Photography businesses took a hit — just like many industries in the midst of a global pandemic.
Things were looking a little bleak for many creatives, and you may be feeling more financial stress than any bad season you’ve had since going pro. But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost for your career as a professional photographer.
Last week we walked you through our step-by-step guide on how to start a photography business, but the most important part is making money – and we’ll cover that today.
If you don’t want to let your photography business go the way of the dodo, you better be prepared to adapt and pivot to put some life back in your income stream.
Everyone knows about shooting weddings and portraiture, it’s the most common way for a photographer to make money (and as an adjacent destination elopements are in high demand). There’s millions of guides out there for that. Instead, let’s look at it from a different perspective, let’s see how you can expand your photography services and make more money in other niches.
If you’re looking for the some of the classic approaches, revisit our guide above. But in today’s guide, we’re discussing some of the best different and creative ways to make money as a professional photographer in 2024.
Starting with #1…
Shoot Real Estate Photography
We’ve talked about adapting and pivoting a little earlier. So here’s kind of a big one — adding real estate to your plethora of expertise as a professional photographer might be the right play for your business. This might be quite a jump from what you normally shoot, but real estate seems to be one of the healthier markets to be in the current climate.
Surprisingly, the real estate industry has held up far better than most sectors, which introduces an opportunity for creatives like you. With lockdowns and health restrictions being imposed all over the world, 3D home tours have seen an impressive rise in popularity — Zillow says virtual tours soared up to 750% after the first stay-home restrictions were imposed — which should be very good news for people handy with a camera.
If you’re not that savvy with post production, you could always start shooting “traditional” real estate photos (here’s a nifty guide to get you started with real estate photography) and then add virtual tour services later on. For most photographers, you’ll really just need an ultra wide angle lens for real estate photography (which many of you already have!)
And since most modern cameras are actually very good video cameras (here’s a few of our faves for real estate videography), you can also get into real estate videography – which arguably might be more profitable since with the abundance of good smartphones, as well as photographers.
For those worried about purchasing an entire, specialized system for 360 work, you can relax — let professional real estate photographer show you how you can do 360 tours with practically any camera with a wide angle lens.
Start Product Photography as a Side Business
Here’s one my favorites – product photography. I love it because you can do it on your own schedule, while you’re watching tv, etc. And it’s relatively simple, especially for the most common request – their product on a white background. I start my product photography services at $100 per product, and you can easily complete a gig in under an hour. A lot of businesses often need 3-5 products done, that’s an easy $300-500, which with the same setup you can also finish in under an hour.
It’s definitely another genre of photography that you might want to consider incorporating in your websites’ services page. People are staying at home. Sales from the e-commerce sector shot up at a whopping $26.7 trillion in 2020 alone, which made up 19% of all retail sales in the world. Put two and two together and you’ll hopefully see the potential of starting a product photography business as a side hustle.
One of the main advantages of getting into the product photography business is that it’ll net you high chances of getting repeat clients if you do good work. That means having a little security back in your cash flow. Second, product photography will require relatively minimal gear. You probably already own most of the gear you’ll need, and will most likely just need to add a few lights, a background, a macro lens and potentially a better tripod for those flat lay, overhead shots.
B&H has an awesome video that’ll walk you through a product photography shoot, from creating your first compositions to finishing up in post production.
In terms of product photography education, there’s plenty of free resources out there for you to enjoy, just like the B&H’s video above. But if you want a more comprehensive course that’ll take you from clueless to shooting high-end product photography, check out Fstoppers’ The Hero Shot.
Food photography is a closely related niche that you can add to your repertoire that requires just a portable lighting kit and perhaps a few food photography props.
NFT’s for Photographers
NFT’s are taking the world by storm, and some people are making millions creating them… and there’s certainly money to made in the photography niche as well. In our Beginner’s Guide to NFT’s for Photographers, we covered photographer Cath Simard, who sold her “Old Hawaii Road” photo as a NFT for a whopping $300,000 – then made it free to the world.
Do Freelance Photo Retouching
Creatives are known to wear many hats. In our line of work, post production is just as important as the actual shooting dates. So if you think you can dodge and burn like no other, you might want to look into moonlighting as a professional photo retoucher.
Photo retouching is a professional service that is vital to the success of many genres of photography — from glamming up commercial shoots or giving the finishing touch to movie posters, it extends to high-end product photography, too! Photographers who have a background in doing intensive post production on portraiture may already be set to go on their freelance retouching journey, but for the others just hearing about retouching being an entirely separate career on its own, don’t worry!
Like most things in life, you can hone or even learn photo retouching skills on the internet from scratch. PHLEARN for one has a wealth of both free and paid resources for you to devote your time in mastering the digital brush.
Check out professional retoucher Marcin Mikus’ super useful guide to starting a retouching portfolio. Those looking to focus on the fashion and commercial space wouldn’t want to miss out on this.
Sell Stock Photos
Now selling stock photos and videos is something you could do if you want to add a passive income stream for your photography business. If you can commit to selling stock photos online in the long term, because you won’t be getting a lot of money in your first few months, here are a few things to remember.
First, you should get familiar with stock photo websites and get to know their policies and technical requirements. Shutterstock, Getty Images, and Adobe Stock are some of the biggest stock agencies out there. Second, you should know what type of images sell. Currently, COVID-19-related and generally any “newsy” shots would do well for obvious reasons, but Expert Photography has rounded up 20 stock trends that you can explore.
And finally, you should have zen master-like patience when it comes to selling stock photos. It would only be realistic not to expect getting large sums of money off your stock work straight away, but if you can keep creating new content and curating your portfolio, then you can even possibly add stock photos and videos as a permanent part of your business going forward.
Here’s Nicole Glass with an awesome primer for all you stock photography beginners out there. We’ve also done a beginner’s guide to selling stock footage if videography and filmmaking is more up your alley.
Rent your Gear out to ShareGrid or KitSplit
If you’re not using 100% of your gear in light of the current shortage of projects, you might as well rent it out to other professionals and earn a few bucks in the process. I don’t suggest renting out your main system, and instead, just focus on dispatching older or duplicate gear in case you suddenly start picking up gigs.
How much you can earn depends on the value of your gear, and how long you’re willing to let your equipment out of the stable. There is, however, a way to get a good ballpark of how much you can earn from renting out your photography or videography equipment. Simply go into either ShareGrid or KitSplit, and then run a search for the gear you’re planning to rent out.
There’s also the ever-pressing issue of security and theft. Fortunately, both ShotKit and KitSplit, the two largest peer-to-peer rental marketplaces for creatives, have very robust security and insurance programs in place to minimize potential issues for owners.
We’ve done a complete guide to renting out your gear on both platforms here so I highly suggest checking it out if you’re planning to make some sweet passive income off of your unused gear.
Start a YouTube Channel
All right, settle down. I’m not saying you’re going to rival Peter Mckinnon’s subscriber count on your first year on YouTube. If you’re going to pour the time and effort into starting a YouTube channel, you must be prepared to play the ultimate long game for creatives.
It’s only natural for beginners who’ve never done anything in front of the camera to feel lost and intimidated by the idea of running a YouTube channel. So let me share what marketing powerhouse and serial entrepreneur Gary Vee has to say about producing content: “document, don’t create.” This philosophy basically boils down to not overthinking your content strategy and just start sharing what you do with the world. Maybe start a vlog revolving around how you’re pivoting your photography business to weather this whole pandemic thing. Perhaps share your expertise with the photography and focus on neat how-tos and interesting lesser-known tricks of the trade.
Grow enough following and you’ll be able to get into affiliate marketing, which by the way is a more reliable source of income in the YouTube realm than banking solely on your ad revenue. (here’s how much YouTubers make on the platform as well as 11 tips for starting a YouTube channel)
Commercial and lifestyle photographer Samuel Elkins shares some excellent advice on starting your YouTube channel as a photographer.
Expand your horizons, become a photographer + videographer
We’re seeing where things are trending, TikTok is taking over. Instagram, what was once known for photo, is now becoming a platform dominated by Instagram Reels. Whether you like it or not, video may be an important skill to incorporate in your work moving forward… and it can be a great way to create additional revenue streams.
And the beauty of it is that you don’t have to go crazy and become a full on cinematographer or filmmaker, just a few simple video projects here and there. Perhaps short videos to promote businesses, etc. Your gear is already capable of achieving the results businesses desire – so why not?
If you’re interested in learning more, I’d recommend these posts:
- How to Start a Videography Business
- Videography Tips for Beginners
- How Much to Charge for Video Production? [Industry Research]
Conclusion
We’ve hopefully shown you some of the best practical ways you can do right now to leverage your skills as a creator and keep your business running until we come back to normalcy. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown quite a sizeable curve ball to every business on the planet. With such dramatic changes to our personal and professional lives, we should employ equally dramatic measures to ensure we come out of this mess on top.
How do you make money as a photographer? What other creative ways would you recommend? Let us know in the comments!