We all have a favourite way of taking pictures, favourite subjects and environments that make us love photography. But still there’s a lot of us who have to make a living out of this, and have to find the best way to monetize our skills.
Having said that - what would you consider (or is objectively) the most profitable niche in photography?
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Commercial photography, without a doubt, 100%
Big companies have shitloads of cash and are willing to pay really big dollars for the right photography. It’s rare but there are commercial photographers grossing over a million a year, and netting in the high 6 figures easily.
Any idea what the first step into getting in commercial? Been shooting wedding for almost 20 years and would like to pivot
Start shooting for local businesses. Get a few under your belt, even for free, then start reaching out to local ad agencies with those images. Find who the creative decision makers are at brands and agencies and tell them how you can help them solve a problem. Keep up that cycle of shoot and share and continuously level up the people you’re sharing to. Work hard on the photography and harder on the marketing of it. And keep going. It takes a while to get the ball rolling, but if you know how to handle a camera already you’re at least part of the way there.
Industrial photography.
Once I got looped into that, it basically became my entire portfolio.
I’ve been published in local, regional, national, and international publications, but only for my industrial photography. Companies want pretty pictures for their websites and newsletters and they have no idea what something like that costs and will gladly overpay. Local governments, chambers of commerce, economic development organization, etc want pictures for their newsletters and press releases of economic growth. Newspapers and magazines want pictures for their articles, especially now that the economy is such a frequent topic of discussion.
I have yet to meet a fellow industrial photographer, but these industries talk among themselves and when one of them asks “who did the picture for your website?” My phone starts ringing.
It can be challenging; the speed, actions, and lighting will have you constantly adjusting your settings and lenses. It helps to know how industry functions, so you can talk to the people on the production floor, as well as management that’s guiding you around. From an artistic perspective, it can also be difficult to get a picture to tell a story because there are these massive machines and people buzzing between them to attend them. One of my recent favorite shots was of a worker next to a massive drill press, he had his tool box open and inside were pictures of his family. I framed the shot to show him doing his work as well as capturing the pictures inside his tool box. I love those kind of shots, those that reveal the humanity among these giant machines. It got published in a local magazine with 22,000 subscribers. The magazine went and interviewed the worker. The industry was happy to be spotlighted, the worker was happy to be recognized, the magazine was happy to have content, and I was happy with my paycheck.
It’s a difficult niche to break in to. You’ve got to build relationships and trust. I worked with my local economic development office. Contacted the director, showed him my portfolio (which at the time didn’t include industrial photography), and told him “if any of the industries you deal with needs photography, I’d be happy to help.” At first, he paid for my photography, sort of as a service they were providing for local industries. It wasn’t great pay, but it wasn’t bad either. But, it was good work, so he’d call me again and again. Eventually the industries just contacted me directly after they’d seen my work for other local industries. It just took of from there.
Photography isn’t my main job, I’ve always subscribed to the notion that people need three hobbies; one for health, one for wealth, and one for relaxation. Photography is my wealth hobby, and since the demand for industrial photography is fairly low (like once a month, at best). It isn’t something I could do full time, but it has paid for all of my gear plus extra, so I’ll continue to do it, because it’s worth taking a day off from my regular job to do.
What is industrial Photography? Like shooting energy facilities, utilities, etc?
You ever see the show “How It’s Made”? It’s like that, but more artsy than educational. I haven’t worked with a power company before, but yes, that would also be industrial photography. It’s mostly manufacturing facilities; I’ve done work for a company that builds landing gears for big jets, a company that makes a bunch of different wood products (like wood flooring), several companies that make automotive interiors (ex. the seats for Honda, the dashboards for Nissan), a knife maker, several metalworking companies, a transit bus manufacturer (if you live in a major North American city with public transit, there’s a good chance it was made by this company), even the US Army’s largest tank and small arms repair and overhaul facility, and several other manufacturers. (The shoots I’ve done with the Army are by far my favorite, really cool to see tanks torn down and then reassembled).
Companies use my pictures when they’re looking for clients, they can show them what their facilities look like, what machines they have, what their manufacturing process is, etc. and the pictures look a lot more professional in their PowerPoint than just someone taking a pic with their phone. But yeah, industrial photography is basically pictures of people and machines working to make stuff.
o hell yea, i’d love to get into industrial shooting.
Thanks for the great informative comment on industrial photography. That’s a niche I didn’t know about.
I’ve been published in local, regional, national, and international publications, but only for my industrial photography. Companies want pretty pictures for their websites and newsletters and they have no idea what something like that costs and will gladly overpay.
They’re definitely not overpaying. The more money involved, the higher the price of advertisement tends to get. These industrial businesses are moving hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars a month.
Chances are you’re actually underselling yourself.
The manufacturing sector has tons of businesses with just one location and 50 employees. Most of my clients have been in that category. I’ve also worked with multinational corporations, who you definitely can charge a lot more, but the bread and butter is family owned operations who don’t have a marketing or PR department and have no clue who to call when they want pictures, so they usually call the local chamber of commerce or economic development office for advice. That’s why its important to build relationships with those groups, you want them to refer you to those industries.
my first thought too
Profitable and legal?
Their are illegal fields in photography?
Commercial photography. When i’m on the client side doing brand shoots, the quotes i’m getting for 1-2 day shoots are in the 35-50k range.
How does one get into doing commercial photography?
Build a portfolio of product shots and campaign photos. Get lucky and noticed.
Selling stuff to photographers trying to make money
Weddings
I have a friend who writes romance novels (yes, THAT kind of romance novel) and she’s told me how ridiculous the prices for her cover photos are. According to her, the lack of proper models is what actually drives the price up so much. So, if you know any juicy dudes with lots of tattoos, you might wanna ask them if they wanna make some easy money together.
I resemble this statement and need money. Lol
Hey from your comments I am assuming you are also a novelist or a person who has connections with novelists. Can you please ask them how they started their journey in becoming a novelist and what are good practices for aspirational novelists?
I’m not entirely sure honestly. I think they told me that they originally wrote mystery or horror or something, but then they had a friend tell them how much money they made writing porn. So, they wrote a porn novel and it happened to sell very well, so they wrote more porn, and sold even more books, and the rest is history.
It’s kinda the same deal as any art. Just gotta find a niche that you can turn into profit.
How do romance novelists find the people do do their cover photos?
I’ve been doing real estate photography for about 8 years currently making about 150K per year
High end commercial photography can still be very lucrative, especially if you’re shooting for large international clients. My day rate is $5k a day not including licensing fees but I’m nowhere near the top. There are bigger photographers who pull $250k a year easily. Of course it’s extremely competitive, all about connections and those jobs are getting fewer and fewer these days buts it’s very possible. I once worked as a 3rd assistant on a campaign shoot for a international beverage brand. The photographer cleared $120k for 3 days of work and delivered at most 20 images.
Why are those jobs getting fewer and fewer?
Thanks for the insights and numbers about high end commercial photography. Really cool stuff. How do people break into that? Being an assistant? Digital technician?
My business partner and I went into a partnership with his photography business he started that mainly focused on nightlife photography (bars, nightclubs, etc) and we branch into private functions like birthday parties, engagement parties, corporate functions. We’ve made it so we have around 4 photographers that we rotate on a weekly basis to go around 8 different venues with an hour at each take photos, edit them and deliver to us. We pay them their rate and we get paid via the businesses we take photos at. We also try and win the private function leads that I’ll either do or book one of our photographers in for it. I make sure that all our photographers get the mentoring and coaching free of charge when required but this has been a pretty cool little niche way of making passive income (I work part time in a retail job during the week) but hopefully with a bit more work being put into the business it can become more of a full time thing.
OnlyFans
I think advertising for top international clients. Even if the day rate is not spectacular you can get lucky with buy outs for new countries and more years for work you dod a while ago and already forgot about. If you have a few jobs like that every year i suppose it can stack up quite fast. I have only had two of those jobs but it made me go, “ah so this is how you make crazy photo money”.
But i think the way to go is to go somewhere really niche, outsode of the general competition. Like the guy who shoots Apple products. Or All Of The Beers.
Taking photos of yourself, doing adult things, and posting on OF.
What if you’re ugly? Asking for a friend. Marketing in Germany?
Everyone can float someone’s boat. My retirement plan is to do OF and specialize in naked disc golfing. Build private courts in my property and live stream myself nude and throwing. Guy who looks like a bear, nude disc golf streams. I’ll just take one of these Pro Photographers marketing courses and I’ll pull in a client base 😂 🤣 😂 🤣
Blackmail.
I’m sure some “paparazzi” get PAID
I know a paparazzi photographer that makes well over 50k for a good shot. 20k for a bad shot. It’s absolutely insane what paparazzi get paid
Toy photography. I’ve always loved photography but during the pandemic I feel into toy photography as a hobby and I fell hard.
How you make it profitable?