by: C.S. Deam
1. Pet photos - advertise a Pet Photography business where you photograph pets
with their owners. Most owners won't struggle to take a photograph with their
pet all by themselves. You can be the one who makes it easy on them. Not only
can you charge for the service and your time, but you can offer the photograph
in it's digital form or as a print that you can mail to them later - either
created by your own photo printer or by a photo processing service.
2. Fishing contests - be around at the end of a fishing contest to take
photographs of the contestants that didn't even think about bringing a camera.
Most fishermen are more concerned about fishing than carrying cameras, and most
fisherman also want a picture of their stringer full of fish or the big one that
they're going to have mounted.
3. Parades - be in position to get great shots of folks and floats in the parade
and sell the prints back to the individuals or to their family members. The
folks who take part in the parades are often way to busy to take pictures before
or after, so someone who captures them in action might really be doing them a
favor - and a profitable service.
4. Landmark and tourist photographer - if there's a famous landmark in your
area, offer your photography services to tourists who want their photo taken in
front of it. Even if the tourists are carrying a camera and get someone else to
take their photo, often the camera won't be digital with a display so it means
the tourists won't know how the picture turns out until they're long gone. With
your digital camera, you should be able to show them it's a good picture.
5. Graduations - preschool, high school, or college graduations offer dozens, if
not hundreds of opportunities to capture a significant moment in someone's life.
If the family members of the graduate aren't located in as good a location or
don't have as good a camera as yourself - you'll have even greater opportunity
at getting the shots they couldn't.
6. Holiday Family Postcards - offer your services to families that want their
picture taken and put on a postcard that they can send to their extended family
and friends. By using your digital camera you can not only get photo-postcards
through online photo-processors, but you can make the prints available in your
online gallery and have the customers refer their extended friends and family
there to purchase a larger print if they desire it.
7. Photo Novelty Items - take photographs of people that want the pictures of
themselves of their loved ones imprinted on coffee mugs, mouse pads, keychains,
tee-shirts, and other items. Usually you can find suppliers of such
photo-transfer merchandise and equipment in business opportunity publications,
such as "Mind Your Business 101: How to Select & Start Your Own Business"
8. Used Car Photos - work out an arrangement to take snapshots of cars for used
car dealers who don't have photographs of their current inventory. If any of the
car dealers don't have websites that need photographs you could, provide an
additional service by learning how to make and maintain a website of their
inventory.
9. Promotional slideshow production - taking digital photos of a convention,
church, business, college campus, or other promotable location - you can create
a digital slideshow on Video CD or DVD for your customers to promote their
business, organization, or event.
10. Newborn photo service - parents of newborns are some of the busiest people
in the world. Advertise your services on an on-call basis so that you can take
informal snapshots for the growing family either before they leave the hospital,
or after they get home. This way both parents and the child(ren) can be in more
of the pictures all together, and the parents have one less thing to try and
figure out.
