Photography is passion for a lot of students, but they don't know how to earn money from photography. Here's our take on photography and earning money from it.
Is it the nature? Or the streets and buildings, flowers, or your friends’ silly faces? Cute animals or the wild ones? Is it the cloudy sky or a dramatic sunset or simply just humans being humans? What is it that has you giving you into the urge, pause for a tick, and capture the moment? Whatever it may be, isn’t it just SO cool, the art of freezing a moment in time, ensuring its existence, making it eternal –Photography. (Too into the feels? Poetic, eh?)
But were you aware, of the ever-so-fast potential of what often births as a mere liking, hurriedly turning into passion? Like many have actually built a whole living out of this passion of theirs. The photography business is super dynamic and limitless, and professional photographers would agree that your passion for photography together with your photography skills can bring in a good deal of fortune, and if not that, at the very least can make for a source of additional income or occasional extra money (who doesn’t love that!).
But there’s this thing with money in photography – you can only go big when you well-know the opportunities you can explore and monetize. Interest in knowing how? Dive in, let’s make money from photography!
Arrive at a Niche
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- Fashion Photography: Step into the Glam World
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- Travel Photography: Tell your Travel Tales
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- Wedding Photography: Leverage the Big Fat Indian Wedding Szn
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- Club Photography: Unleash your inner party animal
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- Event Photography
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- Real Estate Photography: Never leave home 🙂
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- Art and Product Photography
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- Paparazzo: Go celebrity hopping
Social Media Platforms: Let ‘em know
Make Your Own Photofolio
Edits and Retouches: Give it your touch
Photoblog
Stock Photography
Magazines & Newspapers: Freelance for prints
Teaching: Share your Skill n’ Secrets
Influencers, Bloggers & Sponsored Posts: Get IG Famous
Digital Photo-related Products: Prints, Merch n’ More
Arrive at a Niche
So you’ve decided on taking up photography, cool. But that is just a very blur and vast picture still. There are a plethora of types of photography –some that you’d like, others that you’d be good at, some you’d struggle with, some you’d have to eliminate due to certain limitations etc. etc. For your photography career to kick start, the first foundation step is to filter down to a specific niche, one that you enjoy, are good at, or are just keen to learn, and is feasible for you. Here are a few very popularly chosen ones:
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Fashion Photography: Step into the Glam World
If second to your love of photography comes your love for fashion, accessories, brands, and all things glam, then Fashion Photography is the right call for you. It’s like two of your faves coming together! As a fashion photographer, you’d be part of brand shoots or portfolio shoots and would be working together with a highly creative clan, like models, stylists, designers, etc. to convey collections, and fashion items in the best light.
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Travel Photography: Tell your Travel Tales
Okay, this one –is an absolute DREAM for all the freelance photographers and travel freaks. Imagine one day your ‘office’ is a mountain-top view, and the next day the sound of the waves graces your day. Dreamy, right? As a travel photographer, you live a nomad life, in the best way – you get to meet new people and landscapes, eat different cuisines, and do a lot of fun and clicking. Having said that, there’s a sprinkle of jetlag, time, day, language restraints, homesickness, etc. too. Here you can earn money or have your travels funded by company deals, via travel blogs, stock sites, etc.
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Wedding Photography: Leverage the Big Fat Indian Wedding Szn
The wedding market is amongst the biggest ones in India, and every single wedding is incomplete without a photographer. Now you can imagine the scope! As a wedding photographer, you get to witness and capture a lot of very wholesome moments that are high on emotions. A lot of attention to delicate details, emotions and bittersweet moments is required that convey the feelings as it is. Wedding food comes as a plus!
That’s not it, there are a ton of more niches you can explore, such as:
- Club Photography, if love to unleash your inner party animal
- Event Photography, such as concerts, carnivals, seminars, conferences, rallies, etc. At events, photo booths are the hottest trend at the moment.
- Real Estate Photography
- Art and Product Photography
- Landscape Photography
- Wildlife Photography, any Farhan Qureshi reading this?
- Paparazzo: Go celebrity hopping
Social Media Platforms: Let ‘em know
Today there’s no better place for your amazing photos than socials. No matter what kind or type of photography you take up, having an online presence can give you a huge boost in terms of awareness and getting the word out about you. These online platforms are a great portal for your potential clients to find you and further contact you on a one-on-one level regarding inquiries, client packages, and more.
Make Your Own Photofolio
Photofolio, a portfolio of your photos. In a craft such as photography, the heart and soul are creativity and to express it or produce tangible proof of it is the entire game. A strong portfolio is an essential tool, one that represents or speaks for you and your skill, and has the ultimate potential to turn your audience into your clients. So give due attention and effort to building a strong online portfolio that is a true testimony of your skills and conveys your potential.
Edits and Retouches: Give it your touch
This could be an additional service you provide a.k.a. the additional source of income or could be your main thing. Photography ain’t just about clicking, there are lots that come after it too –like editing it, cropping out the annoying crowd in the background, giving it a certain feel/mood/vibe say retro or the gen-z-fav blur or y2k, retouching, and a lot more. While this will still require you to know the basics of photography and the fundamentals of photography, it can save you the actual effort of going out n’ about clicking pictures (Introvert nation rise!), neither would require essentials like quality equipment or lighting equipment. A great choice if you don’t want to become a full-time photographer.
Photoblog
Blogging could be referred to as the OG of online content. And despite the explosion of social media, it has managed to retain some quality space for itself (we mean, you’re here, reading a blog ;)). So photoblog is a great space to put your creativity on display. It has its own unique audience, who basically adore more of what they see than read. With photography blogs, you could portray your signature photography style in your own space, narrate interesting stories via your stunning photos, bring a hint of fun with themes, and even share educational content to offer additional value to your target audience.
Stock Photography
So you must have come across those Getty Images, Shutterstock, iStock, or more. Well, these are stock photography sites. These are a repository of high-quality stock photos clicked by various photographers and made available for use via licensing. In simple terms, people or companies buy these images or pay for obtaining the license to use these images for various creative pursuits –such as ads, websites, and more.
Some more sites are Unsplash, Pexels, Canva, Adobe Stock, etc.
Magazines & Newspapers: Freelance for prints
Best for freelancers, this includes photography focused on publications, money from which comes via commission or based on submission. This allows a great chance to explore various different genres/niches. Lifestyle magazines, fashion magazines, wildlife/nature magazines, children’s magazines, and more.
Teaching: Share your Skill n’ Secrets
One way you earn money is by using the skill. Another way you do so is by sharing the skill. Thanks to photography being a creative-led thing, it doesn’t require any qualification, just skills. In fact, many have started their journeys with beginner courses on the internet. If you possess a decent to a good understanding of you can offer online courses or photography classes. These could cover topics such as the basics of photography, tips and tricks, usage of equipment, and a lot more.
Influencers, Bloggers & Sponsored Posts: Get IG Famous
Influencer culture is touching the sky these days. Their count is rising and rising each day, which opens an equal number of opportunities for you. Since these are solo forces themselves, and mostly start small, onboarding professional photographers sounds like a bleak possibility, making you an easy pick instead. You can get in touch with a bunch of influencers or bloggers on social media sites such as Instagram, based on your interest and photography style (fashion, beauty, food, etc.), and work together on creating content. You can also start as an assistant photographer to these creators too.
Digital Photo-related Products: Prints, Merch n’ More
While photos are products in themselves, here we combine them with another product to make a whole new product. We’re talking posters, photo prints, framed prints, customized tees, phone cases, cards, mugs, and a lot more. As cheesy as some of these may be, they are still cute and sell like rage! Best part? –There exist an array of things, infinite actually, that you can put a photo on and sell.
Phew! That’s one LONG list. But guess what, it still doesn’t end here, we’ve just listed the top, most trending bunch. There exist countless ways, a pool of possibilities really, for you to earn money through photography. So go on, lights, camera, click (& cash it)!
