Great thread. If I may, I'd like to share some of my personal experience for anyone seriously considering venturing into photography.
Ive found the best way to picking up some work is to get your name out there.
Doing free work for your friends is a great way, yes, as it will get you gobs about of practice and critique. It will also however devalue your work a little if you do it too long. Not only that, but you will soon see that nothing pushes you to excel faster than some green, and some clientele, lingering over your head to get the job done lol.
Join competitions. They are free and you can win money. Once you win one you can use that to market yourself. This brings me to my next point...
Get a website going. True, websites can be expensive if you don't have the capability or right friends, but you don't need to go to that extent. Start small with a blog which is free to start, free to maintain and free to design. Once you have that going you can spread your name quite easily by linking it to your Facebook, email signatures, business cards, etc. All you need to post is the address, no fancy prints which cost $$ They can see your images on your blog. Blogger, Tumblr, Etc....take your pick.
Another great way to make money from your photography exponentially is to join a stock photo site like iStock. Sure they are a little tough to actually get accepted to because so many people try to join everyday and flood them with crap, however once youre in and start uploading photos...you can sell one photo thousands of times (if its a useful one to the masses) and make money sitting on your ass. You can also post that success on your blog or website mentioned above to further enhance your validity to your clientele. "This photo was a lot of fun and has finally hit the 100 mark on ..." bla bla bla...people's interests will be peaked and you will move up a notch on the "being considered for hire scale"
One example of a useful photo. This has been a good seller for me, its useful for a lot of night life ads, flyers, websites, menus...anything where someone would need collateral to show night life.
Lastly and probably most importantly, take your camera everywhere. You never know when you will see something that peaks your interest. Ever since I started making money selling photos I have taken my rig everywhere. I bring my camera and I look for things that people could use, just like the cocktail drink above. Try to shy away from flowers, clouds, famous buildings as these are the things they already have enough of. Anyway, this wall all be explained before you are allowed to join and upload.
Glad I found this thread, looking forward to seeing more of your work [up]
