Making money from street photography

I wanted to give you some practical ideas, and thoughts on how you can make money with your street photography:. First of all, consider why you want to make money with street photography. Do you want to make money with street photography because you want to make it a full-time living? Do you think that only doing things with street photography will bring you happiness? Or do you just want some extra side-cash from doing your passion, which is street photography? However I know that street photography has helped a lot of photographers promote their commercial photography, and has also helped them make a living in other ways. For example, I teach street photography workshops for a living, and as of now am making a pretty sizable passive income with Haptic Industries tools for street photographers, led by my partner, Cindy. I also know some other street photographers who have got a lot of commercial work from their talent and passion in street photography — Matt Stuart and Nick Turpin being two photographers who come to mind. So I want to use this article to share some potential ways you can make money from your street photography:. I think education is the biggest field for entrepreneurship in photography. For example, the focus of my workshops tend to be on how to conquer your fear of shooting street photography — one of the biggest barriers I had in my street photography, and something that many other photographers deal. Another example of a workshop — teaching travel street photography workshops.

Finding a niche

Many have emailed me asking me how to make money as a street photographer, so I decided to create this no nonsense guide. Included are the basics of business, and how to market your work. This is the part where I will try to dissuade you from making any money from street photography. Cuz it’s not only hard but you don’t need to make any money to be a successful street photographer to begin with! Success is simply a matter of getting to do, and liking what you do. Does it really matter if you make money? You can have your regular job and be a successful street photographer. Money or galleries do not legitimize your work in any way. Crappy stuff gets sold and gets hanged in galleries all the time! Still want to make money? There’s sacrifices involved. Have that idea that if you leave your day job and be a full time street photographer, you’ll have more time to shoot? The opposite is actually true, you’ll have less time to shoot. When you have a day job, you are more or less guaranteed income, provided you show up and do your appointed tasks, but if you are on your own, the pay is not guaranteed and REQUIRES loads of time to sell yourself. If all you want is more time to shoot, going pro is the sure way to go to have less.

Diversify your income streams

Lastly, going pro is HARD. How hard? Not getting responses, not selling while bills are piling up, etc. Been there, done that. You better be resilient because you’re gonna get punched.

My Ways to Make Money from Photography

I re-read one of my old blog posts when I was around 21 years old, and the essay was on following your passion on life. To me, this was a good idea— because I knew that practically speaking you cannot always make a living from your passion. When I was in college, I studied Sociology. My strategy was initially to become a lecturer or professor — because my passion was teaching and sharing ideas. I was never really that interested in money — I just wanted enough money to pay rent, travel a little bit, and eat. Therefore, I was lucky to get an internship doing a social media marketing internship, that Cindy forwarded to me.

1. I didn’t want to monetize my photography when I was in college

There are way too many people out there telling photographers that they need a big social media following to get work. In the video below, I talk about all of them. The concept of this post comes from an image of my grandfather. I asked him how he got that photo.

About the Author

Though touched on with product photography, food photography can also be very lucrative. April 7, at am. Do you disagree with what we did include? Any suggestions? Everyone knows putting all your eggs in one basket is risky, the sensible thing to do is diversify. Love the graphic illustrations on this list!!! Eagerly waiting for your feedback! I will bookmark your blog and take a look at once more right here regularly. October 23, at am. Romeo says.

Finding a niche

Symon says. July 30, at pm. But the hard part is deciding what to actually move forward on. Navigation Blog Learn About. Thanks Anshul. Thanks for the kind words, Bridget! Many thanks. Arjun says. Secondlysome folks came over to my studio to price my frames but they were disappointed. The job comes with targets, and you will need to take a certain number of photos per day. These days, every man, woman and child caries a better digital camera with them around the clock than existed 10 years ago. Good job on the distinction!

Ways to make money from street photography

With the help of this post, you should be able to start earning money from your photography, as soon as today if everything goes to plan. I hope to reveal a few lesser known ways that a photographer can make money and find work. So why not sell them? This can be very easy to do and inexpensive, or slightly more difficult, depending on which you choose. Obviously the easiest way for anyone to sell prints is to sell them online through a third-party seller, who will do all of the legwork, processing the order, printing and sending out the photos, and providing you with a commission.

Another way, which is a little bit harder, is to print them yourself and sell them through shops and restaurants. At the very least, you will have your photos displayed to thousands of people. Have you ever been to a restaurant and seen artwork hanging up with a price on it? A little while back, something very interesting happened on Flickr, which has helped thousands of people to start earning money from their photos. If you have a Flickr account, you can now license your photos through Getty images so that when people see them, they can pay to use them, and earn you money.

The link will show right next to the licensing information. I would recommend only showing your best photos on Flickr though, not full albums, because you want to try and impress the nice people at Getty Images. NOTE — This is currently closed for the quarter due to high demand, but keep it bookmarked. Firstly, if you have a strong portfolio of images, and an established relationship, then you will begin to find yourself in a position where they will be contacting you when they need a photographer and they will need one.

From here, so long as you have the aspiration, you can expand your portfolio and move onto bigger and better things. The second way you can work with them is to go out yourself and capture local events or new stories. You can then take these photos to local papers and start to earn money always charge them, they have a budget for this sort of thingand get published.

Pick up the phone and call your local paper today. In my experience, a phone call is a lot harder to ignore than an email.

When I say buy, I really mean license, because you can continue to sell photos time and time again, and make a good living if you have a large portfolio. Commissions vary depending on the site you use, but here are a few to consider: iStock, BigStock, and ShutterStock.

These promoters all want photos from their club nights, and you can be the one to provide. If you want to expand your photography before you start looking for work, then go down to a clubnight with your camera. As a little added bonus if you enjoy this sort of thing, you start going to a lot of gigs for free. Another great way to make money is to go to flea markets and look for old cameras, and then take them to shops, or eBay, and earn a profit.

Assisting as a photographer is one of the best ways to find work, and start making money fast. Take some time now and find local working photographers in your area, and contact them, asking if they would like an assistant. Starting a blog is a great way to get your photos seen. With the exception of about 2 posts, all the photos on this website were taken by me.

But not only that, but I make money from this website. See those adverts on this page? These photos are worth money, depending on what you do with. Check out sites like Mr Paparazzi, where their experts will sell the photos, and you walk away with half the money, which almost always ends up being more than you would have gotten if you tried to sell it. You can even sign up for text alerts for when celebrities have been spotten in your area, so that you can get there and take some photos.

It looked like a friend had taken it in a playground. My jaw dropped. Hi Josh! Has an old flickr user, I should not hav missed this information! Thank you again! See you Django. Thanks Josh for these very helpful tips. I blip, as Grace55 and love it. I have a small collection on flickr but I am still learning and saving for a Canon Powershot.

It is amazing what is achieveable with a Kodak Easyshare. Thanks Josh This is inspiring and the writing is warm, generous and humble. Many thanks. Its really amazing and i love photography. My camera is my. BTW, i have got something to show you guys which can be interested for those who are newbie and want to make money, so check it out here bit. That was a great read. Hi, Josh A Professional Photography is a very lucrative career at current time. Thank you for sharing money making tips.

Nice article! Look forward for more! This is an amazing article. Thank you for your candor and motivational words!

I am new to the game and needed a little guidance about how to get people to see my work. My friend introduced me to this website: bit. I am looking to quit my job and make this my profession. I am so excited!!! Great article. Photography has become one of those professions where you really need to present an outstanding work to make it a source of income. Instead of using stock image websites, I try selling photos through my own website. This gives me the flexibility to decide my own prices and eliminates commissions.

Pixpa is a great platform that helped me accomplish both in a single platform. One thing I want to say is that often before buying more computer system memory, look into the machine in which it would be installed. When the machine is usually running Windows XP, for instance, the particular memory threshold is 3.

Putting in over this would simply constitute just a waste. Interesting blog post. I fell in love taking pictures in my freshman making money from street photography of high-school and now i am able to follow my passion and get paid while doing it.

I decided that since i was able to follow my dream and do it as a career, ill share it with the world in hopes of making someone else dream come true. You might want to add Clickasnap to this list.

Capturing things with perfection is an amazing talent. You Explained it in such an amazing way. This was really cool, some great advice in here, hopefully I can use some of these ideas to make a bit of extra cash in photography, thank you!

What a great list of ways to make money in photography. The advice and suggestions were right on. With a little imagination, anyone can make some decent cash following these ideas. Such a unique way of making money, never heard of making money with the help of photography.

I am sure my brother will definitely like it. Actually he is doing photography and I will tell him about this blog, I am sure that this blog will be of great help. Thank you for sharing this great blog, I really liked it. Keep up the good work. Tres Bien, P. S check out my blog post on how to start a dance studio with no money to see how I am implementing some of your ideas.

How to start a dance studio with no money-The Complete Guide. Your email address will not be published. Leaving your camera on its default settings will produce blurry results. Business Basics Inspiration With the help of this post, you should be able to start earning money from your photography, as soon as today if everything goes to plan. Share with friends Share. Well. Works in a similar way to the monetisation programs on spotify and youtube i believe.

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Turning a hobby into a profession

Mug your subjects? Sell your pictures to. That might strete the most straightforward way. He he. Sell your cameras? Become a pro tennis player, train rigorously day-after-day, travel the world living out of a suitcase, get up early every morning and go to bed late most nights, win the grand slam, then take up street photography Hell, ask Nike well you’re at it. Your photography has nothing to do with money that You can mney on it.

Practical ways how to make money in street photography

It’s all down to your ability to run a successful business.