Is Photography Profitable?

[ZunePod]

I really don't know what to do, my job is driving me crazy, it's boring, and I don't actually do anything. The only good thing is that I'm on a decent salary for a 17 Year-old.

But I want to go into something that is both interesting and gets me more than £700 per month.

Is Photography the correct way to go?

PS: I have a starting budget (to get a camera) of about £400.

[wheelhot]

Hmm, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but photography is mostly not profitable cause to be a pro (as in paid professionally) you will need to have the skills and the equipment to get the job done. And if you do not have connections and nobody know who you are, it's likely no one will be hiring you.

Most of us do photography as a hobby, cause we love taking photos, for those of us who get paid for our passion, good for you all but most photographers aren't paid for their passion sadly.

Unless you get a job as a photojournalist or something then that is a different story, though I do not know how much is a photojournalist paid.

I bet more experience photographers can shed more light in this matter more then me :(

[cosmokanga2]

From what I have heard, it can take 5 years to get "going" or have contacts and the such. To be able to live on what you make, can take up to 10 years though. This was for a freelance photojournalist by the way. I takes time like anything else and you really have to like photography as it will be hard work to get successful.

[Doylem]

Is photography the correct way to go? How long is a piece of string??

Whatever you decide to shoot with your new camera, you will be spending - rather than earning - money for months, maybe years.

Start photography as a hobby; there's a lot to learn (in fact you never stop learning). Your "decent salary" will help you to get a basic kit.

What kind of photography interests you?

[ChrisA]

I really don't know what to do, my job is driving me crazy, it's boring, and I don't actually do anything. The only good thing is that I'm on a decent salary for a 17 Year-old.

But I want to go into something that is both interesting and gets me more than £700 per month.

Is Photography the correct way to go?

PS: I have a starting budget (to get a camera) of about £400.

Why not get into painting. Paint is cheaper than a camera and some artist sell their work for large sums. Or be a rock star or concert pianist.

Seriously you can't just buy a camera an be a photographer any more then you can buy a set of oil paints and be a painter. It takes some amount of study, a few years of practice and like any business it will be unprofitable for the first year or so while you build up a base of customers and clients.

There are basically two ways to go in the photo business. (1) you sell to the general public or (2) you sell you corporate art directors who work (mostly) for ad agencies. The trouble with #1 is that you sell photos for peanuts and with #2 you have to be very, very good at what you do but you can make $50K per assignment.

The best way t get into the field is to go to school. A four year arts degree is the best route. They will cover not only technical aspects but the much more important "art" end and also the business end of budgets, insurance and taxes. So YES you can make a living but it is very competitive. At the bottom end when you start you will not make much and you will need to keep your current job for a few years.

The trouble is that right now, at first the only thing you can offer a customer is that you will work cheaper then a "real" professional photographer. You may actually get work this way. There are always people looking to save money. But while you may get work you can't earn a living by working at 1/3rd the going rate. Worse then that, you do your business no good by developing a reputation of just being cheap. You 'd be better off working for free and telling people you are doing it "for the art".

Your first goal should be to develop a portfolio of work of varied styles and genre so that you can use that portfolio to get admitted to a good school. Most schools will want to see your work as part of the admissions process. Even if you don't go to school you will need a portfolio of work to show prospective clients.

[pprior]

No.

As entry requirements (both cost and talent) have plumeted with modern digital equipment, supply of "photographers" (most with no training) has skyrocketed. Accordingly prices have plummeted. Econ 101.

[Consultant]

Does your job provide health insurace? Cost a lot of money to get insurance.

Like any business you have costs.
http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/cdb/

Cost Calculator
http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/cdb/cdbcalc.cfm

[hayduke]

I think the only way to find out if it will be profitable for *you* is by pursuing it, but I wouldn't quit your job to do it. It will take years and long hours to build a reputation good enough to waste your life at other people's weddings!

[compuwar]

I really don't know what to do, my job is driving me crazy, it's boring, and I don't actually do anything. The only good thing is that I'm on a decent salary for a 17 Year-old.

But I want to go into something that is both interesting and gets me more than £700 per month.

Is Photography the correct way to go?

PS: I have a starting budget (to get a camera) of about £400.

Are you very good at sales?
Can you produce professional results?
Do you have the equipment to do so?
Do you have the money for insurance, replacments, etc?
Are you good at long-term commercial relationships?
Is there a thriving market for the type(s) of photography you want to persue?
Is there a way for you to get in front of potential clients and differentiate yourself?
Do you have the equipment to light well, and do you know how to use it?

Professional photography is an increasingly hard sell now that everyone and their mom has a DSLR and thinks taking pictures is the same as photography.

[cosmokanga2]

The best way to get into the field is to go to school. A four year arts degree is the best route. They will cover not only technical aspects but the much more important "art" end and also the business end of budgets, insurance and taxes. So YES you can make a living but it is very competitive. At the bottom end when you start you will not make much and you will need to keep your current job for a few years.


I don't dispute that schooling can provide valuable knowledge, however I recently talked to a former journalist who worked for a news corporation in Afghanistan and he had some pretty interesting things to say about the profession. If your going into the art side of photography this might not help but if photojournalism is where you would like to go he says that going to schools for a few years is not worth it.

For example he said that most of the journalist and photojournalist that he worked with had little if no schooling or degrees in any field. Now this does probably have a bit to do with where/what he was reporting, being Afghanistan, but it was sort of a surprise to me.

What he believes the best way to get into international photojournalism, something I'm looking into, is to work, study, purchase gear and save up for about a year or two, and then go to places that no one really else goes, take pictures, write a brief background story, submit them to editors at news and print organizations and see what happens. Like any other job it takes time and you have to be good at it but by spending less time in a class room and more out in the field, you'll both learn what you would in a class room while at the same time creating connections and forging a career path.

If there are any journalists here who can expand or add to this I'd like to hear from you.

[ZunePod]

Okay guys, thanks for the useful input. I might just start this as a hobby, and see how it pans out.

Does anyone know of something that doesn't require schooling, and isn't coding. I really wanna make some money oustide of my job.

[anubis]

The only way to make money as a photographer is to treat it like any other real business. You need a significant amount of start-up capital to buy equipment, advertise, and live off of while you build clients. If your plan for starting a "business" is to buy a few hundred dollars worth of equipment, then you're fooling yourself into thinking it's anything more than a hobby.

pprior hit the nail on the head. The proliferation of affordable digital SLRs and other equipment means that you're going to be one of a million people competing to make money with their photography.

I feel like the road to becoming a well paid photographer isn't much different than the road to become well paid at any profession. Much of the time, it isn't what you know, it's who you know, combined with a lot of luck/right circumstances.

One day, I would like to make as much money at wedding photography as I do in my current job. But I know that will take a very long time, if it ever happens at all. My plan is to continue working at my regular job to finance my regular life, while doing photography as a hobby on the side. It will take me many years to build up the skills required to earn a living from it. Even that is no guarantee.

You are very young. Your best option is to buy your dSLR kit, and invest time and effort practicing on your own until your talents reach the level where you can sell your work. Clearly you're at the exact perfect age to consider going to art college if it's something you're really serious about doing.

[Malfoy]

Okay guys, thanks for the useful input. I might just start this as a hobby, and see how it pans out.

Does anyone know of something that doesn't require schooling, and isn't coding. I really wanna make some money oustide of my job.

graphic design. I think there is more money to be made in coding though.

If you know a lot about cars(as in the mechanics of it) there is money to be made but you have to know people to get the good gigs.

[OreoCookie]

That depends. If you're just the type of guy who, according to your friends, takes great pictures, you should very, very seriously reconsider. Even if you have a good, proper education as a photographer (e. g. via art school or apprenticeships or both), only very few will actually make a living off it. Kind of like musicians. But as others have pointed out, there is a rather big supply of `photographers' these days. Traditional venues of photographers are now taken over by non-professionals or semi-professionals (e. g. wedding photography).

My cousin is a pro photographer and now he makes a living off it (well, I suppose he makes most his money as a director now, but photography is what got him into the business). He started out as a sports photographer. The reason he could start is because my uncle bought him his equipment (the first `affordable' dslr, a Canon D30 plus some ray gun lenses). But even then, he drove 85-120,000 km/year, slept very little, immediately rushed to his laptop and used a very slow modem to transmit his images. If he's second and doesn't sell a photo, too bad!

He also photographed real estate for my uncle and used his contacts to make a network. After a while he started shooting bands (cd covers/album art, promo shots for magazines) and did a few modelling jobs in a studio. He then started and finished an apprenticeship as a media designer (a lot of work and almost no money). Somehow he met a friend who wanted to make a documentary and he wanted him to do the stills. So he worked for a few productions and at one point ended up working for a big German car manufacturer as a director for ads and commercials. He still works as a photographer, but that's probably just the icing on the cake.

This is a very condensed story, it took him 12 years or so to get where he is. As you can imagine, he had to upgrade his equipment along the way -- very expensive. He had to work very hard, but he was also lucky in that he had support (I don't want to take away any of his achievements, but it would have been much harder without his father's support in the beginning). It's very helpful if you're a people person, because you live off networks. The `I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who could do that job' is your life source.

One obvious thing is that in most cases, you will not make art. You will make pictures of condos, perhaps vases, sports stars on the field and most people (read: clients) don't like artsy stuff and experiments. Think of shovelling snow: somebody's got to do it. It's very hard, because there is an abundance of genuinely good people. You have to love what you're doing.

If you're interested, I'd recommend you start an apprenticeship somewhere and help a photographer.

[ZunePod]

The only way to make money as a photographer is to treat it like any other real business. You need a significant amount of start-up capital to buy equipment, advertise, and live off of while you build clients. If your plan for starting a "business" is to buy a few hundred dollars worth of equipment, then you're fooling yourself into thinking it's anything more than a hobby.

pprior hit the nail on the head. The proliferation of affordable digital SLRs and other equipment means that you're going to be one of a million people competing to make money with their photography.

I feel like the road to becoming a well paid photographer isn't much different than the road to become well paid at any profession. Much of the time, it isn't what you know, it's who you know, combined with a lot of luck/right circumstances.

One day, I would like to make as much money at wedding photography as I do in my current job. But I know that will take a very long time, if it ever happens at all. My plan is to continue working at my regular job to finance my regular life, while doing photography as a hobby on the side. It will take me many years to build up the skills required to earn a living from it. Even that is no guarantee.

You are very young. Your best option is to buy your dSLR kit, and invest time and effort practicing on your own until your talents reach the level where you can sell your work. Clearly you're at the exact perfect age to consider going to art college if it's something you're really serious about doing.

Would the fact: "I can design GREAT websites," come into it? Because most Photographers either don't have websites, or have very poor websites. I can also use Google Adsense to my advantage.

I'm just going to look on a few sites, to look at Cameras.

EDIT: Is this any good? (http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/1134794/Canon-EOS-400D-10-1-Megapixel-Digital-SLR-Camera-18-55mm-Lens-Kit/Product.html?ptsl=1&ob=Price&fb=0)

[ChrisA]

...I recently talked to a former journalist who worked for a news corporation in Afghanistan and he had some pretty interesting things to say about the profession. If your going into the art side of photography this might not help but if photojournalism is where you would like to go he says that going to schools for a few years is not worth it.


So you are saying that with no school or training you can find work in Afghanistan.

What if you want to work in Los Angeles or London?

[OreoCookie]

Would the fact: "I can design GREAT websites," come into it? Because most Photographers either don't have websites, or have very poor websites.
No.
I can also use Google Adsense to my advantage.
You don't want ads on your own page, any prospect will think of it as unprofessional.

[ZunePod]

So you are saying that with no school or training you can find work in Afghanistan.

What if you want to work in Los Angeles or London?

Lol at the last bit. I actually do know a London-Based Photographer called Eyder (He's Brazillian) who took the photos at my uncle's 50th.

[ZunePod]

No.

You don't want ads on your own page, any prospect will think of it as unprofessional.

Not ads on my page, I mean you pay google and you go up in the searches. Wait, it isn't adsense is it? lol.

[OreoCookie]

Not ads on my page, I mean you pay google and you go up in the searches. Wait, it isn't adsense is it? lol.
I misunderstood. But I don't think ads over the internet are going to help you at all, you need to find jobs locally. The best way is through word of mouth and personal contacts.

[ZunePod]

I misunderstood. But I don't think ads over the internet are going to help you at all, you need to find jobs locally. The best way is through word of mouth and personal contacts.

Good point.

[cosmokanga2]

So you are saying that with no school or training you can find work in Afghanistan.

What if you want to work in Los Angeles or London?

No. I just saying that you don't have to have schooling or degrees to be successful. I personally think that too much emphasis is put on classroom schooling and more should be but on practical, hands-on, in the field learning.

This is after all where you will be spending your time.

[ZunePod]

No. I just saying that you don't have to have schooling or degrees to be successful. I personally think that too much emphasis is put on classroom schooling and more should be but on practical, hands-on, in the field learning.

This is after all where you will be spending your time.

This is true, theory isn't practice.

[CrackedButter]

This is from the point of view as a student photographer who is just about to graduate from his BA, the prospect of making money and having a career is very slim. It was recently said, that the UK by itself churns out more photographers than the whole of Europe needs. I could end up with nothing at the end of it all, you don't even need to go to school to learn photography, it was one of the few arts which has a very level entry requirement.

There is an oversupply of photographers entering into a market which is now changing from how it was even 15 years ago. The current economy doesn't help matters either. Commissions are drying up. 50 years ago, there were more publications than photographers, a golden era of photography really. Now there are far more photographers than publications.

My reaction has been to start making plans to do an MA in order to further my skills, even after that I will have to take a job like working in a retail job.

[diemos]

I'd suggest get a regular digital camera and learn Photoshop first, see how you like it and go from there.

[jbernie]

A better way to phrase the question would be:

Can Photography be profitable?

Yes it can. But like any form of artistic expression (loose phrasing) think of a pyramid, the top is those making lots of money (very small) and the base is those doing it for fun, no money etc (very large).

If you are in an area where you can photograph public events and get some good quality shots to make a portfolio to show to people it would help. You might want to use your current job to help fund your photography career and allow you to expand on your equipment etc.

At 17 you have a long way to go and I don't if anyone on here could tell you that every job they have had has been fun/exciting and I am pretty sure you can find photography just as boring if you are waiting a few hours to get just one or two photos.

[waiwai]

hells no not profitable at all... i wouldn't rely on it as your primary source of income... some months you could make nothing and some months you'll make some decent dough but not something you can survive off of long term.

Most photographers have a primary job and use photography to generate some side income...

[jons]

I really don't know what to do, my job is driving me crazy, it's boring, and I don't actually do anything. The only good thing is that I'm on a decent salary for a 17 Year-old.

But I want to go into something that is both interesting and gets me more than £700 per month.

Is Photography the correct way to go?

PS: I have a starting budget (to get a camera) of about £400.

It's oversaturated with medium to mediocre talent (even quite good). So it's hard to make a name for yourself, and without that it's hard to make ANY money at it.

It also depends on what you want to shoot. Pick a niche and develop the hell out of it.

You will need way more than 400 pounds to get started though.

It took me a solid year of studying, shooting and planning to land a paid gig.

[Knomad]

It's interesting that many of the responses here have been more realistic than the ones on some of the photography forums... which of course tend to be dominated by wannabe photographers.

I'll echo a lot of what has been said above, and add some personal experience. The general consensus that it's usually not something you buy a camera and dive into and become instantly a success at is, with rare exceptions, accurate. That's because it takes a while to get good with a camera, and that's only half of the technical end. You need to understand lighting, postproduction, and a whole lot of other things too.

Take a look at the photography in any top-end magazine. Can you match the quality? Consistently? Every time? Because if you want to be more than someone getting by, that's your competition. That's how good you need to be.

And think about those studio shots in the magazines... that means having or renting a studio, a bunch of lights, stands, reflectors, backgrounds, and so on.

The recommendation of a few to look at photojournalism may be valid if you really want to give it a try, because you can usually do that (initially) with just a camera, and if you start with a local paper you can learn fast. That's what I did at age 15, and did quite nicely with it for several years, while I was young and my living expenses were low. And partially I was just in the right place at the right time, and an editor took an interest in me and mentored.

But after school I went and got a real job, because I hadn't met any photographers yet who were making serious money.

The 2000 US census said the mean (or median? Can't recall which) income for a photographer was something like $37,000 US. There are of course a handful of hotshots in New York or LA or Miami shooting high-end fashion or commercial and making six-figure incomes, but for every one of them there are 1,000 guys shooting weddings and baby portraits and paying the rent but not much more.

You have some questions to ask, such as what's your goal? If it's piles of money, the odds are best if you can say, get into law school. If it's a job you enjoy, then ask yourself exactly that... what do you find enjoyable, and how can you turn it into a career?