Making Money in Photography

[LongQ]

RobbieKB said:

Everything has been going very well indeed.


Finally I have teamed up with a media agency and they now recommend me for corporate editorial and headshot work and it has lead to two jobs of that nature in July which is very promising.

The writing side has perhaps been a bigger triumph.

Brilliant stuff Robbie.

Just a tiny observation to assist with the writing perhaps.

"has led to "

but

"will lead to"

I doubt that the computerised spelling, grammar and syntax checkers will always capture those nuances. It appeared twice so I'm guessing that it is slipping through your tools of choice.

I've made a mental note to visit f-stoppers later.

[RobbieKB]

Thank you everyone. I may be slow in replying but I promise you I read every word of every comment. It's great to hear encouragement and I'm glad others are doing the same thing! I had another wedding this weekend which was hard work but went well and I have so much on in July I've barely been able to check PH.

Thanks LongQ -- I did mean 'booked for July' but yes, sloppy from me! FStoppers is surprisingly hot on grammar which I was pleased to see.

[LongQ]

RobbieKB said:

Thanks LongQ -- I did mean 'booked for July' but yes, sloppy from me! FStoppers is surprisingly hot on grammar which I was pleased to see.

You certainly don't want to get sloppy mate. U'll be missing yur phocus point next thing you noe.

[RobDickinson]

I still need to do more writing/reviews, have the iPano and the 35Lmk2 to review just not found the time.

Between a Canterbury chamber of commerce deal, calendar image licences and a local ebook guide should have enough to buy that 35L mk2 also

[RobDickinson]

So. busy times..

That canon 35L mk2 - I'm doing an evening astro workshop for canon and gettingthat in payment.
CECC deal is finished worked out nicely
Several print sales this week
Image licence for a vodka brand bottle label
Image licences for a tech company
commercial shoot for said tech company next week
Image licences for some other business
reviewing sleeklens landscape package
became a Lee filter ambassador
getting an irix lens to test out ( https://irixlens.com/15mm.php )
trip to mt cook for workshop prep this weekend.
Still have that 35L review and iPano review to finish...

its a damned hobby lol...

[Super Slo Mo]

I'm finding this thread inspiring. I don't earn money from photography, although would not turn down the opportunity to do so should one arise, and have indeed done a few paid jobs in the past.

I shot my first wedding a month or so ago, but it was my brother's so the photos were effectively our wedding present to him and his new wife. It was a lot of effort all told, including the editing, and I put my wife to work with the second camera, just grabbing snapshots and opportunistic portraits. She didn't do too badly actually, considering.

If I was to do it more regularly, I'd need to speed up my workflow, editing in Photoshop seems quite cumbersome, but I've not yet got the ability to use Lightroom as my desktop mac is too old for it, and I don't have a decent enough laptop. I think also a bit more prior preparation is key, I had one camera's white balance set slightly off (too blue), which took up a lot of editing time, and the other camera was over-saturated. I figure the more I could get right in camera, the easier it will be.

[dave0010]

RobDickinson said:

So. busy times..

That canon 35L mk2 - I'm doing an evening astro workshop for canon and gettingthat in payment.
CECC deal is finished worked out nicely
Several print sales this week
Image licence for a vodka brand bottle label
Image licences for a tech company
commercial shoot for said tech company next week
Image licences for some other business
reviewing sleeklens landscape package
became a Lee filter ambassador
getting an irix lens to test out ( https://irixlens.com/15mm.php )
trip to mt cook for workshop prep this weekend.
Still have that 35L review and iPano review to finish...

its a damned hobby lol...

Have you thought about doing any Youtube tutorial videos on some of your Panoramic techniques. I've looked a fair bit through youtube on videos and some of them get hundreds of thousands of views. Could be a nice bit of revenue

[RobDickinson]

I've recorded a couple and rapidly deleted them, cant stand myself on video/audio

[DibblyDobbler]

RobDickinson said:

its a damned hobby lol...

You also have a 'normal' job Rob don't you?

[RobDickinson]

Yep full on 9-5 wage slave too , at least for a couple more years

[DibblyDobbler]

RobDickinson said:

Yep full on 9-5 wage slave too , at least for a couple more years

Not reckon you'd be able to pay the bills just through photography or just don't want to?

[RobDickinson]

DibblyDobbler said:

Not reckon you'd be able to pay the bills just through photography or just don't want to?

I could probably earn a living. But I've put myself in a situation where it doesnt make sense. I've 2-3 years left on my mortgage (just refinanced) and the payments are pretty large just to get it out of the way quickly. Once thats done I could live on next to nothing if I had to.

The commercial shoot could be interesting, if that side takes off I could quit the day job much earlier..

[DibblyDobbler]

Hope it pans out for you mate

[RobDickinson]

So this month I have...

Got paid by my corporate gig client
Run a (4 hour) Essentials workshop for 10 people
Licensed some images to Canon NZ for their website
Just completed a 4 day intense landscape workshop at Mt Cook for 9 people, 16 hour days are just crazy!
Sold a few prints
And Saturday I'm running an astro workshop with Canon NZ, 20 people, 4 hours studio time to chat then out shooting. This is the first workshop Canon NZ have ever sold out!

Between that lot I've paid for my MX5 and I'll also be getting a 35L mk2 too

[Super Slo Mo]

Great stuff Rob, it's inspiring to hear of other people doing well.

[DibblyDobbler]

Super Slo Mo said:

Great stuff Rob, it's inspiring to hear of other people doing well.

+1 good work

[Boring_Chris]

RobDickinson said:

So this month I have...

Got paid by my corporate gig client
Run a (4 hour) Essentials workshop for 10 people
Licensed some images to Canon NZ for their website
Just completed a 4 day intense landscape workshop at Mt Cook for 9 people, 16 hour days are just crazy!
Sold a few prints
And Saturday I'm running an astro workshop with Canon NZ, 20 people, 4 hours studio time to chat then out shooting. This is the first workshop Canon NZ have ever sold out!

Between that lot I've paid for my MX5 and I'll also be getting a 35L mk2 too

I like to hear this. You've given me some great advice and I admire your work very much.

Good man!

[wseed]

ukaskew said:

www.chrisharrisonphotography.com

It will get a full update after this wedding season but seems to be working well enough for me at the moment.

The company I work for like may use a white-list to allow websites to be viewed or blocked. Yours is un-categorised on the one we use, Blue Coat, which is a pretty popular one. If you complete a short form to set it as the categories that you wish to appear as it may help with the foot fall to your site. You'd do that here.

[wseed]

RobDickinson said:

I've recorded a couple and rapidly deleted them, cant stand myself on video/audio

Does it matter if you don't like them? I know exactly what you mean but the quality of your photographs is sufficiently great that I'm sure people would still watch and you're probably your own worst critic. There's many a you-tuber that has synthesised speech over there clips and they still get the hits.

I love to watch some of the video's and tutorials and I care about the content and the facts rather than the delivery. So long as it's not over long I can watch most things if it tells me what I need to know. Having some stunning examples doesn't hurt either.


To everyone on here that's managed to make an income or at least subsidise the cost of their hobby. Well done. I tried doing a few weddings a number of years ago and for me it was just hard work and I wasn't happy with my results so every credit to you all.

[ukaskew]

wseed said:

The company I work for like may use a white-list to allow websites to be viewed or blocked. Yours is un-categorised on the one we use, Blue Coat, which is a pretty popular one. If you complete a short form to set it as the categories that you wish to appear as it may help with the foot fall to your site. You'd do that here.

Thanks for that, will have a look at it.

Little update on my slowly-slowly approach to building up a (currently part-time) wedding photography business. Made up a proper flyer for the September version of the local wedding fayre that I had my business card at before, 100 placed in goodie bags for registered brides. It was £20, plus around £60 to get the flyers done. No other promotion aside from very rarely updating my Facebook page.

Despite it being only a few weeks ago I've taken 3 bookings directly from it, and turned down a further 2 due to date issues. That gives me 7 next year with a further 4 turned down (due to date clashes or unable to take time off at work).

Really happy with that number, they're spread between April and November and all at nice (different) venues, the couples are pretty much all exactly what I'm aiming for. I might push towards more the following year when my little son is a bit older, but the work-life balance of a full-time job, 7 weddings etc is pretty much spot on at this point in my life.

2018 bookings are coming in too (most still through friends of friends and referrals), as it stands that will take me to 20 weddings completed without really feeling like I've had to do much or spend a great deal.