The Easiest way to make BIG money in Photography
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2022
- Ever wondered what the easiest way to make big money in professional photography is? In todays video I talk about a recent phone call I received where someone asked me this very question. So let's talk about the taboo subject of making money in photography.
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I made $100,000 in my first year of Real Estate photography because I loved shooting interiors and architecture and I realised everybody else already doing it was jaded, had no passion and would prefer to be photographing something more romantic . In this particular industry I found that there is a lot of competition but there’s also a lot of business to go around in the average standard of work is not amazing. But I have found the clients are loyal and the business is frequent if not the highest paying genre of photography. So if you love this sort of thing and are willing to put in more work then the person next to you I would recommend it 👍
I want to look into real estate photography as well.
Good luck in the US, real estate is an awful hustle. Many huge companies are trying to monopolize that market. They are making contracts with thousands of brokerages across the US. Because of the volume, they charge very low rates. They pay the photographer even less. 47 dollars in fact to shoot a 3,000 SF house including video and still photography. If you can find a real estate broker that isn’t using one of these large companies- you could get some work at a decent pay, however in my experience companies like Home Visit, Corelogic, Virtuance etc are gobbling up all the work, because they offer a service for ludicrous prices. You’d think well, ok but the high end homes will surely pay more… nope. Real estate agents are cheap skates. If they can get Virtuance to shoot a 4,000 SF house for 150 bucks, they will. These companies are also having their photographers shoot video, stills, and now floor plans with cell phone software such as one called CubiCasa. In my region outside Washington DC, there is tons of work but it has mostly been snatched up by these companies and the amateur photographers that think they are getting somewhere by driving 300 miles a day to shoot 3 or 4 houses and make 200 bucks…. The Markets are different in every region but in the DC Metro area it’s basically a waste of time unless you’re prepared to do all that work, for less than these companies and then come home and edit them as well as their own editing teams the same night. It’s just not feasible.
I also think if you’re in photography for business, it’s important to see yourself less as an artist and more as a creative service provider. I have spoken with so many clients who hate dealing with photographers because so many of us are more interested in creating “art” and we are in producing work that meets the needs of the paying client. I know that might suck some of the romance and magic out of the title of photographer But it’s still a hell of a lot better than working a regular 9 to 5.
Exactly. If you want to be artsy take photos to sell in a gallery or something but once you do it for business you have to pull back and do what the client wants and need with a smidgen of your creativity.. Because that's why they picked you and not the other person.
running a successful photography business is 10% creative and 90% business knowledge
I'm sitting her thinking about cancelling an outdoor family portrait session where I'd be photographing the family in the heat and the humidity. I mostly do studio work, headshots, model portfolios. I accepted this job when work was slow but then she didn't get back to me until I got busy again. I think I prefer commercial work in the studio instead of being outdoors in the heat and humidity of summer.
After taking over 500 weddings and 10 years as a jewellery photographer I got totally burnt out so took a few years out, still really enjoy photography but now doing what I enjoy most and building my portfolio for the next stage in my career, keep up the good work.
I love how honest you are! Never change Scott
I have to shout out this resource: if you’re curious on other ways to make money in this industry, I can’t recommend enough paying attention to B&H’s yearly conferences B&H Depth of Field and B&H OPTIC. Every year I go and I’m shocked at how poorly attended they are compared to RUclips views, yet how inspiring, incredible, and interactive the content is. This is not an ad, because I attend online 100% free, and during lockdown it was essentially just myself asking questions to industry-leading photographers in Zoom rooms. It was fantastic and a great way to learn and ask about how to make $ in the industry. One such way that I found particularly interesting was influencer marketing, but I won’t get into that here.
Anyway, thanks for the advice Tin House!
yeah the B and H online lecture format is great! It is where I learn most of my wedding photography skills
'Do what you love and stick with it'... perfect advice. The sticking with it part and seeing it through, is the tough part. Thank you.
Some of the very best YT content, insight and considered advice available. Fantastic. Thank you.
Sir. Your my mentor. For over a year now. Thanks for sharing your struggles! Keeps me clear for whats ahead of me and doesnt make me stress out during the proces! Thanks a lot!
Great content. Photography like any art is not the sort of thing you think about if you want to make money, it's much easier to stick with engineering, banking or medicine. Totally agree, if you just follow your passion, and do what you love, then you will figure a way out how to make a living at it. You can always give classes or do a guided tour etc. If it's your passion, and you get really good at something, then you are happy, even if it's part time. Really like your work, because it's so easy to see you are really good at it.
yeah people focus far too much on the money. If money is the number one goal, don't do photography. There are loads of easy ways to make good money.
@@TinHouseStudioUK like what?
after so much time in photo (since 2008) i had tested all until 2014 when ive notice that sports photography is what i like and what i love to shoot. after knowing you during covid crap ive started developing new skills and thank you for all of those nice advice's!!!
Love your videos! Thank you for your honesty and efforts.
Excellent video, I wish more people would talk online the way you do. Photography, like filmmaking, is always changing. You have to change with it or be left behind. :) Also what was fashionable yesterday is out today. Define your market audience first b4 starting!!
This is basically (almost) all my thoughts about my photography career. I was starting my photography career in 2009 as well, going through a lot of rejection, and a lot of doubt from my surroundings, but eventually get into my place right now as Still Life Photographer. Even I shot some bold-style still life photography before I know this channel. Sometimes I wonder how everything is just so similar, and that's why I am always excited to follow your works and videos. Sometimes it helps me when I feel burnt out.
Inspiration for sure...
Everything you said is absolutely correct. If you don’t have very thick skin and can’t take rejection, do something else.
You can make hundreds of thousands a year, but it takes a least 10 years of painful dedication to get there. Even though you make it to the top of your game there are loads of people trying to get the same work. The struggle never ends.
Would you do a post on how to find your style or visual language? One of the things I did to helped me find my style was to print out small images and lay them all out on the studio floor. I started seeing a consistent look and feel to the images. That is the way I found my visual language. I wasn’t able to see it until I printed the images out and looked at them as a body of work.
I'm a wedding photographer and I can attest to everything in this video. Great stuff!
Something you said at 4:00 just struck me.
I've been working on building a commercial and branding portfolio. So I have with one of my friends who was a model and wanted to do this little experiment. I had to put on this necklace and this certain sweater and The Challenger I set for myself is to shoot the everyday objects she's wearing, like it's a sales photo. Like it's going in a magazine. And this one particular shot, I created in a way that, in my mind, would work for the sweater she was wearing, for the watch she was wearing, for the necklace she was wearing, but also could work for the park we were at. I was all high up on myself I thought it was a good idea.
Fast forward a couple months, I'm at my first photography conference and we're doing this live critique. So this room of other photographers, some full-time professionals, most were newbies like me.
They saw that picture, and that was the reaction they had. That exact reaction. They saw it and they said it didn't look like the commercial type of image I was going for. And at the time yeah I was totally defeated because I thought I had gotten that translation wrong.
But... maybe not? Maybe that style or something I should be sticking to.
And on the later point, black and white fine art nature is my real and true passion, but I'm a single father of three and it's not viable to pursue that. That's why I chose product / commercial photography. I like it almost as much, and it's the smarter move.
Thanks! I love your channel. I never shot seriously, or manual until a year ago, when my brother passed and left me his camera. Since then I went through structured classes, and I love it. I don't know if I will ever make money doing it, but maybe. I engineer furniture by trade, and I like shooting artistic shots. Some of my best shots are old barns, mountains, streams, and people. I imagine I will keep deep diving technique until I leave for the afterlife.
Nice advice.. ‘do what you want’ n you will excel ..
Great insights into the industry once again. I've been at it for around 10 years now and still have the occassioanl wobble. Should i move more into portraits or stick with weddings.... I think it's only natural to need to ask that of ourselves on occassion.
The one area I had a lot of success in was nightclubs and bars, not selling the keyrings or anything, just for the venue socials. You can get a decent hourly rate and build up a body of work to use in a portfolio which lends itself well to other niches.
“There is no quick…”. SO true! Good vid!
Great video as usual, thank you. It can not be about the money as it is too hard work then if you are solely chasing that, it's a lifestyle and vocation!
love the title haha. great advice
Mannnnn! I hear you. I’ve been an actor and dancer for 20 years and I’ve chosen an equally hard business to to make money and get seen, but I love it. I love cinematography and unit still shooting but getting through the doors is impossible lol
Great advice! I'm definitely still trying to find my voice while keeping the lights on. Low-mid budget clients in my area want some versatility but I want to strive to market to those high end clients. Long way to go and I definitely pour my heart into it.
You can do it! Just keep going through the process
This advice (specialization and love of genre) applies to just about every career one can think of. It certainly applies to software engineering.
Great advice Scott!
Glad it was helpful!
Great advice. I’m in a small area so fashion is probably out of the question for me which is a shame cause that’s what I truly love. Product photography is second. I joke and say I shoot dancers, models, and whiskey bottles. But that’s really what I love to shoot.
Great advice man! What about shooting for restaurants or chef or catering as a food photographer.
Great stuff as always! Do you have any tips on promoting your work after setting up your own website? For instance, I plan on documenting my vacation in September with a variety of landscapes, resturants/bars, animals, etc. Would love to get into travel journalism and don't want to waste this opportunity to build my portfolio!
Fine art photography is the most lucrative genre. However, it requires numerous factors to fall into place, including stellar representation and the acknowledgement of big investors and buyers. A top 20 of the most valuable photographs revealed most are not the classics we might imagine, but images made in recent years. If there is a consistent aesthetic thread, it's shoot on the largest format available and print really big (though there are exceptions). Individuals and institutions buying this stuff need to impress people immediately, and size and scale tick the box.
Hey, thank you so much for all your knowledge over the past few years. Really enjoy these.
I’m not sure if I’ve not come across it yet, or if you haven’t hit of this yet. But do you have more information about usage fees?
The correct language to be used and how to charge for that? 😊
Please and thank you
In the 1990’s film days we used to call this ‘above the line’ and ‘below the line’ photography.
Above the line was high end advertising photography and below the line was everything else, point of sale, catalogues, leaflets etc.
Above the line was that individual art based creative style that made the big money. Below the line was high volume quick turnaround which still made great money and was more of a craft than an art.
Fast forward to today and it’s that below the line work that has had its budgets slashed due to the digital revolution. The above the line work is still a decent, if stressful, way to make a living.
Yes we still have this today. Then the new additional of web and social which is kinda below the below line haha.
Photography is very profitable in the lowest end too. In my economy, the old studios who do graduation pictures, schoolbook portraits, seasonal shoots, visa photos... They never dip. The only problem is how boring and repetitive it is. You do it for some time and keep being the only professional people know, it's a very good path
You're not wrong about landscape photography, it also bloody lonely sometimes. But i make money from sitting on the side of a hill in the pi**ing rain and I love it. The thought of getting a real job again is terrifying.
hahaha LOVE your glasses :)
thank you!
well i just want to make a reasonable living, be my own boss and do what i love !
Scott. Has the way you describe your niche changed from bold and graphic photography for food brands to now include that style but for everything still life? If so, just wondering why the broader, blunter positioning.
Here's another, related question ... granted photography is hard to make a "good" living on: but is it also really hard to a) break even in terms of basic costs (e.g., studio rent, etc.) and/or b) break even plus a "little" bit?
Great video, thanks.
Do you have already a video about what to do when you have tried everything and you are still not seeing results? Like, posting daily, network, engaging and pitching correctly and still no evolution no work, nothing? Even after years.
Sounds like a case for coaching, mentoring or portfolio review.
I know a guy who persistently puts out mediocre work for seven years… consistently and has no growth. At some point it’s not grit or persistence but a lack of sober judgment… 🤷♂️
Good luck! 👋
What an odd cold-call to get, mainly because of the "I have a studio, now... what do I do with it?" setup. You'd think they would have worked that out beforehand(?). Perhaps I'm making some assumptions about how it all came about for them. Anyways, some really sound advice here, thanks!
I spent a month shoot beer every day to get it right at my own expense and at weekends I shoot local bands to make some money.
“regardless of how lucrative it is, if you do not love it, i mean absolutely love what you’re doing, you won’t get to that point.”
You mentioned watch photographers in NY. Who are they?
Photography is HARD but I wouldn't want to be doing anything else 👍
Hi, thanks for the sharing your experience. How about boudoir photography?
I think as a man its very hard to make money in boudoir photography unless you are REALLY good and live in an rich area.
@@TinHouseStudioUK thanks
This job is a super marathon, it will take years a will have good times and really bad ones !!
First it should be defined what good Money means...I think there are several genres with Lots of Work where you can make 60.000-100.000 after relatively short time, starting as a side hustle
With respect you've got to do more than just 'love it'. That's pretty meaningless. It's really really easy to say 'I love it' or 'I really want this'. People delude themselves every day using those terms. Whatever niche within photography you choose (or it chooses you) then if you don't have the talent, the USP, the eye, the experience or whatever it takes you simply won't make it longterm....So many people deny the existence of 'talent' but in photography you really really need it (Rankin excepted)....
True. They pick up a camera and like it and think they are good. I would love acting but dont have talent for it
Mike Tyson: „i don‘t believe in talent. I believe in hard work“
@@rumbolzpunktde In that case I'm afraid you're stupid. Both are needed
Hi can I charge my new camera batteries from US in Africa?
It depends on the charger...the batteries aren´t your problem.
Totally agree with your content. However nothing "easy" about the process isn't it? Why create a title to say "easiest way.."?
have you ever been wrong with your advice? nope. thanks a lot!
I am building websites, and offer clients photography shoots as an extra package. Everytime different photoshoots/subject to make the best website possible.
So your telling me there's a chance.
if you have to call other photographer to know what photography should you do (like picking the colour of your tshirt) to make money, just rent the studio...
I been doing this for about 3 weeks I went deep down on photography and it’s fun as a hobby I’d say my pictures are by far 8/10
There is no easy way… unless your parents are already established photographers.
Lol. This was some-what a discouraging video. 🥴
have you ever been wrong with your advice? nope
You are completely wrong, life is not about making money.
He didn't say "life is about money"; he just said how easy, or difficult, can be various photographic genres IF you want to make big money. Not everyone look for big money (i don't), but some (...many) people do. I'm not like them, but they're entitled to it, as I'm entitled to the opposite 🙂
How will you pay bills if you are a pro photographer otherwise. Passion only doesnt feed you