In business I have learnt that there are two types of people. Those who have a skill and don’t know how to earn money from it, and those who don’t have the skills but know where the money is. It’s an interesting thing to think about, because if you truly are a hobbiest/enthusiast for photography, the reason for taking photos is for the art itself. That means your thinking, learning, and experience has all been curated without the underlying want to be paid. Theres not a lot in this world that people will do for free, but you have decided to do this thing as it rewards you in someway. This is important as you are already rewarded for doing the thing – Taking an amazing shot of your partner is exciting to you not because you can charge them $100 for you to edit it and print it with a nice frame. Its exciting because you get to put it on your fridge, you get so see the joy on their face when you give it to them. Why would you want more of a reward for this? This is why you got into photography.
Then you have the other camp, The people that see these photographers with amazing skills and using it to take their 300th photo of their partner and cover the last spare spot of the fridge with it, leaving you with no room for your new favourite Chinese food menu. ‘Why don’t they just make a website and sell some of their shit photo’s passively’ you say. Then you get a great idea, you go to your local camera shop, buy a really good beginner camera for $1,400 AUD, grab an SD card and a bag, then off you go learning how to take photos. Because if i could do that, I would be able to make some money. Then you realise 10 minutes into owning a new camera that you fucking hate photography, you just want money, and now this is doing stuff you hate to earn money so you can do stuff you want. Congratulations you have another job, and it sucks just as much as your last one. Dumbass.
It was important for me to talk about those two types of people before i rant some more, you need to really reflect and figure out which camp you’re in. If you’re in the first one, then this post is for you. I want you to succeed in making money with your hobby, I truly do. Partly because I am jealous, as photography is really cool and the people that are good at it also seem… really cool. But also because I want more people to do the things they love more. Its hard watching true creatives at a 9-5, you’re not meant to be there, your role in this world is to inspire others through your art. Inviting the rest of us assholes to see things how you see them, to see how your complex feelings interpret out environment. You also need to eat… and that new leica camera isn’t free.
If you’re firmly in the other camp, this is not for you. For full transparency I am you, I have no fun skills and I struggle to learn new ones. I cant even be fucked to paint my own warhammer anymore, there’s no way i’m going to learn how to shoot a camera. My advice to you lot is to find what you’re good at. That’s not necessarily a creative pursuit, really dig into what makes you a valuable human (Yes there is something there you depressed fucks) and pull on that thread. Be persistent and let me know what you find.
Lets get to the meat and veg of it then, I’ll list the genuine ways you can make money from photography. You don’t need to be an expert, you just need to love what you do and have a passion for learning more.
1. Product shoots
This one is first as I think this is the biggest freelance opportunity with little set up fees and manageable scalability. There are plenty of websites selling things, I’m not sure what the stats are but i’m sure online shopping is so ridiculously popular that if you are selling something and its not online, then you are losing. The idea here is to find someone who is selling a product, get them to ship the product to you, you then take an awesome set of photos for it, they put it on their listing, they make heaps of money, you compensated. Easy right! I’m sure there would be some studio set up costs, I’m also sure if you’re reading this you have a make shift studio (Or want one pending partners permission to turn the spare room into your hobby room). Other than that there are no costs to setting this up!
Where do I find my clients?
Theres 3 ways you can get clients here. Firstly, you can set up a website, create a good marketing funnel, run SEO and paid advertising to collect your customers. That’s a bit to learn yourself or you could pay someone to do that (like me :p, email if interested). Secondly, you can go to a platform like fiverr (I think there are more just like this) which is a job posting board. Advertise that you can take shots of their products for x amount, alternatively people post that they need someone to do the work for them. A bit of column A and a bit of column B works well here. Finally if you are so inclined, you can cold call some websites. Have a browse for products on etsy, facebook, amazon, that look like shit and email the business owner. A lot of these will be AI generated… AND YOU CAN TELL. So they would be more than happy for you to do a shoot for them.
How much can I make?
Now heres the fun part, as this is a service that only takes up your time and no real resources, your pricing is based off the value of the service. So if you do a great job, and the client likes the work, you can charge based off how much the client need the photos and how much they are willing to pay. You would be surprised how much someone will pay for something like this. Remember the two camps of people from the top of the post? That second group know how little they don’t know about photography, but they also know that they can do it themselves if they put in a TONNE of effort. So they are buying the convenience.
My recommendation would to do some cheaper work while you build up your portfolio and get some reviews. For example part of my negotiation would be ‘maybe i’ll do this for only $100 for you, but you have to give me a review when you’ve got the finished product’. The old i’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. It wont be long until you have 10 sales and 10 5 star reviews.
This can also be done for businesses that run services as well, think out of the box here. What you’re trying to do is provide a benefit to the customer, thats to make their outward facing profile look professional and appealing.
2. Camera lessons
Photography is so popular right now, everyone is buying mirrorless cameras and trying to learn this great skill. As someone who has done this, its so difficult to self learn. I play sport, go to the gym, how life admin to look after, need to tend to my partner. I don’t have time to find a good resource on how to use my damn camera. Theres some good youtube videos yeah, but theres nothing like someone being there with you, explaining what the buttons do and why they do it. Someone who can walk you through your trial and error, all while there are other battlers doing the same thing next to you. This is why I would recommend setting up little groups that you can take out shooting for a few hours, the market is red hot for it, and the consumers are begging for it.
Why is this a good option?
I see this as more of a business you can set up. With doing product shoots you can engage with it as much as you like. Maybe one month you take 10 jobs, maybe the next month you need to attend a bunch of birthday parties or other events so you take 0. There are no resources and its all kind of transactional so you can do it when you want. This option however, involves a bit more logistics and managing people. Now before you freak out, this isn’t a huge task, your classes should only be a max of 6 people and there are protections to put in place so if people back out you don’t lose all your business. If managing the logistics around this stresses you out, pay a type A person like 50 bucks or a case of beer to run a calendar for you. You could even pay them 10% because you are about to earn a bit of cash.
How much can I make?
People will pay money for this. I’ve seen businesses charge upwards of 500 bucks a client. You probably don’t need to do this, but you need to be conscious of what you are providing these people. I would suggest running a few trials with some people you know, do it for free and let them play around with some of your old cameras (I know you have a bunch). Set up a website, get it indexed on google, and get your mates to send you some reviews. once you’re confident with your teaching process, open it up to the market. Chuck an add up on facebook market place, jump on your local area photography Reddit’s, maybe even go to local camera stores and drop a business card. Charge $150-$300 per person, 1 full class will get you at least $800. I like this because the risk again just isn’t there. If they no show you’ve gotten them to pay already, and you can offer a money back guarantee if they hate it, as the only thing it cost you was your time.
The way you make more money here is by opening up more sessions, maybe 2-4 sessions a week, and when demand for these increases too much for you to handle, just increase your pricing. Another reason this excites me, a marketing graduate, Is you can get your clients details into a marketing funnel and offer other classes. Maybe your first class is an introduction class, then you offer a second tier, maybe an intermediate class. You could even do a street photography class, a shooting landscapes class. Literally whatever interests you. And don’t forget, if you think you aren’t enough of an expert to do this, talk to someone who just bought there first camera, you’ll find out pretty quickly that you have something to offer them.
P.S You could get a collection of your students best photos, put them in a photo table book, and sell that to all your previous clients. Make it super professional and they would love it, imagine learning how to take a photo then getting one of your first good ones printed to show their family and friends. Leaves a cool memory for them, and another little opportunity to make some extra cash
3. The road less travelled
Look team, I think if you don’t want to do these first 2 options you need to just start putting yourself out there and create your personal brand. Get a presence on the internet, thats where most buyers are these days. Avoid non conventional methods of making money like wedding or nightclub photography. If you have a personal brand with followers, subscribers, fans, whatever you wanna call it, you can leverage that to make some money. I know what you’re thinking, capitalism and making money is awful and you feel bad for taking people money in this day and age. But mate, people are happy to pay for good art. People want to give you money, and you need to feed yourself at the end of the day, everyone gets that. So be creative, think outside of the box, but most importantly, give yourself permission to put yourself out there. You’re a beautiful human with valuable skills. You probably wont make a million dollars anytime soon, and you will need to work hard at some things to get that pay day. But you’ll be doing it through a hobby that you love.
If this was valuable to you please leave a comment, let me know. Obviously there is a lot more to running these businesses than I could fit here so please reach out for any assistance, It’s what i’m good at.
If you want more frequent advice on how to make money, then give me your email by clicking the link below.
https://ecommerce-from-scratch.kit.com/bd898f65c9
Thanks
Dash
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