Make Real Money With These Smartphone Photography Apps

image by junpinzon

Since the advent of digital photography, more people are getting into the craft. Some have taken it as a serious hobby while some crossed over and turned it into a full time job. Although getting projects might be a bit challenging at first, there are some ways where both hobbyists and professionals alike can earn some extra cash doing what they love.

In this article, I will be sharing with you some smartphone apps that I use to earn a little bit of extra cash. They are all proven money makers and acts as supplemental income for my full time photography career. I am yet to get to the point where I can live off the earnings from these apps…. I’ll let you now immediately if and when I get there. For the meantime, let’s just enjoy the journey, they are all fun to do and they continue to earn money for me.

1. Eyeem (IOS and Android)

Let me start with this one. Among the smartphone/photography apps that I use, this one has earned me the most, to date, I’m close to making four digits from it since I joined two years ago. Eyeem is a social media network/photo community where photographers share their photos. The skills level of photographers there vary from newbies to seasoned ones. It’s like Instagram but you have the option to sell your photos at their marketplace. They are sold as stock photos and are marketed through the network of stock photo giant, Getty Images. There are two ways to make money at Eyeem, The first is to submit and sell it on their marketplace and secondly, join Missions. Company/Brands put up an image brief to explain what type of images they need and members of the community can submit to those missions for a chance to be selected and bought. Aside from being able to sell your photos there, you can also improve your photography skills by learning through the tips and inspiring stories that are shared by other photographers.

You can cash out every time an image of yours get sold, there’s no threshold. Request to cash out via your Paypal account and wait a few days for Eyeem to process the payment and you’ll receive it in your Paypal account.

You can create your free account HERE. or via the app.

2. Foap (IOS and Android)

This is the first money-making-app-from-photos I discovered when I had my first smartphone. I was reluctant at first because I’m used to having my images licensed through traditional stock photo agencies. I uploaded a couple of dozen photos at first to see what would happen. Almost immediately I got “likes” from the community and after about more than a week of constant interaction with fellow photographers there, I got my first sale from the first batch of images. They sell your photos in the market place for $10 and you split this money with Foap. In addition to this, you can earn more if a brand buys your image in the Missions area. They put up an offer and give an image brief, you then submit according to the brief and if the brand likes the image, they buy it. And just like Eyeem, your images are sold in the network of Getty Images. I’ve earned more than a couple hundred dollars from Foap since I joined in late 2015.

To me, Foap is a concrete proof that you really don’t know what kind of image will sell in the stock photo industry. I’ve been a stock photographer for quite sometime now and I am guilty of over thinking the production of my images. Ever since I joined Foap I loosened up and produced more authentic and natural looking images. They love that kind there. Take a look at the sold images page and you’ll see that they are authentic and mostly spontaneous. It’s very seldom that you’ll find a commercial-type-of-lighting-overly-posed-image sold there. I must say that some are less than professional looking images but it seems that this is the trend now, photo buyers are going for that authentic look. You can only create your account for free as a photo seller by downloading the app, they have it both in IOS and Android.

You can cash out anytime because there’s no threshold. There is a longer waiting period though before you can get paid, it’s a month after you’ve requested payment. They pay thru Paypal so make sure you have a verified Paypal account.

3. Twenty20 (IOS only)

I am always looking for new platforms to sell my stock photos and I scour the internet to find them. Fortunately, I found Twenty20 and immediately signed up and created my free account. They were in the early stages when I chanced upon them, I didn’t give it much thought and had no expectations, but as it turns out, it’s one of my very consistent (side)income earner. Just like the first two which I listed above, you can earn two ways with this app, either through the marketplace or by joining missions. I joined them three years ago and am happy with what I’ve earned from them to date. When they first started out, you can make $2 for each photo sold but since Envato acquired the company, there were some changes in the commission scheme, you can learn about it HERE. With its addition to the Envato family, it is expected that more clients and potential buyers will discover contents up for sale there. Envato is a well established company and things can only go better for Twenty20. Unfortunately there’s no Android version of the app, however, Android users can still register and upload via the website. Learn how to do it HERE.

There’s no threshold and payment is made monthly via Paypal.

I’ve listed these three apps because I already have an actual earning experience from them. There are other apps out there that offer the same type of business concept but I haven’t had any breakthroughs yet so I’m keeping the testimony until I have one. I will update this article when I’ve had success with them already.

Aside from these, there are the conventional stock photo agencies through which you can also sell photos and where I also sell mine. Though they have an app available, I didn’t include them in the list because the process works best in their website. I'll write another article about that so I can share with you my experience and hopefully help you succeed in selling your stock photos.

As for now, I wish you lots of luck in trying out these apps.

Work At Home Mom and Kid (How I lit the shot)

This image is steadily gaining grounds among my stock photos. It has been sold quite a number of times already. You can see the image here.

Thought I'd share with you how I lit it.

This is a three light set up, one for the mom, the other for the kid lying on the couch and another to fill in the shadows.

The first speedlight is domed, bounced off a white paper taped onto the screen of the laptop. The next speedlight is as camera left, zoomed to 200mm and aimed at the kid. The third speedlight is behind the camera and bounced off the ceiling. This third speedlight fill in the deep shadows produced by the hard lights.

Camera settings were ISO 200, f5.6, 1/200th.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

Signing A Contract

So what does a struggling microstock photographer who's always on a shoestring (to almost nothing) budget do when he needs a model for a shoot?  Use himself as the model!

Well, just the hands and torso actually.

Lighting was easy but the framing took some time to perfect.  Simply because I didn't want to include my face in the shot.

The camera was obviously on a tripod.  I prefocused and triggered it via the cam's timer.

Three speedlights on this one.  One with grid, one with umbrella and the other with a dome.

Key light was on a boom stand directly above and aimed at my hands and the contract that I was signing.  It was gridded so I can contain the beam and have that spotlight effect directing your  attention at the hands and contract.  A domed speedlight was clipped under the table's edge just to bring bask some details onto my torso and act as separation light between the hands and torso.  The final speedlight with umbrella was aimed at a frosted glass behind me creating that halo shaped light at my back.

I'm proud to say that this image is available online at Shutterstock, Fotolia, Dreamstime, Depostiphotos, 123rf, Bigstock and Istock.

Hope this helps.  Happy shooting.

Lighting a Glass Chess Set

This is one of my favorite images.  I like how the lights interacted with the subject matter and with each other.

This is a glass chess set which I found lying around the house. I've always wanted to shoot a chess set to illustrate the concepts of planning, game and strategy. I think the image concept can be applied to a lot of image requirements such as business and sports.

Lighting was fairly simple, here's how I did it.

There were three speedlights for this shot. Two of them gelled red and blue accordingly. All of the speedlights had grids on them so I was able to contain the beams on selected areas .  The red gelled speedlight was at camera right and aimed at the pawn and knight. The blue gelled speedlight was at camera left and aimed at the rook and bishop. The final non-gelled speedlight was at camera left and aimed at the King which I tilted with my finger just to animate the shot a bit. This was shot with the camera on a tripod and I used a 70-300mm lens to produce bokeh. Camera settings were iso200, 1/200 and f6.3. The speedlights were at a low power output since they were pretty close to the subject. Can't remember the exact numbers because I just chimped it.

You can find the image live online at Shutterstock, Fotolia, Dreamstime, Bigstock, 123rf, Depositphotos and Istock.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting.

Kid with Laptop, smartphone and tablet (How I lit this one)

I just had a notification from Shutterstock that as of June 17, 2015, this image have downloaded 50 times!  It has been online with them since November 2014. I'm not really sure what a good number of downloads in a given period of time is, but I'm pretty psyched about the performance of this image. It's actually part of a series but this one stood out among the rest.

Thought I'd share with you how I lit this one.

I used four speedlights for this one. 3 of them gelled with red, blue and green accordingly. Key light was placed on the laptop, domed and bounced against a typewriting paper taped onto the screen. Another speedlight at camera right, which was placed at the far end of the room, was gelled blue and bounced on the ceiling. This gave the overall blue cast in the room. A third speedlight gelled green, still at camera right, was aimed at our our tech savvy kid. Then the final speedlight gelled red was placed on the floor, behind the bed and aimed at the wall.

I can't recall the actual power settings of the speedlight as they seasoned to taste. As for the camera settings, ISO 200, 1/200 and f 5.6

Aside from Shutterstock, this image is also live online(and proud to  report that is also doing well) at Dreamstime, Depositphotos,  Bigstock and 123rf. Please check it out.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting.

Glass of Water (How I lit it this time)

I've shot glasses of water a lot of times already and I've always looked for ways to find a new twist to it.  And I must admit that I've failed more times than I've succeeded. But despite this I still like shooting this subject matter, so here's my latest shoot with a glass of water.

There's really nothing new about it, a plain clear glass with water in it and another variation with water being poured in it.

What's new this time was how I lit the subject and the background.

It's just one source of light and a white reflector board. A speedlight was placed camera right, behind a cabinet door. The door have this slanted wooden planks with spaces in between each plank.

I placed the subject near the background wall so the sole speedlight can illuminate both the subject and the background.  I think those streaks of light produced by the planks are cool and that's the new "twist" I have for this yet another glass of water shoot.

Speedlight was set at 1/4 power output, camera settings was ISO 200, 1/200, f 5.6 and tungsten white balance.

Fortunately, this image is now live online at Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Fotolia, 123rf, 

Bigstock, Depositphotos and Istock.  Please check it out.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting.

Alcholic Drinks

This is one of my favorite images.  It has been sold quite a number of times already.

Thought I'd share with you how I did this shot.

I filled these goblets with water and added some food coloring.  Red for red wine and 

soy sauce for brandy and scotch.

I put them atop a white marble table which in turn gave that cool shiny reflective 

surface effect.

As for the light, two speedlights inside a diy softbox (I'll blog about this in the future) 

placed directly behind the goblets.

I was basically shooting against the light for this one.

Both speedlights were set 1/4.  Camera settings was at Iso 200, 1/200, f5.6.

I'm very fortunate that this image is online at several microstock sites.  

You can find it at Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Fotolia, 123rf, Bigstock, Depositphotos 

and Istock.

Hope this helps.  Happy shooting!

Shadows and Wrinkles

I've always suggested that when shooting with available light, the best time to shoot would be during the "golden hours". This is the time when the sun is casting light from the side.

All of the photographs you would see here were shot late in the afternoon. I felt lucky to have captured these shots and was thankful that my subjects didn't give me a hard time.

Hope this helps...happy shooting!

Go For Those Subtle Changes

Sometimes the little changes and adjustments in a photograph can make a lot of difference.

In this post, I would like to cite three subtle and simple changes our crew for this assignment made which, in my humble opinion, made the photograph a lot better.

Before the photo above was made, there was this....

Actually, this is good. Our crew was already happy with it...I was happy with it. But since our subject's schedule still allowed him to spend time with us, I figured I can still make a little adjustment in my lighting set up.

Initially, this was lit by a single monolight at camera right. The light's standard reflector bowl was socked and was placed at an angle of around 45 degrees of the subject and placed approximately 8 to 9 feet from him. I wanted a small light source for this one, yet, I ditched the idea of putting a grid since I still wanted it to be big enough to hit the surfaces of the staircase. And since my light was placed far enough from these surfaces, it created long and deep shadows at the back (refresher: longer shadows are created when the light source is farther from the object being hit). A sock was then added to the reflector bowl just to tame the harshness a bit.

In addition to my single monolight setup and, as an adjustment to the lighting treatment of this photograph, I added a strobe at camera left, powered it down and flagged it to avoid spilling light unto the background. In my mind, I wanted this added strobe to just fill in the shadows of our subject's right side and at the same time make him pop out from the background.

Another adjustment we made was the placement of our subject's left hand, notice that in the first photograph made, his left hand was closer to his knee. We simply asked him to pull it back a bit causing him to be in a more upright position. This very small adjustment in his stance projected an air of confidence.

Lastly, our wardrobe stylist changed our subject's inner shirt with something that has more color thus making the photograph less monochromatic.

Honestly, I would like to give credit to our wardbrobe stylist this time. For me, what really did it for this photograph was the change of inner shirt.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

Off Centered is Spot On!

"Keep them centered!" A man tell his wife as she was snapping pictures of their children outside our parish church one sunday afternoon.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with putting your subjects at the center of the frame. Lots of wonderful photos were taken this way. On the other hand, there are also lots of successful photographs wherein subjects were placed, well, not in the center. This is basically applying the rule of thirds. This principle can be used in many applications. Here are some of them:

In the photo above, our subject is placed slightly on the right of the frame. When I was composing this shot, I wanted to show the amount of coconut husks this pile has. This lady was actually trying to scavenge for things that she can sell to junk shops and I was trying to tell her story of a hard day's labor.

In a similar photo below, this old lady lady was placed at the left side of our frame. By doing so, I was able to show the expanse of the field she was working in.

And in a slightly different application, our subject was placed at the right side of the frame for an environmental type of portraiture.

By playing with the placement of the subject in your frame, you can tell more with photograph you took. Like what's happening, what's been done, what's going to happen and a hint of where everything is happening. Also, this leaves space for copy if ever you're planning to use the photograph for commercial purposes.

Hope this helps....happy shooting!

Sticks Night Shoot

I've said it quite a lot in the past that I am thankful to be blessed with a job that has literally taken me to a lot of places, and has given me unique opportunities to meet very interesting people....I still am thankful and will continue to be.

One such magazine assignment gave birth to a regular gig for me with a furniture design house. I can't really explain why I love this place....maybe it's the layout, or the designs... or maybe because the owner/designer is such a nice guy!

The showroom is basically a house furnished with all the pieces up for sale. They recently added a new feature to the place, a coffee shop and an outdoor lounging area. These are still part of the showroom since all the pieces here are for sale.

The photo above shows the lounging area surrounding the big tree and inside the building structure is the coffee shop.

I used three strobes to light this one. One strobe was placed inside the coffee shop, bounced unto the ceiling at 3/4 power. Another strobe was placed camera right, just outside the frame and aimed towards the somewhat "X" shaped seat in front. This strobe was zoomed at 50mm and set at 1/2 power. The last strobe was placed at camera left, behind the couch at left of the frame, this was aimed in the direction of the tree and zoomed at 50mm also at 1/2 power.

My exposure setting for this was ISO 400, 0.6 sec, f7.1. and white balance was AWB.

Hope this helps...happy shooting!

P.S.

If you're a furniture design fan, you can visit their site and check out their awesome designs. It's http://www.sticks.ph/

Simple Lighting Set Up

2011 has been great! Lots of firsts and great opportunities! Let's all wish everyone an awesome and productive 2012!

For my first blog entry this year, I would like to share how I lit for the images you will see below.

My client asked me to photograph their past awards and trophies with some drama in the lighting. Not really sure for what they'll use if for but that's really beyond my business.

This is really simple, I used two strobes here and zoomed both to 105mm to produce small beams of light (I didn't bring my grids for this assignment....tsk tsk!)

For this layout, I placed one behind the trophies (you can actually see one strobe head through the tear-drop-shaped trophy) as my backlight. This was set at the lowest power output. The other strobe was placed at camera left and set at its lowest power output also. Here's the set up.

In the next layout, I simply changed strobe placement but both of them were still set at the lowest power output and both were still zoomed to 105. I rearranged the trophies in this manner and shifted to a high camera angle. The strobe at camera right was meant to create those shadow and the other was just to give light spills towards the back of the trophies. Here's the final image and below it is the set up.

I drowned out the ambient light for both layouts by setting my shutter speed at the fastest sync speed which is 1/200 and set the aperture at f5.0.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting

Point and Shoot Fun

While some (or most) photographers would prefer to lug their DSLR's around all the time, others would rather have a compact cam always tucked into their pockets for some quick snaps where ever they go. These days, technology has already caught up with the demands of photographers and have developed compact cams with full manual control features. But this comes with a price. For the budget conscious, they would rather buy compact-point-and-shoot-cams.

But this should not mean that you will put fun aside. Decent, budget friendly point-and-shoots can still yield good photos. You just need to familiarize yourself with the cam and apply the basic photography-principles.

For example.....slow shutter shooting. This technique can easily be achieved in your DSLR by putting your cam on Manual mode and by turning your shutter dial to a desired slow shutter speed.

It's a bit different on your point-and-shoot though.

There are two ways to do this:

One...if your P&S has an ISO setting adjustment, set it at the lowest ISO setting, and turn the flash off. With this setting, even if the cam is on P (program mode), it will still give you the slowest shutter speed within the limits and capacity of your P&S. My P&S yielded an F3.5 aperture and an average of 1sec or 1/4 sec shutter speed.

Another way is to set your cam on Night Shot mode. This setting automatically sets the camera at a slow shutter speed alowing low light to be captured.

With these settings, you can either steady your cam with a tripod or create motion blurs like I did here.

Always have fun and never let equipment limitations get in the way.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

Bar Scene

One of my recent campaign shoots required me to shoot in a bar where there were supposedly people having drinks by the bar and watching an exciting ball game.

Sure thing, but because the bar isn't fully operational yet, there's no TV. So we just had to imply it.

We had our models sit by the bar and asked all of them to look in one direction. In this case, our key light source. This will be our "TV". I have a similar post about this, please check out "There's Not Enough Light".

I had my strobe placed high enough so as to mimick a TV set in a bar. I used my smallest white umbrella to limit light to our couple and put it in shoot through position. I then set my strobe at the lowest power output.

As for lighting the rest of the frame, I needed to have that "bar" feel so I matched the orange light coming from the pin light as seen at upper right of the frame. I placed a strobe at the back of our subject (outside of frame, camera left) then gelled it with CTO.

Lighting? Check.

All that's left was to stage the shot.

"Models....at the count of three....and....one...two.....three!

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

Simple Color Scheme

When my writer and I walked into the stadium where we will interview and shoot Smart Gilas Coach Toroman, I knew right away where and how to shoot him.

The red seats on the bleacher would make an excellent element for the portrait. His wearing a blue jersey put the icing on the cake.

I got the idea for the color scheme from the small Philippine flag printed on his jersey and figured I could/should use that for his portrait.

To stick with the color scheme I had in mind, I drowned out all ambient light by setting my shutter speed at the highest sync speed. Placed two strobes to cross light our subject and gridded them both. Both strobes were set at 1/4 power output since I wanted to open up my aperture for a shallow depth-of-field.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

"Real" People

Most of my clients nowadays are intermittently getting real people (non-pro-models that is) for some of their campaign shoots. I've been doing this for quite some time now and I must say that it's both challenging and fun to work with people who doesn't model professionally.

As was the case for a campaign which I shot recently.

Despite having no professional modelling background, our real people/models for that day nailed the shot we wanted. It took some prodding but once they got comfortable in front of the camera, it was easy sailing from that point on.

Below is a photo of how I lit for this shot. Nothing fancy. Just needed that well-lit look.

Working with non-professional-models can be fun. But this will depend on the mood that you will set. Just don't be stiff and strict with them and you'll find out that they won't give you a hard time.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

There's Not Enough Light!

Just in case you don't know yet....I would like to share with you this very old trick.

If in the future you'll get an assignment to shoot someone who's supposedly looking onto a computer monitor or a TV and wants the effect that the monitor is illuminating their face, forget about trying to capture that available light from the monitor to light your subject's face.

It is just too weak.

Instead, put a speedlight there, zoom it out to its widest angle and set it at its lowest power and you'll be able to get the effect that you want as in the case of this photo.

All that remains is aligning everything together to get your desired effect.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

Beauty In A Box

It is often suggested that beauty shoots should be lit with big, soft lights. But what if you can't fit those big light modifiers in the room?

As was the case for this project.

With space constraint, I decided that I can use that small space to my advantage. Instead of brining in big light modifiers, I turned that small space into some sort of a giant light tent.

We covered the walls on each side and at the back of our subject with white styrofoam and bounced light off them....voila! Instant light tent!

I chimped for the lighting ratio and adjusted to taste. The final foam was placed in front of our subject, below and just outside of frame to reflect back light onto our subject's face.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

A Quickie Shoot with a Household Name

Once again, my apologies for being quiet for a while. I've been spending my downtime sleeping 'cause it's been really busy the past months.

Anyway, if you're from the Philippines, I'm sure you're familiar with the brand name Mama Sita. Am truly thankful that I got the rare chance to photograph the son of the woman who started this business which eventually became a household name among almost every filipino kitchen.

A busy person that he is, I knew that I had to keep the shoot as quick as possible. Having this in mind, I decided to shoot with just a single light source to minimize set up time. I shot him in several spots of their office compound but this one is my favorite (this one didn't make it to print though since my art director chose a tighter layout).

As mentioned, this was lit with a single strobe positioned at high camera right. I didn't use any light modifier for this one except for a sock on its standard reflector. I wanted a small light source to contain light just enough. The available light was underexposed 1 1/2 stop to give emphasis on the spot where I lit for our subject.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

Be Quick But Not Hasty

Like most photographers, I dabbled into street photography. I used to do a lot of this when I was just starting out and this was how I practiced my composition. So after accomplishing my task to shoot a stall owner in a wet market, I sneaked in some time to re-live those fun days.

Here are some of the shots.

Next time you're shooting in the streets, remember to take time to think about your frame before you trip the shutter. Consider elements, lighting condition and wait for the right moment. Be quick but not hasty. This will make the difference between a good, story-telling-photo and a common snap shot.

Hope this helps, happy shooting!