How To Make Money With Photography In 2024 

first. also glad you didn't go for the obvs joke about "selling your camera" as an opener.

I’ve never seen such a heartfelt and down-to-earth video talking about making money on a hobby. It doesn’t involve shoving products in your face and is actual friendly and genuine advice, thanks dude.

always appreciate your honest and down-to-earth advice. thank you, great channel.

Excellent video! I'm very impressed with your down to earth, no ego, approach to your videos. You seem to want other photographers to thrive in their passions, and we appreciate that greatly! Thank you!

The lighting doesn’t matter as much when the content of what’s being said is quality. Good stuff Roman, thanks for the advice.

100% agree Roman. Well rounded, reasoned, thoughtout and based on experience. One of the most important things I learned early in my business life was, "Know Your Customer." This, in my experience, is critical. Do what you enjoy, do it very well, know who is interested in your niche. Who are they? Where are they? Why are they interested in your type of work? How to you reach them? That will they pay? Why? Do everything possible to know them better than anyone else. It all takes time.

You're always so plain speaking, common sense and down to earth. Thank you for never changing, and thank you for your solid advice.

I personally think work is a brilliant place to start. I am in banking and I voluntarily started taking photos for my workplace. I then moved onto work parties and then began doing weddings. That led me to being requested to do portraits for some aspiring models; but it is not a fixed income. I can go months before my next work.

Sound, down to earth, no nonsense advice Roman, thank you 🙂

I discovered your channel not a long time ago. And I love it. Great content!

You’re one of those people that instantly makes you want to listen to them and enjoy listening to them 👍🏾 great video. Subbed

Appreciate you sharing these tips and insights Roman. Cheers.

Lots of humility and honesty, not to mention great and timely advice. Thank you for sharing so much of your experience.

You are great person Roman, I follow you not just by the photography stuff, but the way you speak.. the things you say.. the sincerity and truth coming from you. And thank you for this tips of starting a business, I appreciate it

Always genuine and informative. To a lot of us I’m sure you’re a high flyer photographer and have the eye for a great shot

You talk a lot of sense and give great advice Roman.

Thank you, that is so valuable. A lot of people appear lucky, but behind that appearance they do one thing either consciously or unconsciously. They always know their direction of travel and the next destination. And when faced with choices, they do the one that heads the most in the right direction. So when the "big chance" drops into their lap, it is because they led themselves to that place. And that is what you are saying. Spot on.

This is a great lesson.Thank you,Roman!

Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts

Another thing you can do, not as a primary job or something, but as sort of residual passive income, is to post a bunch of stuff to various stock photo sites. People do pay for that stuff, and with enough "surface", it can become a non-zero source.

Thanks for a valuable content as always Roman 👌🏼

Great video Roman ! Fortunately, I'm at the stage (age) of my life where I just photograph for fun as a hobby. My working days are history after a great career .

Literal living legend man. You're inspiring so many to start picking up their cameras more 📸⚡🔥

Sound advice and that's exactly what I do. I'm a full-time high school teacher in Perth Western Australia. After being very pushy and never taking no for an answer, I was able to get accepted with the lady who is the organiser for all of your main public events here in Perth City. It's fantastic, because not only do I get paid to shoot now, but I get in behind the scenes to all major events, even with famous people. I have my press pass, and it enables me to point my camera at just about anybody (then I have full rights to use these on my website). I wouldn't have it any other way. I love my teaching job, love being with the kids, then I do my side-gig on weekends with my camera. I do disagree though Roman on the selecting one niche - you don't have to do that. My website reflects my paid events work, the odd wedding, street photography, lots of overseas travel and portrait photography of models. It all adds up to me meeting lots of different people and getting lots of jobs. Through my contact with my lady I'm also the staff photographer for all the dragon boat races, events and regattas here in Western Australia. If I only shot one niche I'd be in big trouble.

this was so helpful thanks roman.

If i can share my experience and hopefully usefull advice. Here you are... I started photography in 2010. Spent two years just learning the craft, shooting anything and everything. Learning how to use a camera, light etc. after a while ended up shooting a friends wedding(also hated it ha). Done some portrait shots, some product shots. All terrible looking back. ha. Anyway, i also shot a music event for a friend. A few months later a photographer who worked in one of Londons major nightclubs said they were looking for other photographers to shoot. All i had was the music event photos i had shot prior. That was enough to get me in the door to shoot for this club... Anyway, fast forward a few years. I was shooting for this club every week, and as a result more clients came from that, then more came from those... It was a snowball effect. I found once my foot was in the door, and i was settled within a niche, it expanded from there. Before i knew it, it wasnt just nightclubs, but corporate events, festivals etc. before i knew it, i was an event photographer. It was never my plan to do that. I just fell into it. I also kept my 9-5 job for my security. Although i drastically cut down my hours... Anyway, fast forward to covid. And events stopped ... Bit of luck i kept my job.. You never know what might happen! After the world reopened, it was a struggle, but i also didnt really bother to push myself again. That said, ive still kept hold of two clients, and i do work for both maybe once or twice a year. I kept them because on of them is a VERY large company who pay generously to say the least. My ultimate point is this.... Once you get your foot in the door. Things will snowball for you. Word of mouth is still king in the digital age. That said, you have to keep up those working relationships. The minute you stop doing shoots, or slacking off. TRUST me. There are 100s of photographers waiting to take your place. And your clients will find someone else if you dont stay active and produce the goods.

Thank you for sharing your information its really help

I enjoy your balanced viewpoints 👍

Great video as always, lots of good info and down to earth style. Could you do a video in the future about how you edit your videos for youtube? Or used to edit when you started? Lots of overcomplicated high tech type of videos about that subject, but although I am good at the technical side of filming and editing my current budget doesn't allow me to invest in it much. So if you have simple budget friendly technical tips for starting a youtube channel it would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

Love just love ❤ so true!

Great job with this video!

Great advice. Happened to me, I posted a shot of a horse and it went viral, everybody thought I was a horse photographer (I’m not:)

Roman, it's always been a delight to watch your videos, can you tell us how to make preset ?

Another great message sir. While I would like to make some money off my photography I'm not looking to get big or make a living off of it. I will not do video or reels so I know that is going to hurt me and getting "known" faster but they just aren't me. Thanks for sharing

Thanks Roman, just happy to watch and learn from your videos. If someone likes my pictures, then it’s a good day. I couldn’t earn a living at it.

Thank you Roman. I've been following your content here for a while now and I like your style of photography. I also shoot Fuji so I appreciate your equipment reviews too. I have a few friends who make a side living from photography so I know how hard it can be. Initially I'd only be looking to earn a few quid on the side so it's not like I'm staking my living on it. My problem at the moment is finding what I want to shoot. Is it street or nature? Would I be confident enough to do a wedding? Just gotta keep pushing that shutter button until I find the answer.

well done.

1:25 amen!

I work four days a week and I agree with Ronan. I have a day job that I absolutely love it. It's actually working in addictions as a counsellor and it actually keeps me grounded. So when I get to the end of the week I've got time for Photography and I've developed my photography business now where I'm selling quite a few images as printed f and doing some other photography based work. Eventually I would like to do more but I'd actually don't want to be a full-time photographer I've met some full-time photographers and they say it's very difficult stressful chasing clients customers not getting paid that would create more stress. I also think if I was doing Photography full-time I would lose the love and passion I have for just going out and shooting and that's something that I noticed over the last six months. I worked really hard and I made a lot of money in the last six months but what I noticed is I didn't go out into nature and shoot as much, so you lose that what you gain on one hand is you lose on another and Ronan makes some really good points always love his channel and yes it's too much absolute crap on the Internet about how you can turn into six figures in two weeks if you just do this. That's absolute crap and rubbish... Essentially my Photography now pays for gear pays for the odd trip. It allows me to maybe go out for a nice meal once a week there's just so many benefits to it but I'm never gonna be rich from it and that's okay. There is one other way, Ronan and I'm doing quite well with this and that's actually teaching other people how to take photos and when I say teaching it's not high-end stuff it's actually Community based stuff. I've gotten onto the fact that there's a lot of community organisations with funding that are quite happy to pay me $75-$80 an hour to teach Photography to Kids elderly youth and other people in the community as a form of mental health gets some out in nature. Get some doing something the images they take are amazing and people often say to me why are you teaching other people how to take photos isn't that then going to devalue the industry I say no. Also find some niche markets as well funnily enough I've started to photograph funerals now you think why would I do that? Well there is actually a demand for it and not many people can do it. It's very challenging Photography in lowlight and you have to be discreet you often just sit in one corner and operate from that corner, using a mid zoom and being creative, you have to be extremely quiet and almost fit into the scene. That might be a skill attribute that you have. I have done weddings . And I will do them from time to time as they come along. Just smaller ones that may involve two or three hours work. I've stopped doing the all day tight ones they're too long too stressful and too difficult because people actually think they are better looking than they are, and that's been brutally honest here if you've sat at pies for six months and then expect it look great on your wedding day. I'm sorry that's just not gonna happen we can't make you look skinny. Sorry for my brutal honesty on that. The other thing that I did Ronan was find a couple of small cafes around your area and just ask if they could have a couple display pieces up some people see your work and they can buy it but I'll also jump onto your Instagram or your Facebook even leave some cards that are noticeboard as well. Lots of people don't access the Internet you would be surprised about the amount of people that are jumping off the Internet, so you need to have promotion outside of the Internet. Sorry for my long post I'm very passionate about this great video and I'm glad that you've given this advice I'm in that space of making a decent secondary income now and most of what you've said is true. In fact, all of it is 100% true. Keep your day job.

what if I made more than one channel one for travel photography another one for landscape photography and another one for street or animal photography.Will it work to build a larger audience.?

That comment at about 6 figures in 6 minutes sitting on a beach in bali sounds like the type of coarse Jord Hammond sells 😅

Stock used to be a pretty solid, low-pressure way of making some money that was nicely suited to what I like to do, but that's been a race to the bottom for a long time with people apparently being okay with selling their work for literally pennies and companies happy to help them do just that. And funny enough, my single highest-paying licensed image is one of my cat.

“The only niche is you”

Very interesting! I’m curious at to whether workshops were ever of interest to you?

I wouldn’t say it’s saturated with talent, I feel it’s more saturated with tech that makes even a crap photographer good.

Not of my cat? Man you’re mean. 😂

Everything should be anti-9to5.

is about time for ppl to include you in podcasts

A small tip for doing these kinds of videos. If you’d underline what you’re saying with some music, it’ll be easier to listen to you for a longer period of time. Your videos do already provide a lot of value so that part is perfect, maybe just think about the presentative things like music or visual effects

You look really really tired

I have so much respect for wedding shooters, I can't even imagine being able to tolerate all that stress. Street and landscape / urban landscape suits me because I can take my time, I can do it on my own, and if I'm uncomfortable in a situation I can move on. I don't think my autistic ass could even shoot a friend's wedding, it's just a sensory nightmare!