FINDING THE PICTURE - PERFECT BUSINESS

Finding The Picture-Perfect Business

Taking family portraits and wedding pictures is probably best left to the professionals with the right equipment for the job, but there are opportunities for good amateur shutterbugs to provide photography services for homes as well as businesses. Real estates agents are always using photography services for pictures for newspapers and home sale magazines and may be looking for someone who can do a quick turnaround for their houses for sale.

Taking pictures of houses is fairly simple, provided the weather is good and the house doesn’t move while having its picture taken. Most can be done with an inexpensive digital camera and sent by file transfer to the agent or broker. Very few agencies will be working with prints in this electronic age, but if they do, there are several one-hour services around that can allow you to offer same-day service on photographs.

Online auctions always sell better with photos of the items being listed and there are some folks who would like to sell their used household items but do not have a camera with which to take the pictures. You can offer to go to their house, take pictures of the items and download the images onto their computer so they can use them on the auction sites. Alternatively, if you hand them a media disk they can download them at their leisure and keep them for back up in case they need them again.

Neighbors and friends may want pictures of little Johnny or Susie at their birthday party but do not want to hire a professional photographer. Picking up a few bucks from a neighbor or friend may make some feel somewhat uncomfortable, but it is your time and camera doing the work. Do not hesitate to inform them that yes, you can take the pictures but your time is worth something.

With many bakeries offering to put pictures on cakes there is a need for decent pictures of the birthday boy or girl to decorate the confection. Unfortunately, many bakeries will not use professional studio photos due to claimed copyright laws and an original picture will be needed.

If you are any good at taking pictures, you may consider giving your services as a wedding present. The way many make this work, is they buy a few rolls of film and shoot pictures at the wedding, the reception and other shots the couple want for their album. Once you finish, hand the film to the couple to take to the lab of their choice for processing.

Once the prints come back they can choose the ones they want for enlarging and have their entire wedding album transferred to DVD for future use. Your wedding gift cost a few rolls of film and the time at the wedding, where you probably would have been anyway.