That is my dad’s photography. He works a regular job and all, but loves doing photography on the side and I know he wants to make money doing it. I think he really has some talent, especially considering he only recently started. He’s gone all over the country/world taking pictures while on business trips and etc.
My question to the SD community is: How can my dad turn what is currently a side-fun thing to do which happens to also be a bit of a money pit into a profitable business venture for him? I know he’s trying to make a web-site (that’s what dannphoto.com is the first stab at) to sell his pictures online (he does have access to really good glossy and canvas printing, and his pictures look really good printed, but I don’t feel like that’s the best (or at least only) way to go.
Also, what do ya’ll think? Any ideas, criticisms, etc for my dad? I’ll pass along whatever I feel should be passed along, my dad’s not the type that takes criticism badly, so just be honest.
He could try his hand at signing up for one of the “microstock” stock photography agencies, like ShutterStock or iStockPhoto. They pay a few cents every time your photo is downloaded by a member; more if they decide to license a hi-res version.
Errr, no. Shutterstock, at least, charges a flat monthly subscription fee for up to 750 downloads per month, making their cheapest plan a minimum of 41 cents per download. The photographer gets varying amounts for each image download, starting at a quarter per. You can earn close to $2 per image for high-res versions that are downloaded by non-subscribers, and around $30 for images that are specially licensed.
I’m not too familiar with iStock’s payment schedule, but they have similar features.
I dunno. Photography is a pretty tough dollar. Particularly landscape and art photography. Mostly because people like looking at that stuff in a gallery and then think “I could take that.”
But, one approach to making some money is to get into some juried shows at local art galleries and see if you can sell some prints. To take that one step further, you can try doing a show, either by renting space at a gallery (expensive) or by finding some public space like a library or bank where they’re looking for art to hang. You can also try selling prints at a booth in crafts fairs, although at most craft fairs I’ve been to, the looker to buyer ratio has been in the 100’s to 1.
Caveat: the juried shows I’ve displayed in typically sell maybe 8 framed photos out of 150 displayed and a larger but not huge number of shrink wrapped prints.
The pricing is vastly different for members or non-members. If you go to download a photo from iStock it’s like $20 for a high-res. And even if the photographer got $2 of that, it’s still a huge rip to be giving 90% of the profit to your digital pimp.
I didn’t realize it was so much cheaper for subscribers - do they still get the same license as a non-member paying for an individual download?
Photography should not be all that different from any other business at this point for your dad. He would be in what would probably be the discovery phase, if he was putting together a business plan.
Like any other business, there are upfront costs that can be determined, depending on what aspect of photography he is looking to get into.
Reading threads on the dedicated photog forums, it seems like it’s a canabalistic career. With threads abounding about ameteurs coming into the market and supplying not bad quality images or decent services for free or submarine levels of pay, simply to get into the biz.
I’d probably and personally will at some point, look into if it’s just going to be a hobby that might pay for a new lens, or if it’s going to be an actual job.
One thing that stands out to me is the lack of support side services, at least where I live. Simply lacking in available studio space that can be rented out by the hour or whatnot, if your dad lives in a large enough market and can afford to either renovate a basement or rent an industrial unit, money might be made that way in the short amount of time.
25 years ago I took a group of professional and semi-professional photographers to China. One had a high end film development shop, several did some sort of photography for their full time jobs, and several were part time photographers as a hobby.
The successful ones could just about break even on their equipment and maybe pay for something like a 3 week China trip.
I literally ran into the guy that organized the tour in the HK airport a few weeks ago. He still laughs and says the photography still barely pays for his equipment.
If your father loves it, is good, has contacts, then he might be able to cover some of the expenses (and nothing for his time). It is a very rare person that can truely make money at free lance photography.
Despair and give up before even starting, obviously.
While art and landscape/travel photography is fun and satisfying, portraits is probably a more likely source of actual income. Perhaps that can fund the cool stuff. He’ll need a good lighting setup, some backdrops, and an empty room for a studio, maybe in the garage.
If there is a circuit of street fairs in his area, he could invest in a booth. He’ll need large, framed versions (mostly for show) and plenty of smaller, mat-only prints.
I live in Colorado. There are several tourist towns around here that sell pictures like these. They sell the prints and a couple of them also do framing.
There are also art fairs here that do basically the same thing.
These places seem to be busy, maybe they’re all look-loos but the shops stay in business (so far anyway).
Any tourist places nearby?
I agree that I have looked at some of the pictures in the stores and thought that I could take them. But my pictures have never turned out as well.
There can be money in portraits (and weddings), but beware that there is a lot of competition. On the high end, there are the extremely talented and well known photographers who can charge big bucks for their work (very rare, but they do exist). On the other end are the countless people who buy a Digital Rebel or something, enjoy taking pictures, and decide to open a photography business. Every year, there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of new parents who decide that taking pictures of their child is so much fun that they should become a stay at home parent and start a photography business, for example.
Some of those people turn out to be truly talented, and some will build a sustainable business (there’s only a moderate overlap between those groups). Most of them discover that either they’re not as good at it as they thought they were, or just that it’s not as much fun when it’s a real job, and drop out after a year or two. However, there’s a constant stream of new photographers who will do a portrait session for $50 or a wedding for $200 (full CD of images included, of course). Unless you’re on the high end (with the talent and portfolio to back it up), it can be very hard competing with these people and making a profit. When there are twenty photographers in town who will do a portrait session for $50, how do you justify charging $500? You’d be surprised how few clients really appreciate the difference in quality (or at least are willing to pay a premium for it).
I speak of all of this from experience. I worked as a newspaper photographer for a while, and in the years after that continued to enjoy photography as a hobby as well as doing the occasional freelance job. I decided I wanted to try to go back to photography full time, and it seemed that weddings were one of the few types of photography that offered a realistic chance of making a decent living. I like to think that I was a little different from the complete newbies I’m talking about – I had years of photography experience, including professional photojournalism, and I didn’t underprice myself (much). But in some ways I was the same – I completely underestimated how much work it was, and how much less fun it was than any other type of photography I’d ever done. I also didn’t realize how hard it would be to compete with the really cheap photographers. I had some great clients, I learned a ton, and there were things I enjoyed about it, but I eventually realized it wasn’t for me.
I guess there are two morals to my story:
All types of photography are not created equal from an enjoyment standpoint. Loving nature photography or photojournalism doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll love (or even be able to tolerate) portraits or weddings, for example. In the worst case, taking up the wrong kind of photography can ruin your enjoyment of photography in general. It may actually be better to fund your photography habit via means other than photography, so when you are shooting, you can put your energy into the things you really enjoy.
The business is extremely tough, and it’s very hard for even talented people to make a profit. It’s getting tougher every day. If you want to make a serious go of it, don’t make the mistake of trying to compete in the bottom of the market. It’s a losing battle. Find a way to differentiate yourself well enough to charge a reasonable fee. If you can’t, it’s just not worth the trouble.
This article is more about editorial photography, and I think he might exaggerate a bit, but the overall point is worth understanding: Mostly True: First, Get a Million Dollars...
My best friend in L.A. has been in the business for years. It’s ugly. He has resorted to focusing on stock photography, and the checks, when they do come in, are wildly inconsistent–a few hundred a month here, a few thousand a month there. It’s not quite enough to keep him afloat, and he has lost money overall.
It is also a drag for him, as he is a one-man show and must come up with an idea for a shoot, search for actors/models, pick the location, drag all of his gear to it and hope the people he “hired” (he’s not paying them, except to provide them with nice shots of themselves which they can use for auditions) show up, and then he has to direct everything. If he makes a bit more money, he could hire someone to help him, create more shoots, submit more stock themes, make more money, etc… but he just isn’t there yet. I’m not sure if he’ll ever get there. Sorry to be another Debbie Downer.
Pro photogs are rare. People trying to be pro photogs are all too common.
Weddings pay. Graduation portraits (kinda) pay.
The travelling “studios” which set up outside the Sears store in the mall essentially strip-mine the kids-and-grandparent portrait work - which used to provide at least a modicum of work in the July-through-April lean cycle.
And, with digital, not only are you nup against the “I could take that”, you now have “and do a better job printing it”. With the web, we now have I’ll just print off the web - I can photoshop the density/contrast, and have a print that’s as good as it needs to be.
Hey twit: if you could take such great shots, why do your vacation shots consist of “and here’s wife and kids at the Grand Canyon”? There really is more to photography than “stand up straight and smile”…
I have about 80 pounds of camera (yes, that’s just camera) equipment, plus enough darkroom equipment to run off some nice stuff. I will NEVER put any image I value on the web - in 40 nyears, exactly 1 person has been given permission to print copies.