Hello! I´m new here and I don´t have very good camera equipment because I am still in school. Do you get money for taking photographs? Is it hard to get work for an example for Natural Geographic? Any other ways than magazines? Thanks!
Welcome Sam! You're asking questions at the right time- before you buy lots of gear.
There are lots of discussions about the general topic of making a living and specific details on various aspects of professional photography in the Photo Marketing section here at NPN. I've linked it for your convenience, but you'll also find it under the tab Forum Index in the upper left corner of this page.
Sam, there are some here who make their entire income with photography. However, most do not. Many make "some" of their income in photography, but have a "real job" to ensure the bills are paid on time. There was a thread a while back that indicated that those who make a fairly large amount of their income in photography actually do it via conducting and leading workshops.
Nature photography is a fickle business. I for one sell some prints here and there and have recently been going to craft shows. 1/2 of my income from photography comes from these shows. However, if I wern't gainfully employed elsewhere I would be broke as I haven't shown a profit yet!
A good friend of mine makes $20-$30 K a year by photographing the local HS sports teams, both on and off the field. He sells pictures to the players and families. This has led to his doing weddings, and family portraits. He also does senior pictures for the year book. Nature photography is not "his thing"; but he at least makes some money in photography.
Now, he is a man of around 35 with a wife and child. Is his income enough? He doesn't think so which is why his wife works for a large company and makes more than he does!
So, take Hank's advice and read the threads in our forum. Plan your life accordingly. Keep asking all the questions you want and we will all try to give good answers.
It's extremely hard to make any money with just nature photos. There are thousands and thousands of people running around out there who are excellent hobby photographers who sell shot here & there, and flood the market. You are more likely to become an internationally known rock star than a NatGeo photographer. If you want to take photos of critters etc. a lot, move to a town where you have fast & easy access to what you want to photo, get a job at the Burger King. You will make more money AND have plenty of chance to chase critters on your days off.
Well A few tried to do it with Photocopiers, but I don't recommend that. I prefer to mae money one dollar at a time. Seriously, it's not easy. You have to know the craft then knowing, business and how to invest in yourself. Knowing stress management, self control and a few people in the right places helps too!
Here's another insight for you Sam- My wife is fond of saying that a photography business is 5% photography and 95% business. Success usually is more dependent on the quality of your business management than the quality of your photography. We're living proof of that principle, as well as my wife's outstanding business management. I've seen better photographers come and go in our market, taking anywhere from two to five years to fail, while we've stayed in business and prospered in the same market for 18 years now. And in a couple of cases, the failing photographers had larger cash flows than ours. They just didn't manage their money as well.
Another insight- How do you spot the successful photographer? He's the one with older, scuffed up camera gear and his "new" car is at least ten years old. He's putting his money into mortgages, savings and retirement funds rather than the latest cameras and new cars. He's more likely to wait for the price to drop after a new model camera is released rather than buy the latest greatest models as quickly as they appear.
A long time nature photographer I know recently won a large ( 7 figure) lottery. When ask what he was going to do with the money he replied he would just keep running his business like always until it was gone.
Or as Richard Branson said when asked, "What's the best way to become a millionaire?" - "Start with a Billion dollars and buy an airline."
Sam; the best way to make money doing nature photography is to produce exceptionally good work, and market your work in a 100% professional manner, and above all; learn to value your work, your time, and your talent; 'cuz if you don't, no one else will.
Most of my photography income derives from weddings and guided nature photo excursions. Selling fine art nature prints helps, as do the other categories of photography I do. The excursions, however, must be underpinned by good nature photos so those looking at the photos want to hire the guy who took them.
About 80 percent of my current income is from photography, and since I've only been developing the business for a couple years, that percentage (which is growing quickly), will soon rise to 100 percent. And the more weddings you do the more you get, because most wedding clients come by word-of-mouth or from seeing the photographer working at a wedding shoot.
I deeply enjoy shooting weddings and teaching and showing other photographers around the BWCAW and other trail systems near Ely, but if I had my heart's desire I'd spend all my time laying on the ground in the woods capturing nature photos. I just feel lucky that I'm getting to the point of making a good living with photography. I know there's no living for me to be had strictly from nature photography.
As Hank said, it's more business than photography. And I'll add that it's more personality than photography, too. I've watched any number of talented photographers who sucked with people and couldn't make a good living because of that. Just to take weddings again as an example (same holds true for the guided excursions and any type of photography that involves human contact), most folks are more eager to hire a photographer who is easy and friendly around people than one who is not, regardless of talent.
I'm one of those folks who sells a photo or two once in a while. I received a check in the mail today for a print that sold in a gallery. It boosted my ego more than it padded my wallet.
As a small business owner (not related to photography), I can reiterate what Hank said - when it comes to making money, your business skills are more important than your photography skills. I occasionally see, in a commercial setting, a photo that I would have discarded, yet somebody made some money from it. This is not to say that your don't have to be a competent photographer, but commercial success may be more related to your drive than your talent.
If business, marketing, and salesmanship aren't your strong points, perhaps you could find a good business partner who has faith in you.
Good luck - maybe someday you'll be the famous, successful, photographer many of us would like to be.
Thanks Sam for posting this topic. I am kinda in the same boat as you... although I may be a little farther along. I am currently starting up my business and this thread has some usefull info in it for me as well.
I have sold a few prints and been contacted to do a few people shoots.. but my heart will always be in nature photography. If I can make a go of this.... that would be great, but I wont be giving up my normal job anytime soon.
Thanks to all the folks that have posted.... please keep the ideas coming. Im sure its helped at least 2 of us so far..... who knows who else will benefit.
Wow, Steve, am I glad you brought up the topic of people skills and their effect on business. My wife is in high demand for weddings specifically because of her blend of people skills and photo skills. While I'm probably the better technical photographer, she translates her ability to make people comfortable into really spectacular shots, whethers seniors, families or weddings. In all those venues my "technically superior" shots look stiff and lifeless compared to hers simply because she makes her subjects so much more comfortable.
In photography-for-hire and I suspect every other aspect of pro photography including print sales, your people skills will bring you repeat business faster than your photo skills. I'd have to venture that something approaching 75% of our business is repeat customers, and we would not be making a living right now if we were dependent on a steady influx of new clients. Just today I got a call from a long-standing industrial photo client for a 3-day shoot, and she added "There were some other photographers through the office recently looking for work, and we turned them down. They are cheaper than you, but nowhere near as much fun to work with!" Nuff said!!!!!
And lest anyone think these comments about being personable, fun, sincere and interested in your clients only apply to portrait/wedding/commercial photography, a short story is in order.
When I mounted my first permanent show of nature photographs as Grand Superior Lodge along the North Shore of Lake Superior last summer, we were on a pretty tight schedule because we had more commitments later in the day, and it takes some time to hang and level framed images and get the labels on just so and find just the right place in the gift store to display the bagged, matted and signed prints.
An older woman was admiring the work as we were putting it up, and rather than simply thank her graciously and go on about my business, I spent about 10 minutes chatting with her about where the images were captured and about nature photography and her interest in nature prints.
As we were about to leave later, the manager mentioned to us that she'd bought half my inventory.
Would she have bought some had we not had that nice conversation? Maybe. Probably. But she wouldn't have bought half of everything in sight. I've had similar things happen too many times to discount the value of a personal touch between artists and the public.
My wife and I just went through a discussion that illustrates the frank realities of professional shooting. The average photographer would probably regard my 3-day assignment as a windfall and immediately start shopping for a new camera. Yeah, the shoot would nicely pay for a Nikon D2X or D3 and a lens or two.
But our discussion revolved around the choices between a couple of mortgage payments, setting it aside to cover about half our annual advertizing costs, moving it into savings for eventual contribution to retirement accounts, or investing it in one of our other moneymaking enterprises. New gear never entered the discussion.
I keep coming back to this topic in my mind as business transactions flow across my desk. Sorry if the dead horse is beaten past all recognition, but I think the insights are valuable for Sam and others making business decisions. Call it "truth in advertizing" or informed concent, but they'll make better decisions about their future if they have clear examples that help them see past the "romance." Whatever that is!
Since my last post I've had a couple of more contracts come in unexpectedly and outside our normal budgeting process. Call it found money, or money excess to our baseline needs, but the two contracts add up to about twice what I'll earn on my 3-day industrial shoot. It's more or less free from strings and fair game for buying new gear.
But here's the way professional decisions are made about buying gear, and that's the point hiding behind my lengthy intro:
We are putting the money into savings for now, and will make the final decisions about whether or not to buy and what to buy in the last few days of 2008, based on a backwards look at income for the year, other needs, taxes, etc. It may be a great time to upgrade existing worn gear, but that decision has to wait till we're darned sure the money isn't needed elsewhere.
Sure, we'd buy gear right now if it was needed for a pending job or to replace broken gear. Other than that however, buying gear because it is new and sexy and fun fell far out of the picture once we turned pro.
See the distinction? Just look at my ratty old D2X for proof. It looks like hell but still works fine, so there's no D3 on my horizon.
Edit-
Okay, I admit it. My wife prevailed in the new gear discussion. Again.
Hank - There are excellent lessons in your posts. I don't know that I could be nearly as disciplined as you are (well, OK, as your wife is ). While I'm not a pro, it's interesting to see these points of view from inside the industry, so to speak. Thanks for sharing.
I look at my gear and my income and my house payment and all the other bills and keep putting my photography income into making a living, not gear. Only piece of gear I'm likely to buy in the near future is a second flash. And a 5D, which will allow me to work half as hard in pp to get excellent indoor wedding images in places that don't allow flash. It will also be a fitting companion for macro, portrait and landscape work.
And I'll buy it used, or will wait to buy a discontinued 5D new as soon as the 5Dn comes out. Now that I've got a couple of Canon f2.8L lenses for that low-light wedding work, there's really no other gear I really NEED. I keep eyeing the 500 and 600 f4L lenses and think it's likely one of them will be years and years away.
And for anyone who really wants to get into photography as a business but already has a good-paying job, my best piece of advice is to use your job income to buy the gear you need to perform successfully as a photographer BEFORE you quit your job and launch your full-time photography business. For those in that boat, I also recommend a gradual transition if it's possible. Many career jobs allow people enough weekends and time off to travel for nature photography or to schedule weddings or portrait sessions, and a well built portfolio and list of clients will make your life a lot easier when you finally cut the 9-5 cord.
Sam, for a photographer in college, newspapers are an excellent way into the business. Just as a for a writer, newspapers teach photographers how to work quickly, how to think on their feet and how to inspire and tell a story with their photographs. Start building a powerful portfolio at your college newspaper, and work hard to get on as a summer intern at any daily newspaper in the country, which will be a concentrated learning curve and a further chance to build a portfolio. All three of the daily papers I worked at hired summer college photog interns, and many were excellent shooters. Upon graduation, find work at the best paper you can. Any writer or photographer is spending time wisely if they can get on at a good daily newspaper for five years or so. You'll be building your own gear with your income even while developing as a professional photographer in a professional environment.
Then leave while you still have your soul and good nature intact. Five years is about right to soak up all the knowledge and build gear and a portfolio before too much cynicism creeps in and ruins you. Not to mention some of the cattiest photogs I ever met were photojournalists with bigger egos than abilities.
Jim Brandenburg started as a staff photographer at his hometown paper in Minn., and he did great work there before starting for National Geographic. And we all know his work at NG didn't suck! Message is, experience is important, but there's no substitute for talent.
Here is a list of my basic gear. I leave out tripods, monopods, remote shutter releases, diffusion/reflection discs, etc. My biggest income comes from weddings and from guided nature photo excursions, with a growing business in fine art nature print sales. I have been working toward full-time photography since 2003 while in the last few years of a 15-year newspaper career, and I quit my newspaper job last June. My business is growing quickly, and at this moment I'm on the edge of actually making a living.
Canon 30D x2
Canon Digital Rebel XT
Canon 400mm f5.6L
Canon 70-200 f2.8L
Canon 100 f2.8 macro (doubles as a truly fine portrait lens)
Canon 17-40 f4L
Canon 1.4 TC II
Canon 430EX flash (soon to be adding a second or a 580EX because of big upswing in wedding bookings)
Kenko extension tubes
Anything else I need I borrow from Canon Professional Services (no membership dues, free loan of all Canon gear).
There are plenty of things I'd very much like to have, but none of them will provide enough of an increased income to justify going into more debt for their purchase.
Discussion
18 repliesThere are lots of discussions about the general topic of making a living and specific details on various aspects of professional photography in the Photo Marketing section here at NPN. I've linked it for your convenience, but you'll also find it under the tab Forum Index in the upper left corner of this page.
Enjoy the read. There's lots of good stuff there!
Nature photography is a fickle business. I for one sell some prints here and there and have recently been going to craft shows. 1/2 of my income from photography comes from these shows. However, if I wern't gainfully employed elsewhere I would be broke as I haven't shown a profit yet!
A good friend of mine makes $20-$30 K a year by photographing the local HS sports teams, both on and off the field. He sells pictures to the players and families. This has led to his doing weddings, and family portraits. He also does senior pictures for the year book. Nature photography is not "his thing"; but he at least makes some money in photography.
Now, he is a man of around 35 with a wife and child. Is his income enough? He doesn't think so which is why his wife works for a large company and makes more than he does!
So, take Hank's advice and read the threads in our forum. Plan your life accordingly. Keep asking all the questions you want and we will all try to give good answers.
Kent in SD
Another insight- How do you spot the successful photographer? He's the one with older, scuffed up camera gear and his "new" car is at least ten years old. He's putting his money into mortgages, savings and retirement funds rather than the latest cameras and new cars. He's more likely to wait for the price to drop after a new model camera is released rather than buy the latest greatest models as quickly as they appear.
Or as Richard Branson said when asked, "What's the best way to become a millionaire?" - "Start with a Billion dollars and buy an airline."
Sam; the best way to make money doing nature photography is to produce exceptionally good work, and market your work in a 100% professional manner, and above all; learn to value your work, your time, and your talent; 'cuz if you don't, no one else will.
About 80 percent of my current income is from photography, and since I've only been developing the business for a couple years, that percentage (which is growing quickly), will soon rise to 100 percent. And the more weddings you do the more you get, because most wedding clients come by word-of-mouth or from seeing the photographer working at a wedding shoot.
I deeply enjoy shooting weddings and teaching and showing other photographers around the BWCAW and other trail systems near Ely, but if I had my heart's desire I'd spend all my time laying on the ground in the woods capturing nature photos. I just feel lucky that I'm getting to the point of making a good living with photography. I know there's no living for me to be had strictly from nature photography.
As Hank said, it's more business than photography. And I'll add that it's more personality than photography, too. I've watched any number of talented photographers who sucked with people and couldn't make a good living because of that. Just to take weddings again as an example (same holds true for the guided excursions and any type of photography that involves human contact), most folks are more eager to hire a photographer who is easy and friendly around people than one who is not, regardless of talent.
I'm one of those folks who sells a photo or two once in a while. I received a check in the mail today for a print that sold in a gallery. It boosted my ego more than it padded my wallet.
As a small business owner (not related to photography), I can reiterate what Hank said - when it comes to making money, your business skills are more important than your photography skills. I occasionally see, in a commercial setting, a photo that I would have discarded, yet somebody made some money from it. This is not to say that your don't have to be a competent photographer, but commercial success may be more related to your drive than your talent.
If business, marketing, and salesmanship aren't your strong points, perhaps you could find a good business partner who has faith in you.
Good luck - maybe someday you'll be the famous, successful, photographer many of us would like to be.
I have sold a few prints and been contacted to do a few people shoots.. but my heart will always be in nature photography. If I can make a go of this.... that would be great, but I wont be giving up my normal job anytime soon.
Thanks to all the folks that have posted.... please keep the ideas coming. Im sure its helped at least 2 of us so far..... who knows who else will benefit.
In photography-for-hire and I suspect every other aspect of pro photography including print sales, your people skills will bring you repeat business faster than your photo skills. I'd have to venture that something approaching 75% of our business is repeat customers, and we would not be making a living right now if we were dependent on a steady influx of new clients. Just today I got a call from a long-standing industrial photo client for a 3-day shoot, and she added "There were some other photographers through the office recently looking for work, and we turned them down. They are cheaper than you, but nowhere near as much fun to work with!" Nuff said!!!!!
When I mounted my first permanent show of nature photographs as Grand Superior Lodge along the North Shore of Lake Superior last summer, we were on a pretty tight schedule because we had more commitments later in the day, and it takes some time to hang and level framed images and get the labels on just so and find just the right place in the gift store to display the bagged, matted and signed prints.
An older woman was admiring the work as we were putting it up, and rather than simply thank her graciously and go on about my business, I spent about 10 minutes chatting with her about where the images were captured and about nature photography and her interest in nature prints.
As we were about to leave later, the manager mentioned to us that she'd bought half my inventory.
Would she have bought some had we not had that nice conversation? Maybe. Probably. But she wouldn't have bought half of everything in sight. I've had similar things happen too many times to discount the value of a personal touch between artists and the public.
But our discussion revolved around the choices between a couple of mortgage payments, setting it aside to cover about half our annual advertizing costs, moving it into savings for eventual contribution to retirement accounts, or investing it in one of our other moneymaking enterprises. New gear never entered the discussion.
Since my last post I've had a couple of more contracts come in unexpectedly and outside our normal budgeting process. Call it found money, or money excess to our baseline needs, but the two contracts add up to about twice what I'll earn on my 3-day industrial shoot. It's more or less free from strings and fair game for buying new gear.
But here's the way professional decisions are made about buying gear, and that's the point hiding behind my lengthy intro:
We are putting the money into savings for now, and will make the final decisions about whether or not to buy and what to buy in the last few days of 2008, based on a backwards look at income for the year, other needs, taxes, etc. It may be a great time to upgrade existing worn gear, but that decision has to wait till we're darned sure the money isn't needed elsewhere.
Sure, we'd buy gear right now if it was needed for a pending job or to replace broken gear. Other than that however, buying gear because it is new and sexy and fun fell far out of the picture once we turned pro.
See the distinction? Just look at my ratty old D2X for proof. It looks like hell but still works fine, so there's no D3 on my horizon.
Edit-
Okay, I admit it. My wife prevailed in the new gear discussion. Again.
I look at my gear and my income and my house payment and all the other bills and keep putting my photography income into making a living, not gear. Only piece of gear I'm likely to buy in the near future is a second flash. And a 5D, which will allow me to work half as hard in pp to get excellent indoor wedding images in places that don't allow flash. It will also be a fitting companion for macro, portrait and landscape work.
And I'll buy it used, or will wait to buy a discontinued 5D new as soon as the 5Dn comes out. Now that I've got a couple of Canon f2.8L lenses for that low-light wedding work, there's really no other gear I really NEED. I keep eyeing the 500 and 600 f4L lenses and think it's likely one of them will be years and years away.
And for anyone who really wants to get into photography as a business but already has a good-paying job, my best piece of advice is to use your job income to buy the gear you need to perform successfully as a photographer BEFORE you quit your job and launch your full-time photography business. For those in that boat, I also recommend a gradual transition if it's possible. Many career jobs allow people enough weekends and time off to travel for nature photography or to schedule weddings or portrait sessions, and a well built portfolio and list of clients will make your life a lot easier when you finally cut the 9-5 cord.
Sam, for a photographer in college, newspapers are an excellent way into the business. Just as a for a writer, newspapers teach photographers how to work quickly, how to think on their feet and how to inspire and tell a story with their photographs. Start building a powerful portfolio at your college newspaper, and work hard to get on as a summer intern at any daily newspaper in the country, which will be a concentrated learning curve and a further chance to build a portfolio. All three of the daily papers I worked at hired summer college photog interns, and many were excellent shooters. Upon graduation, find work at the best paper you can. Any writer or photographer is spending time wisely if they can get on at a good daily newspaper for five years or so. You'll be building your own gear with your income even while developing as a professional photographer in a professional environment.
Then leave while you still have your soul and good nature intact. Five years is about right to soak up all the knowledge and build gear and a portfolio before too much cynicism creeps in and ruins you. Not to mention some of the cattiest photogs I ever met were photojournalists with bigger egos than abilities.
Jim Brandenburg started as a staff photographer at his hometown paper in Minn., and he did great work there before starting for National Geographic. And we all know his work at NG didn't suck! Message is, experience is important, but there's no substitute for talent.
Here is a list of my basic gear. I leave out tripods, monopods, remote shutter releases, diffusion/reflection discs, etc. My biggest income comes from weddings and from guided nature photo excursions, with a growing business in fine art nature print sales. I have been working toward full-time photography since 2003 while in the last few years of a 15-year newspaper career, and I quit my newspaper job last June. My business is growing quickly, and at this moment I'm on the edge of actually making a living.
Canon 30D x2
Canon Digital Rebel XT
Canon 400mm f5.6L
Canon 70-200 f2.8L
Canon 100 f2.8 macro (doubles as a truly fine portrait lens)
Canon 17-40 f4L
Canon 1.4 TC II
Canon 430EX flash (soon to be adding a second or a 580EX because of big upswing in wedding bookings)
Kenko extension tubes
Anything else I need I borrow from Canon Professional Services (no membership dues, free loan of all Canon gear).
There are plenty of things I'd very much like to have, but none of them will provide enough of an increased income to justify going into more debt for their purchase.