How can I make money from photography as a side hustle in 2022?
Today, we are surrounded by pictures anywhere we put our eyes into. Be it billboards, display advertising, posters etc it’s always about images which always convey a more meaningful message at first than the content in itself.
Imagine a world without the use of lenses, we would never be able to see the beauty of what lies beyond what our eyes see.
I remember it was my cousin’s marriage when I witnessed some amazing skills of the photographer. He was taking really impressive pictures of the wedding and everyone were glued close to him for their next instagram dp (🙋♂️ me included)…😃
He was excellent in his skill and certainly knew way more than what I accomplished from my smartphone photography.🤔
He was even recommended and had advance booking for other events coming up for others.
This made me wonder, “How good is making money as a side hustle from photography (including videography)”.
That’s what we are going to discuss today.
Well, before getting ahead and finding the answers to our question let’s just answer this question first.
Are you someone who knows how to use your smartphone and get creative with using numerous filters while clicking pics?📷
I do see a YES coming up as an answer especially if you are reading about this in here…💪
Today we are going to find ways on How to make money online as a side hustle doing photography in 2022.
Here’s a quick guide on “Ways to earn money from photography in 2022”:
In this Guide
How to make money from photography in 2022? (8 step strategy to earn money from Photography as a side hustle)
Making money from photography is no joke and requires some serious work and consistent effort to refine your skills.
If one is serious and committed towards this field, then they can make really good money out of it in the long run.
Photography can turn out to be an amazing skill like selling digital products to make passive earnings online in 2022.
As a beginner getting started with photography, here are 8 steps strategy on how to make money from photography in 2022:
1. Sell stock photos online
You might have come across several pictures for pins on How to make money as a Pinterest Virtual Assistant on Pinterest or even other platforms.
Chances are there, this must have been used from a website selling stock photos online.
Example,
Image Source: BusyBloomingJoy Pinterest Page
Image credit: istockphoto tatyana_tomsickova
👉 As you can see from above, this picture of the cute baby comes with a license price of Rs. 345 (approx $4.60) currently.
This means whenever anyone uses this image he/she has to pay a one time payment of Rs. 345 for using this image for any purpose be it commercial or personal.
Thus, anyone who has such stock photos available for download in such websites gets paid for its use by others.
Some of the well known stock photo sites are:
2. Provide freelancing gigs as a photographer
You can consider offering your services as a freelancer. Getting started as a freelancer is a definitive way to make your mark in the world of photography business.
Here’s a quick glimpse of what to expect from freelancing as a photographer:
Image Credit: alphaphotos from Fiverr
If you observe closely, this person has got around 612 reviews by selling photography as a gig and his pricing starts at Rs. 9,842 (approx $131.22).
Generally, 3 out of 10 people leave a review when they take services from a freelancer. This makes it roughly around Rs. 60 Lakhs (approx $80,309) from the reviews gathered from one platform…🔥🔥
Of Course this would need a lot of hard work and consistency to make such a level of earnings and meet client’s expectations. But there is immense scope out there for all who want to pursue photography.
Starting out as a freelancer in any such platform will need time and quality work as well, but once you set up a brand for yourself you can leverage this for more work and earn consistently.
Here are some more freelancing sites where you can provide photography services and make money online:
3. Pick a niche which you are good at
Photography as a whole is a huge market which has a whole new dimension of area of work.
You can work as a photographer in a varied field of work, such as:
- Real estate photographer
- Wildlife photographer
- Event based photography such as weddings and other occasions, which we talked upon earlier.
- Fashion photography
- Travel photography etc
As per a report, the salary of a Travel Photographer averages to around $22,066 during a year.
In today’s world, being a generalist in this field doesn’t help but you need to be specific in what you are offering.
This reminds me of the famous figure of speech, which says, “Jack of all trades, master of none”.
If you love to spend time outdoors and love to travel a lot, you can consider trying Travel Photography. At the same time, if you are a fan of wildlife, why not be a Wildlife Photographer.
Thus, defining a niche helps you to work in the right direction and establish your identity.
4. Launch your own website or a photography blog
Image Credit: pedroontheworld
This is also essential to mark your presence around everywhere. If you are considering photography seriously and would like to make money from it in the future, you must launch your own website defining who you are.
In today’s age, where everything we see has filters put into it, there’s no guarantee for who is real and authentic. This is more so in the case of anyone trying to offer services to others.
Thus, consider setting up a website or a photography blog where you can showcase your portfolio to others.
Having a website of your own has many benefits associated to it, such as:
- You can set up your own pricing for the services offered.
- One can sell other associated products related to photography (which we have talked about later on)
- Improves credibility and helps to create an online presence 24/7.
One can also sell additional products related to the photography, such as gigs and tools used for your photography.
This can help you make passive earnings in the form of affiliate commissions and you can even get sponsorship offers from different brands for endorsing their products as well.
5. Invest on your own learnings through courses and experts in the industry
It’s a well known fact that the one who knows how to invest upon himself will win in the long run and gain its benefits.
There will always be someone (experts) who will be more experienced and knowledgeable in your field of work. That person can fasten your learning process through paid courses (if any).
If you are getting to learn about the nuances of the work even without pay, consider doing it when it provides you an invaluable experience.
Thus never hesitate to learn whenever you get an opportunity to refine your skills. Take courses of your choice and learn from the experts in the industry who will always guide you in the right direction.
Note: If you need a better gig to provide better photoshoot don’t hesitate to put your money into it when the opportunity arises.
6. Be active on social media
Social media is a lifeline for everyone these days. Anyone who asks about you will definitely look for your social media handles.
Being actively involved in social media and posting regular pictures from your portfolio gives you wider coverage to the audience and helps you grow.
You can leverage your social media handles especially Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter etc.
LinkedIn also plays a key role in networking with others and finding clients as well. Networking over here plays a key role in getting you opportunities.
Don’t hesitate to be involved with communities discussing work on Facebook, quora and others.
You can also make passive earnings online through these 9 cool ways from YouTube on photography niche.
7. Selling digital products
An entire business can be made from the one simple idea of selling digital products based on photography.
Digital market industry is booming and will keep growing at a faster rate than ever before.
Image credit: famousinreal.life
Consider this, Mike Pasley from ‘famousinreal.life‘ had made around $700k revenue 💰 running a Print on Demand store which sells merchandise online.
These digital products have images and designs imprinted on the products which can be the work of a graphic designer or a photographer.
When you click awesome pics you can get it imprinted on t-shirts, mugs and other merch selling it online to customers across the globe. Not only this, you can make custom made designs for customers as per their requirements as a digital product.
People even hire photographers to click for special occasions and you can use the digital products sold to them (after their due permission) in your portfolio and get more clients from such a portfolio.
You can even sell the following digital assets from your portfolio, such as:
- Plugins to be used in photoshop
- Brushes used for the lightrooms
- Templates and layouts used etc.
8. Teach about photography online
Why not teach others by creating a course on photography when you have a considerable amount of experience in photography.
Now you may ask why would anyone wanna learn from you?
Or maybe you aren’t so sure if you can teach anything to anyone…☹.
Well the fact is you simply need to know something more than the others whom you wanna teach about photography.
If you have closely followed what we have discussed so far, we have touched upon investing in learnings in step-5. This meant taking courses and knowing about photography a bit better from the experts in the field.
The ones who already have courses available on several platforms also started somewhere at one point of time.
Reference: Here’s the story of Iman Gadzhi who makes over $120K/Month Online selling courses for social media marketing agencies.
So don’t hesitate to make a start, you can simply begin by putting free courses online for the students to test how well they receive it and subsequently keep improving upon your content to make the best out of it.
Well you are ready to hustle hard for your dream to make it into the photography business.
Some of the well known platforms where you can launch your courses online to teach about photography are:
Do you still feel confused on about “How to start with photography”?
Here’s a quick general overview on “How to get start with Photography” for your reference. Hope you find this useful.
How to start with Photography in 2022? (5 key ideas)
Learning anything from scratch takes dedication and time. It demands a good amount of attention to detail and consistency that can help you leverage your learnings to a whole new level.
If you love to capture anything around you in frames and want to make a career out of it, then this could be the guide to what you would be looking for.
Photography in itself is a demandable career option and is expected to grow at a rate of 17% till 2030.
This is seriously quite a high number in comparison to other career options.
Here’s a quick guide about how to get started with Photography as a side hustle:
1. Learn the basics of photography
Well, I am no expert to tell you how to take the perfect photo…😬
But, a friend of mine who is a complete photo freak once told me these must know essentials of photography:
- Source of the light.
- Subject of the photograph.
- Composition of the photograph.
It’s completely bare essential to know what are these 3 elements before you truly consider photography as anything close to what you think.
👉Here’s a link to his instagram id in case you are interested..📷
2. Practice as much as possible
It’s important you take as many false shots as possible to create that one perfect shot you work hard for.
Learning is always an ongoing process and must never end even if you feel you have delivered the best that you had.
This helps in your learning curve and you grow well over a period of time.
3. Invest in right equipment and tools for photography
Image Credit: Jessica Lewis Creative from Pexels
You need to learn about basic editing skills which would cover setting the design and layout of the image, filters applicability and much more.
For this you should definitely learn about Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom etc which can leverage your skills to a whole new level altogether.
This is something which has already been covered but still needs to be mentioned again.
It’s imperative to invest from the beginning to learn about the little nuances and details that go into bringing the best photography.
A better camera and right gadget can fuel the growth and learning curve.
4. Defining your niche for photography
What defines your interest and excites you more?
A niche would mean, an area of work where your interest lies in and you would like to learn more for getting better at your work.
Is it capturing the wildlife or taking beautiful pictures of the bride and groom. You gotta define your niche and understand what you are good at.
Once you figure out where your creativity lies and what brings the best out of you, you can work towards building your presence in a defined niche.
5. Relax as much as you can
Image Credit: Daniel Reche from Pexels
It’s important to relax as much as you can, until and unless you are not enjoying your work you won’t feel relaxed with what you are doing.
You need to take as much time as possible and have breaks in between to understand yourself better and give time to work upon your skill.
To conclude, we can definitely say that photography is one such side hustle which can be rewarding and bring in good money in the long run.
All it needs is investment of time and energy (⚡) to bring in together the best of what you can offer..
All my best wishes for getting started with this amazing side hustle in 2022 and beyond.
Do share your thoughts in the comments section. Here’s some key takeaways on what we discussed so far.
Key Takeaways
- Photography is an amazing side hustle that you can start in 2022 to earn money online.
- Several niches to explore in photography are wedding, travel, wildlife, real estate etc.
- Photography is in high demand with each passing day and will grow at an exponential rate within the next decade.
- One can earn money online from photography through this 8 step strategy which involves selling digital products, taking freelancing work, setting up a photography blog etc.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some commonly asked questions on “How to make money online from Photography in 2022”:
Ans: As per a recent study, the hourly rate for photographers stand at $24.18 with an annual salary of $50,290. This largely depends on the experience, nature of work, type of photography etc.
Ans: There are a lot of ways to make money from photography as a side hustle. Some of the popular options are selling digital prints, creating a blog or website, working as a freelance photographer etc.
Ans: Yes, photography would be a great career in 2022. This is more evident from the fact that the demand for photographers is expected to grow at 17% until 2030.
With such growth and increase in pay rates for photographers a career in photography career is always a good choice in 2022 for sure.