How To Sell Your Photography & Art Online

Photo by Loc Boyle

Have you ever wondered “How to Sell Your Photography or Art Online?” Six years ago I decided to create the work I love and it led me to opening an online shop and it was the words of  Mary Oliver that encouraged me  top do it,“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with this one wild and precious life? 

The naysayers said, ‘You can’t make money selling photography or art online!!’ They actually annoyed me so much I decided to prove them wrong.

The first time my shop made the cash register sound of ‘cha-ching’, I jumped up and down and screamed around the house like a mad woman. I literally was the most excited girl on the planet.

Why, you ask?

• Because somebody just paid me to do the very thing I became a photographer for
• To travel to a place I love and take photos
• When I wrapped up that first print and sent it off, I hugged it to my heart, I thanked the kind soul who bought it for allowing me to turn my dream into a reality.

Since that first print, I have had sold out editions of my Young Girl in Bloom and my Italian Vacation series, my images have been sent to the four corners of our beautiful planet and I get beautiful photos and notes from people who hang my work in their home, their joy is my joy.

My third year in business I could have lived off my shop exclusively!!

Photo by Claire Lloyd

MY PHOTOGRAPHY CAREER

It’s an old story that creatives can’t do the work they love and be financially reward. When I became a photographer twenty years ago, I didn’t care; I was so in love with taking photos, the joy it brought that I just kept doing what I loved and what brought me joy. I have held onto this philosophy throughout my career when I have slipped off-course and started doing things that where uncreative and exhausting, I would ask myself, ‘Where’s the joy?’

As a photographer there have been millions upon millions of microseconds of joy:

• standing on a beach at dawn and seeing the sky change colours
• walking into a barber’s shop in Naples and ending up at the wedding of the guy in the chair
• travelling to India on my own in search of images, people, and experiences.
• taking a water taxi in Venice and almost forgetting to take a photo the beauty was so overwhelming,
• laughing with the cooks in the kitchen of the Ritz Hotel in Paris and
• treading water on the Amalfi Coast as kids jump off rocks and I try and capture it.

This led me to publishing 8 beautiful books with Penguin, 12 years of travel photography with some of the best magazines on the planet, and creating my own portrait business.

Photo by Claire Lloyd

MY ONLINE SHOP SELLING PHOTOGRAPHY

One day when I started looking for my inner joy again, I asked myself the question I do on a regular basis, ‘What would I love to do or photograph?’

The answer was simple, I wanted to go to the beach and shoot for the pure pleasure and joy of photography and being in a place I loved.

I have those ‘naysayers’ to thank for getting me annoyed!

• They motivated me to leave no stone when it came to working out how to sell my photography online
• I tried numerous platforms, business systems and ideas to I struck on a formula that would work for anyone
• I was liberated and almost any creative who decides they want to sell their work online to live the life they want.
• It is so possible!!!!

TIRED OF THE OLD STORY THAT PHOTOGRAPHERS & ARTISTS CAN’T MAKE MONEY

So, my lovelies, if you are tired of that old story that you can’t do what you love and make money. You’ve tried and can’t figure it out or don’t want to waste time, money, and energy, check out my FREE VIP TRAINING VIDEO on how to sell your photography and art online.

I will leave you with this beautiful quote by Mary Oliver:

“Tell me, what is your plan to do with this one wild and precious life?”

Wishing you a beautiful day.

Carla x

Are You Guilty of Never Picking Your Valuable Creative Fruit?

Dear Friends,

For most of my life, I have chased the sun, turning my back on winter and fleeing whenever I could. I avoided seeing the good in the autumn and the winter and always looking forward to Spring and Summer and the positivity and high energy that radiates with them.

There is a natural quieting that happens in Autumn and winter in Europe when life and people turn inward. It’s all part of the natural life and death cycle but I was never up for the death part of it, all I wanted was to feel alive! I never wanted the stillness. Like many modern girls and guys, I lost touch with nature, the cycles and all the wonders they bring to us, our nervous systems, inspiration, creativity, minds, and bodies.

Someone once made the observation about me that ‘I don’t pick the fruit’. I remember when he said this, it got my full attention, ‘What do you mean I don’t pick the fruit?’ He went on to explain that I never stop, I just keep moving, new projects, new ideas, new energy and never really stopping to take advantage of all the experiences I have had, what I have created or built.

This year, winter served me, I decided to pick the fruit!! I started a whole new relationship with the cold, the dark and the enforced nurturing and stayed put.

For the first time, I didn’t flee to somewhere sunny and surrendered to slowing down, to staying indoors, to quiet reflection and in this process, I achieved more than I have in a long time. For almost the entire Parisian winter, I stayed put and wrote, pondered, reflected, created and bore my baby YES, YES, YES – my online program.

I kept thinking of myself as a farmer and picking the fruit of my experience that I have always just left hanging on the tree. It was the most beautiful metaphor to go back through my experiences and see where all the learnings were and how I could pass them onto others.

The creative process for me has always been like a birth (even though I have never born a child) and I love in those quiet moments where ideas feel like magic, they come from what appears to be nowhere and out through your pen, even though you have shelved your ‘fruit’ for a long time, it’s there ready and waiting when you decide to stop and pick it.

It’s funny how a sentence, a comment or a remark can change how you do things. This one funny remark had me pondering on it for months after it was made about how I hadn’t picked my fruit, I would walk around muttering to myself ‘where’s my fruit?’, till I started to see it clearly for myself.

Are you guilty of moving on and never taking advantage of your experiences, skills, knowledge, and talents? Love to hear in the comments section your thoughts on picking your fruit.

Enjoy winter if it’s coming to a place near you soon, it’s an incredible change of rhythm and an invitation to bring something to life.

Creativity, love, and light,

Carla

Dreams of Moving to Greece, Italy, France, Spain, and Beyond??

Dear Friends,

So many of you have big dreams about moving overseas, and as someone who moved from Sydney to Florence in Italy and from Florence to Paris, I feel like I have road-tested the concept of moving in all its glory and all its darkness. I’m always asked how to do this so today I’m sharing with you some of the valuable lessons I have learnt along the way.

Firstly, moving overseas is so much about our hopes and dreams, what we want to bring into our lives, and what adventure we want to go on. It’s about standing in a piazza and feeling the wonder and the beauty around you; it’s about dialling into your creativity and the things you’ve always dreamed of making in a new place; but most of all, it’s about love. The idea of loving a place so deeply that you’re willing to give up your life, everything you know, and what is comfortable to have this adventure.

It’s about loving yourself and believing in your dreams enough that you’re willing to step so far out of your comfort zone and try on a new life.

Here are some of the lessons that I’ve learnt in the past 19 years:

Lesson Number 1 – Choose a place you love

Going somewhere that lights you up, that you are connected to is the best place to start when choosing a new town or country. Of course, afterward, you will need to look at some of the practical things that may come up but loving the place is the most important. When I moved to Florence, it was my choice and I felt so deeply connected to Florence and I moved mountains to stay there. The smallest daily tasks brought me joy, such as ordering a coffee in a beautiful café, riding my bike through the ancient streets, shopping in Piazza Santo Spirito from a micro truck at my local market and all of this brought me a daily inner joy that helped override the difficulties.

Moving somewhere that someone else wants to move to is another story. The daily doses of joy were no longer there and things that I managed to overcome because I was so connected to Italy, frustrated and annoyed me in Paris.

If you can feel the love and excitement for a place, it will help you with the daily challenges without destroying your positive attitude.

Lesson Number 2 – Take forever out of your story

One of the things that people always asked me when I moved to Florence were questions such as ‘Are you EVER coming back?’ or ‘Is this FOREVER?’ It always felt like someone had poured a bucket of cold water over me when they asked these questions. I would ask myself, what is FOREVER anyway? Does anyone know what they will be doing in FOREVER? My answer was always something like, ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing next week, let’s see how it goes.’ Allow yourself the luxury of the here and now and don’t ask yourself, ‘Can I live here in 20 years?’ — that would freak anybody out. Take it 6 months at a time and know you can always go home. No-one is making you sign a contract that you can’t break. On a lighter note, just imagine you are simply changing addresses.

Lesson Number 3 – Make a list of what you need

There are some practical considerations to take into account, such as how you will earn money, or do they have a professional printing place, a cinema or a supermarket? Ask yourself, what are the important ingredients for you? One of the things I learnt living in Paris is that a garden or outdoor space is really important to me, as is a printing place for my photography and ideally on my next move, I would love to live in a place where I don’t need to own a car. One of the greatest joys I have had living almost 20 years in Europe is not owning a car and using a bike, metro, or electric scooter for transport. Think of all the things you would love to have in your life, from a cinema to a local market, and see if your place fits your bill.

Lesson Number 4 – Test run

Going somewhere on holidays is vastly different from living in a place. It’s wonderful to spend some time renting an apartment where you can start to see how daily life works. Doing the shopping and seeing how much it costs, what it’s like living in a certain area, how the basic things work such as where the pool is or what the locals are like? Give yourself a chance to spend a month or more in a place and investigate as much as you can.

Lesson Number 5 – Plan

If you are serious about moving overseas and don’t want to go back, make sure you have saved enough money for a year or two so that you give yourself time to settle in and don’t have to leave. Start learning the language, get the basics sorted such as paperwork for visas and how you get started when you get there and how you are going to support yourself.

You don’t need the whole story but you do need to feel safe and secure and that it’s long term. This will allow you to start your journey in a place of ‘love’ instead of ‘fear’ and from a place of love and a positive attitude all is possible.

If you are starting from fear, you are already making the whole project more difficult and your likelihood of it being long term slimmer.

Happy travels, let me know in the comments below if this was helpful and where you are off to.

Carla x