income from our hobby. Marketing is one of those things I haven't figured out how to do.

Michael Hartley Loc: Deer Capital of Georgia

Word to the wise, be cautious using any Harley Davidson name, or logo.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

Been there, done that. It's the same with any corporation's name or logo, though.

ptcanon3ti Loc: NJ

So how do you get around potential law suits?