hey folks welcome to the video i'm
johnny i'm a photographer and in this
video
i'm going to share with you a whole
bunch of ways that you can earn money
as a photographer right now
when i put this list together i tried to
make it so that some of these
would be for beginners some of them
would be for pros some in the mid-range
and some would require gear and some you
could probably get away with a mobile
phone
i wanted to keep it for everyone so
please bear that in mind when you're
watching this video
so i'm johnny i'm a photographer and
this channel is all about creativity
social media and photography and in this
video we're going to be talking about
ways that you can earn money
as a photographer or using skills that a
photographer might have
so the first of these is product
photography for small medium-sized
businesses
almost every single product based
business out there will have a website
and you'll be able to explore their
website and decide whether their product
photography is
next level or whether you could improve
on it now a way to approach a company
like this
wouldn't be to just email them say i'll
do your product photos it might be to
approach them and say listen
i do product photography would you be
interested in me doing a couple of shots
for you to see if that works out and
build a relationship from there that's
the best way of doing it
and the thing is product photography is
a great one because right now if you
can't travel all those sorts of things
actually if you're a professional
photographer in another regard and
you're wondering how to get work
actually doing a bit of product
photography might not be a bad idea
because companies can send you those
products through the post and you can
deliver the product uh digitally
so it's actually a great way for maybe a
professional portrait photographer or
wedding photographer to maybe
jump into another discipline just for a
short time
to just get a bit of work while weddings
are difficult at the moment
the next example would be casual
portraiture i say casual portraiture
because portrait photography
actually requires a lot of experience
and a lot of work and a lot of gear and
i wouldn't want
a portrait photographer watching this to
think that i think anyone could just
jump into that discipline
that's not the case but for casual
portraiture this would be for example
shooting for someone's instagram account
or for
their maybe their fashion blog or family
portraiture that sort of thing something
where
you don't require all the gear but you
can still offer a service and deliver
some value
now getting this kind of work really
requires good communication skills so
if you want to get this kind of work and
you're already a good photographer
don't just work on your portfolio work
on your communication skills as well
and i think that to be honest that goes
for all of these when you're getting
work you need to be a good photographer
you need to have a good portfolio
you also need to be a good communicator
now the next example is selling prints
this doesn't apply to everyone and i see
a lot of people out there thinking that
if they just throw prints up on their
website that they will sell them
that's not the case there is much more
nuance to selling prints than people
realize
you need to start thinking about why
would someone want to buy that print
really good portraiture that is a
difficult thing to sell prints in
because why would someone want a picture
of some random person it has to be an
exceptional photo
whereas landscape photography you could
be a beginner landscape photographer
taking pictures of a famous location
and that might sell prints now a very
experienced very good landscape
photographer could sell prints
of any location because their photos are
that good you could also apply this to
architecture photography street
photography
and as i've said landscape photography
those are the areas which i would say
are more accessible for beginners or
amateur photographers to start selling
prints in
absolute pro photographers will be able
to get great photos in any location of
any subject and they will probably be
selling lots of prints
but if you are just starting out and you
are just thinking about the stuff to
sell prints of
maybe focus on the things that are
already famous and already have a reason
for someone to buy a print of it and
before we head on to the next one as i
said i am planning on putting prints on
my website
if you're watching this a few weeks
after me posting i will leave a link in
the description to some of my prints if
that's interesting to you
the next example is sell photos on a
stock photography website
now as i said i don't have personal
experience here but i will give you a
few tips that just come from
out of my brain just start thinking
about the kinds of things that people
want to buy
corporate settings maybe locations that
are hard to get to
i would suggest going on these stock
photography websites looking at what's
there looking at what's selling and
seeing whether you can start replicating
some of that
the next example would be shooting
interiors for an estate agents for house
sales
hospitality airbnbs that sort of thing
now this is quite an accessible one
because you can go on airbnb and start
looking at
places in your local area that don't
have great photos
obviously don't message them and say
listen you haven't got great photos
i'll give you some new ones you could
message them saying listen if you ever
want to
update the photos on your airbnb site i
do that and here is what i'm offering
and as i said earlier good communication
skills will be key here because
you're not communicating with a business
you're communicating with an individual
and at that point you need to connect
with them at the top end
real estate photographers are some of
the most talented photographers i've
ever seen
the things that are involved in proper
clean
real estate photography are so detailed
and requires so much work and experience
that
i would never suggest that anyone could
just start doing it but
you can start doing interiors in a
casual way and build up to becoming a
real estate photographer we're going to
step away from holding the camera for
the next couple and start focusing on
our passion for photography
now if you know a lot about gear if you
know a lot about the industry
you could write a blog about photography
and within that blog you can
place ads and you can place links
affiliate links and things like that to
start earning a small passive income
now the way this works is very different
it will start very small and it will
grow
possibly exponentially depending on the
quality of your work now if you're
someone who is passionate about
photography and has some writing skills
or maybe you have time to develop new
skills
this might be a really interesting thing
to create alongside your
photography mainly because this will
start small and grow much like
a youtube channel now maybe you have a
passion for photography but you really
don't have a passion for writing a blog
well you can make videos you could talk
to people about your passion for
photography
alongside your photography and this is
using all of that experience that you've
got
and all of that knowledge that you've
built up over the years so as i said
while this isn't making money holding a
camera
you are still using your experience and
your skills
to earn affiliate link and ad revenue
from your skills now just a quick point
on the last two
as fun as it is don't underestimate the
amount of work that it takes
to create a blog and create videos that
will earn you a bit of money
but if you are willing to take the leap
into it i highly highly recommend it now
the next point another byproduct of
photography if you
are editing your photos using lightroom
are presets
now if you're someone who has spent a
lot of time learning how to edit on
lightroom
and you have a lot of experience
remember that time energy and experience
has value and you can distill all of
that into a preset that you can sell for
download on your website now presets are
a great way of
teaching people about your photography
teaching them about your process
and giving them a shortcut to a look
similar to yours now i wouldn't be doing
my job properly if i didn't plug my own
presets here
i have presets on my website i developed
these as a way to show people how to
create a similar look to the look that
i've got
and i also created them as a way for
people to learn
about the process that i went through to
to create the presets so if you are
interested in my photography i'll put a
few examples on the screen right now
head over to my website after this video
and take a look at my presets anyway
plug over let's carry on with the next
if you have been doing photography for a
long time you are probably taking for
granted the amount of knowledge
that you've got now you can put all of
that knowledge into an online course
and sell it at whatever price you think
is the appropriate price
for example i have bought a lot of small
cheaper online courses on photography
just to
keep my skills up you know look at all
the different things that there are it's
a really good thing to consume
and therefore it's a really good thing
to sell as a photographer again
don't underestimate the amount of work
that might take but it's a great thing
to have
alongside your photography now maybe you
have all that experience and you have
the ability to teach but you don't
really want to create an online course
there are more traditional means you
could do one-to-one workshops
i know a lot of photographers who prop
up their photography businesses by
teaching one-to-one
and in that case you can give a really
in-depth view on photography and you can
really teach that person
what it is that they particularly want
to know maybe they want to fill in a gap
in their photography
or maybe they're a beginner and they
really want to learn your style of
photography
so don't discount this as a way of
making money as a photographer
now back to the traditional photography
and this one is a bit of an odd one at
the moment because
obviously the events industry has taken
a massive hit
however events photography is actually a
really interesting one because it's
actually quite accessible
to starter photographers you know
beginners amateurs
obviously the top end of events
photography is full of professionals
with professional gear
but just imagine the amount of
nightclubs bars music
music nights things like that and i'm a
musician and we used to get emails all
the time from photographers who
contacted us because they saw we were on
the bill for a particular venue
and they would say hey do you want me to
come take some photos if you like the
photos you can buy them from me for set
price and it was always actually quite a
low number so this is a really great one
for getting into photography because
events are so dynamic and they're so
much fun
now leading on from events photography
is wedding photography now before we get
started on wedding photography
i don't want any wedding photographers
out there to think that i'm saying that
anyone can get started in wedding
photography wedding photography is
possibly one of the most
difficult types of photography just
because you are dealing with
very long days high stress situations
people who want to get the absolute
best out of you and i've got a huge
amount of respect for wedding
photographers even though i've kind of
talked about how difficult wedding
photography can be
it's quite accessible because usually
obviously not right now but usually
there are a lot of weddings
and there will likely be a lot of
weddings however for those reasons
it is a very competitive type of
photography
and just a quick bit of advice if you do
book a wedding prepare for it because
you can get a lot out of it if you're
ready for it but also
you can crash and burn if you are not
prepared for the amount of work and the
amount of endurance involved
in that type of photography now leading
on from wedding photography is actually
engagement photography which is
a similar type but much less stressful
because you can control the location
and you can work with them to get the
best out of it you can ask them what it
is that they want
out of the shoot and you can take your
time with it this might be a great
route into wedding photography as i said
i don't have a huge
experience myself so speak to other
wedding photographers or engagement
eloquent photographers to see whether
that's the kind of thing that you want
to do but it could be a really good one
now this is definitely a seasonal one
but i see a lot of photographers do
quite well selling calendars
i see a lot of landscape photographers
doing it but i don't see any any reason
why
architecture photographers or interiors
photographers
or just abstract photography those sorts
of things wouldn't do really well
as selling calendars but obviously
you're not going to sell many calendars
in june july august whatever you're
going to sell a lot of calendars
at the end of the year or in january or
for the very late comers maybe february
the next one is kind of an extension of
calendars it would work for the same
kind of photographer and that would be
selling photo books
i would say that you have to be a pretty
well known a pretty good photographer
to actually start selling photo books
but if you're a travel photographer or a
landscape photographer
i think you could probably sell photo
guides where you talk about the
locations and where you took the photos
you could use your photography to create
those kind of books
and i think those would sell if you're
an established landscape photographer
or architecture photographer or a travel
photographer and you are not selling
books
it could be something that would work
for you if you're a beginner you might
need to find another way of adding value
to the product and that's why i suggest
guides travel guides things like that
where you can talk more about the
location so the value isn't just in the
photos
it is also in the content of the book
this won't work for everyone but
if it works for you you've probably just
decided that's a good idea
another one that i've seen has worked
for some photographers is actually
entering competitions
you can find competitions on the
internet where they have prizes
this would be a really interesting one
for a beginner photographer and
you know obviously a beginner might not
win the competition but hear me out
this would be a great way of you gaining
experience
with some kind of potential payout at
the end a difficult thing to do when
you're a beginner photographer is
actually just to decide what you want to
take photos of
whereas if you were to you know you've
got your camera you've got a lens and
you enter a landscape photography
competition
you may not win but if you did a lot of
work and you learnt a lot and as a
beginner once you've gained enough
experience it might be that this will
lead you onto one of the other ones that
we've talked about in this video
this one's important and this is
different because gaining experience is
really important
all of us photographers out there know
how much experience it takes and how
much time it takes to learn the craft
just because you're holding a camera it
doesn't mean
someone's going to pay you to use it you
need to provide value and you need to
give them something that they
really genuinely do value please think
about that when you think back at all
those ideas i've just given you it is a
spectrum there are beginners and there
are professionals within all of those
and there are budgets to match those
if you are a beginner remember there
will be small companies out there with
small budgets
where you can learn a lot from those
jobs if you're a professional
obviously you know about photography
you've got all that experience
and you know your own industry but just
remember that all that knowledge that
you've got could be really useful to
beginners and you could probably earn
something from that particularly
during this time where we can't work we
can't get out and there's lockdowns
everywhere so i hope you found this
useful if you did hit the like button
let me know in the comments which one
you found most useful if you've got any
questions
contact me on twitter and i'll get back
to you and we can talk about a few
things
feel free to go check out my website and
all the other stuff that i've got on
there i'll leave a link in the
description
and if you want to see more videos i'll
leave two on the screen right now
hit the subscribe button and if you do i
will see you in the next video
thanks very much and good luck with your
photography
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