As a photographer
you may want to earn a extra to be able to recover your equipment expenses. Or
perhaps you take it more seriously and as a professional photographer you look
for new ways to get extra income. In this article 18 ways to make money from
your photography.
stock photography
Stock photography
is one of the simplest ways to make money with the photos that are on your hard
disk. You upload your photos to a (micro) stock site and you receive a small
amount with every sale.
In practice, the
requirements are very high (after all, there is a lot of supply) and you have
to sell a lot if you want to earn a bit of it. And to get that done, you need to
be consistence to take hundreds of unique, high-quality images every day,
post-edit, provide descriptions and tags, and then upload to multiple stock
sites.
sell in local stores
Not all sales go
through the internet. Make a few professional prints of, for example, a
beautiful photo taken in your area. Make sure the print is ready to be hung on
the wall. This takes you to a local store where you ask if they want to place
it in the store in exchange for a percentage on sale.
Make good
agreements and make sure it is interesting enough for the retailer. You can
also make the photos more exclusive by offering a limited and numbered edition.
Photography for newspapers and magazines
The question is
whether you will get rich, but newspapers and magazines need new, up-to-date
photos every day. They cannot simply purchase many of those photos on stock
photography websites. So they have almost daily assignments.
If you can
quickly stand by to take the desired photos and know how to deliver the right
quality, then you may be able to work as a freelancer (in permanent employment
will be a lot harder) at a newspaper or magazine.
Give workshops
If you already
know pretty well how a camera works, you can of course transfer that knowledge
to others. The beginner's courses are certainly very popular, but if you can
really do something special, there is also sufficient demand for professional
workshops for the advanced in the higher segment.
Of course you
promote your workshops via sister site Photoworkshops,
but also check if they are not looking for a teacher at the local neighborhood
association or university.
Photography for companies
Companies often
have more budgets and will spend money faster for good photos. Almost every
company needs photos for advertising purposes or the company website. Companies
are therefore an excellent target group to offer you services.
Perhaps the most
difficult part is how you get the attention of companies in a good way. Of
course you have a website where your portfolio can be found, but then they have
to find you 'by chance'.
Be creative and
put time into it. For example, by visiting your portfolio or making targeted
advertising in a special way. For example, take a nice picture of the business
premises and send it to the business as a postcard or processed in a fictional
business directory (with information from their website). By giving a concrete
example, the interest will be immediately aroused.
Photographing weddings
Taking photos of
someone's wedding day is quite a popular way to make money. There are plenty of
photographers who can live quite well with this. However, it is something you
should not just start. The wedding day only comes once and the pictures of it
are often very important for the wedding couple.
Take profile photos
With all social
media sites, many people need good profile photos. A nice niche to jump in as a
photographer. You can focus on both consumers (such a 'selfie' is not
everything) or on companies. For example, a company will not be surprised if
you come up with a good proposal to have all employees photographed in one day.
On such a day you
can ensure that every employee has a photo in the same style. That does well on
the LinkedIn profiles and of course on the website of the company itself.
Photographing animals
Do you have more
with animals than with people? You can also take portrait photos of animals
that are sold well. Many pet owners see their pet as part of the family. They
like to hang a nice photo of cute animals on their wall. As a photographer you
can jump in on this by specializing in this form of photography.
Participate in photo competitions
A fun way to earn
money from your photos is to participate in photography competitions. You have
a chance to win money or (more often) equipment. If you do not want to keep the
equipment yourself, it will be on Marketplaces in no time and you will still
earn something from it.
Always take a
look at the conditions of a competition, often photo competitions are used by
companies to receive a lot of great photos that they want to use for free even
if you didn't win anything.
Keep in touch
Have you
forgotten who you took on the photo next week? It is much more difficult to get
a new customer than to keep an existing customer. Someone who already knows
what beautiful pictures you take and how fun it is to do a shoot with you.
So keep in touch
with existing customers. Are you photographing someone's marriage? There is a
good chance that you can sell them a year later for pregnancy photography and
shortly afterwards new born photography. For example, one year after a wedding
you can send a card congratulating the couple on their 1-year marriage and
casually mentioning that you are also doing maternity and new-born photography.
Of course you
should not bother customers every week, but every now and then finding contact
is not at all wrong. When accepting the initial order you can, for example,
also add the customer to your Facebook account. In this way, your timeline will
automatically pass when another photo moment presents itself.
Indent on holidays
You can of course
approach your contact from the point above (in addition to all other potential
customers via other routes) for, for example, the Christmas season. Many people
send each other a Christmas card and why wouldn't that be a personal photo of
the family?
Try to do this
efficiently, because people won't want to pay a lot money for a Christmas card.
For example, you can organize a few specific days in your studio where you can
photograph a family in 20 minutes.
By advertising
with a nice offer you can shoot the necessary nice family photos during the
dark days before Christmas. If you want to earn some extras then you also take
care of the handling for your customers and ensure that the photos (after
supplying an address list) end up on the doorstep of all friends and
acquaintances.
Owh, and don't
forget to mention somewhere on the Christmas card that others can come to you
for such a nice Christmas card ..
Exhibit
To be able to
sell your work, you first have to bring it to the attention. One of the ways is
to participate in photo exhibitions. Libraries and the like are often looking
for work by local artists. Perhaps you can exhibit your work here. You can also
actively look for other locations to exhibit. Preferably of course in places
where many people come.
Make sure that
your work states how people can purchase the print and immediately mentions the
price if you want to be completely clear.
Buying and selling equipment
As a photographer
you probably have the necessary experience with purchasing equipment. Not everyone
has your knowledge about this, so you can get started with buying and selling
photography equipment yourself
With the
knowledge you have, you can promote equipment better than someone with little
knowledge. Of course, you must already be acting in your blood. Do you know
something that you think everyone should have with a camera? Perhaps you can
buy it big with a nice discount and resell it for a nice price.
Conclusion
There are plenty
of opportunities to make money from photography. remember that taking beautiful
photos is not enough. Ultimately it is more important how you deal with
marketing than how beautiful your photos are.
Also think
carefully about the price at which you sell your photos or services. At the end
of the year, the tax authorities would also like to collect a substantial
percentage of your profit and you also have the necessary costs for equipment,
training, marketing and the like.
Do you have other
ideas with which you can earn money as a photographer?
Let me know in
the comments!
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