5 Best Ways To Make Money As A Photographer
If you do photography as a hobby, you might be wondering how you can turn it into a profitable side hustle. How can you turn those photos that you friends and family compliment you so highly on, into something that you can sell for a decent living wage, or more? Just like with anything, it can be a fairly difficult process, requiring a lot of hard work, dedication, and persistence. You also need to have an excellent amount of skill — potential clients want to see that you can create beautiful and almost fantasy world-like imagery with your camera.
With that said, if you follow along below, we’ll show you the best ways that you can make money as a photographer.
Get A Website
Your first step is to get a website. A website is going to be one of the first impressions that potential clients are going to be able to see. You should have some information about you here, a page describing your services, and then some contact information to get in touch with you.
If you can, one of the most important things to have featured on your website is a portfolio of all of your best images. You want to show off the images from your best photo shoots here — this will more than anything help you convert site visitors into clients.
Use Fiverr And Other Markets
You can also offers your services on FIverr. You can offer to take professional photos of subjects of your choosing — this can be nature, urban settings, and more. The more ratings you get as a seller, the more you can sell your services for.
You might also want to consider putting together a bunch of beautiful photos (with watermarks, of course), and selling them or licensing them out to websites like iStock and BigStock. If they’re good enough, you could earn some decent side money, depending on how many people license your photo for use.
Do Photo Shoots
Another great way to make money is by offering photo shoots for clients. There’s a lot of different photo shoots you can offer, such as:
- Headshots
- Family Portraits
- Graduation Pictures
- Newborn Photo Shoots
- Maternity Photo Shoots
- …and so much more!
By offering a variety of different photo shoot services, you can increase your client potential, and thus your revenue potential as a photographer.
Work As An Assistant Photographer
One of the biggest hurdles that hobbyists have is that they don’t have enough skill or a large enough portfolio to work as a professional photographer. That said, you can work as an assistant photographer for a time, learning all the tools of the trade along the way. You’ll learn everything from camera techniques and positions to editing skills on the computer. Make sure to try and find as many side gigs as possible while working as an Assistant Photographer, as it’s likely the company or person you’re working for isn’t going to let you include their client photos in your portfolio! This is mostly a place where you can hone and improve your skills.
Offer Wedding Photo Services
One of the best money makers for photographers is in wedding services. Wedding photography is particularly profitable, but it’s also expensive for the photographer as well. You need to make sure that you have only the most top of the line equipment for weddings, as you want to take the best shots possible. You want these photos to look just stunning so that your clients recommend you to other people.
Of course, it’s difficult to get started in wedding photograph. You can start by telling your friends and family members that you started a photography business, and hopefully they’ll spread the word, recommend you, and help you land your first wedding photography client. At the same time, telling your friends and family about your new photography business can be a great way to advertise other aspects of your photography offerings as well, such as the various photo shoots we mentioned earlier.
Verdict
When it comes to making your photography business profitable, it’s all about networking. You have to network, network, and then network some more! Be sure that you have photos on hand, such as on your phone or on your website, that you can quickly and easily show to potential clients so that they can get a sample of what their photos could potentially look like. If you’ve never done much photography before, a great way to start getting portfolio shots is to offer photo shoots and other photography services for free until you can get a decent portfolio.