Developing Multiple Streams of Photographic Income

Making a living in photography is hard. There is a big difference between an occasional sale, and actually making enough money to live—to pay your mortgage, health insurance (since you are self employed), business expenses, and all your other daily expenses. Depending on your living standards, you may need $50,000 or $100,000 or more in net income to maintain the living standard you want. That’s a lot of photos.

Yet this site is about making the full transition to being a pro photographer, not about making a few sales. And it IS possible to make it as a full-time photographer. That’s the good news.

So how do you do it? In my view, the key to making it as a full time photographer lies in establishing multiple streams of income. If you are truly, honestly determined to make it as a freelance photographer, then this is probably the most important advice you need to take to heart. The key to freeing yourself to shoot full time lies in establishing multiple streams of income.

What do I mean by multiple streams of income?

I like to distinguish between “primary” and “secondary” income from a photography business. Primary income comes directly from the work you do as a photographer. It includes selling prints, licensing images to editorial photo buyers, working with stock photography agencies, doing assignments relevant to your niche, and doing event photography.

Secondary income comes from photography-related activities that don’t entail actually taking or selling images. This includes income from workshops, article and book writing, web advertising, and other sources. You need to diversify in both of these senses–expanding the ways you make money from traditional photography activities, as well as expanding by finding secondary sources of income that are only indirectly related to your photography.

Diversify Your Primary Income from Photography

You need to be active in all different aspects of the photography business. Sell images directly to magazines, publishers, or other buyers. Sell images through one or more different stock photography agencies. Sell prints, either through your website or at exhibitions. Obtain assignments—whether commercial assignments, editorial assignments, or weddings and similar events. Indeed, given how lucrative weddings are, I would say that most professional photographers shoot at least some weddings to supplement their incomes.

The point is  that you need to be willing to do as much diverse work as possible. If this sounds contradictory to other advice on this site or others—for example, finding your niche—then it is, but only a little. Having a niche and establishing diverse streams of income are compatible.

Let’s say you shoot agricultural photography. You can sell directly to magazines or publishers specializing in rural or agricultural topics. You can sell either your photos or services (assignments) to commercial farms, commodity trading companies, or state agricultural agencies. You can sell photos through stock agencies. You can sell your beautiful farm landscapes as fine art prints from your website.

If you decide to shoot a few weddings per year, then it’s true that this diverts from your niche. You may not want to incorporate that work into your image as a photographer, or include references to your wedding work on your website. But unless you are already established a high-powered photographer living off assignments with major magazines or corporations (and if you were, you probably wouldn’t be reading this), then you SHOULD shoot weddings and events as a way to enhance your income. Even as a part time activity designed to support your main photographic activities, income weddings and other events can often match income from your core photographic work.

Diversify Your Secondary Income from Photography-Related Sources

So far, I’ve focused entirely on making money from your photography—that is, by selling either your photos or your services as a photographer. Now, I want to push  one step further. I think you also need to establish streams of income based on activities related to your photographic work, but that don’t just entail selling images and photographic services.

What I am I talking about here? Well, think about the professional photographers you’ve heard of or read about. In addition to their photographic work, they sell books, write magazine articles to accompany their images, conduct workshops, and provide other services to would be photographers.

For many photographers, magazine writing, book royalties, workshop fees, web businesses, and other such apparently peripheral activities often account for a large percentage of total income. This is one of the aspects—one might say “secrets”—of the photography business that often eludes enthusiasts who think about making the transition.

Sometimes these secondary projects can be quite large. The well-known photographer Ron Engh maintains a website, Photosource International, that provides a forum for interaction between photographers and photo buyers. Photographers put portfolio’s of images on his site, and he sends out lists of photo buyer requests to photographers who pay a fee for this useful service.

The web has provided an important medium for such “peripheral” activities. A case in point is this site, which not only provides some supplemental income, but synergistically works to promote my photography services.

The possibilities for secondary income are endless. You can provide graphic design services to the general public or photoshop services to other photographers. You can venture into video work, where the competition is less intense. You can start your own mini-stock agency, using your site to host images from other photographers who do similar work to you. You market their images to buyers or as prints in exchange for a percentage of sales.

This way of making money from your photography business is limited only by your creativity. The ability to find and take advantage of such opportunities is one reason that entrepreneurial instincts and business knowledge are as important to you as your photographic income.

Add Income from Non-Photography Sources

Finally, to all the photography and photography-related sources of income above, we must add one more category. You should seriously consider trying to establish or take advantage of sources of income entirely outside of photography.

In many books by pro photographers, the authors joke that one thing you need to make it as a professional photographer is family wealth or a working spouse. Actually, they’re not joking.

Although we can’t know for sure, I would venture that many well-known photographers had substantial wealth to draw on to ease the transition to full time photography. With out such wealth, it is hard to accumulate the tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment that most pros own. It’s equally difficult to find the time to accumulate the tens of thousands of images needed to make a living.

If your spouse works, especially at a job that pays well and includes health care, then you have a major advantage. You could, conceivably, focus all your time on developing your image library and marketing your photos without threatening the well-being of your family. It gives you the time and space to build your photography business.

In the absence of accumulated wealth or a working spouse, you should consider putting in place other ways of generating non-photography income. I would like to say that, at this point, we are departing from the scope of this site. But really, we’re not. This is a practical guide to making it as a freelance photographer, and this is an important issue. So let’s take brief look at it.

In the realm of non-photography income, what you need is not just another source of income that requires you to trade labor for earnings. Working another job, while it is another source of income in the short term, inhibits your ability to make a complete transition to photography. This is because all the time you spend working your job is time not spent on your photography. And in most cases, that’s a lot of time.

That said, if you have the capacity to work as a part-time consultant in whatever industry you currently work in, that may be an option for alternative income. Unlike regular full time work, consulting can be arranged on a part-time or seasonal basis, thereby creating more time for your photography.

Ideally, however, you need what is often called passive or automated income. Let’s say you own a piece of real estate on which someone pays you rent. While the management of that property may take some time, it’s relatively small compared to the income provided (and the management can be delegated to someone else). In this case, you receive monthly income that based on your invested capital rather than your invested labor.

For that reason, real estate is one of the most common forms of semi-passive income. That is one reason it is usually an important part of investment strategies for wealthy people and for those trying to be wealthy.

The point here is not to encourage you to go into real estate, but rather to get you thinking about ways to establish streams of income that require less of your labor time, and free up more time for photography. As with photography-related activities above, the only limit on your non-photography income is your creativity. And as with above, this is another reason that entrepreneurial and business sense is as important to you as your photographic talent.

If you have the mind to digest and act on these business concepts, then I would strongly encourage you to read more on the subject. There are great resources out there for how to build wealth and automated income.

To sum up the point of this post, if you really, honestly want to make it as professional photographer (and you are not ALREADY there), you need develop multiple streams of income based directly on your photography, but also on photography-related activities, and possibly on sources entirely outside of photography that require less time than your current job.

You should try to sell you photos through as many different channels as possible (magazines, publishers, stock agencies, fine art prints, exhibitions), to obtain commercial assignments from local businesses, and to shoot weddings and other events when the chance arises. You should develop a great website, and think of ways (like this site or Photosource International) to use it to generate extra income. You should consider writing magazine articles to accompany your images, or even writing a book. You should, in short, look for any available opportunity to leverage your photographic knowledge and the rest of your existing skill set for additional income.