The Easiest way to make BIG money in Photography

There is no easy way… unless your parents are already established photographers.

hahaha LOVE your glasses :)

Thanks! I love your channel. I never shot seriously, or manual until a year ago, when my brother passed and left me his camera. Since then I went through structured classes, and I love it. I don't know if I will ever make money doing it, but maybe. I engineer furniture by trade, and I like shooting artistic shots. Some of my best shots are old barns, mountains, streams, and people. I imagine I will keep deep diving technique until I leave for the afterlife.

love the title haha. great advice

I'm sitting her thinking about cancelling an outdoor family portrait session where I'd be photographing the family in the heat and the humidity. I mostly do studio work, headshots, model portfolios. I accepted this job when work was slow but then she didn't get back to me until I got busy again. I think I prefer commercial work in the studio instead of being outdoors in the heat and humidity of summer.

Mannnnn! I hear you. I’ve been an actor and dancer for 20 years and I’ve chosen an equally hard business to to make money and get seen, but I love it. I love cinematography and unit still shooting but getting through the doors is impossible lol

I'm a wedding photographer and I can attest to everything in this video. Great stuff!

So your telling me there's a chance.

After taking over 500 weddings and 10 years as a jewellery photographer I got totally burnt out so took a few years out, still really enjoy photography but now doing what I enjoy most and building my portfolio for the next stage in my career, keep up the good work.

Photography is HARD but I wouldn't want to be doing anything else 👍

In the 1990’s film days we used to call this ‘above the line’ and ‘below the line’ photography.
Above the line was high end advertising photography and below the line was everything else, point of sale, catalogues, leaflets etc.
Above the line was that individual art based creative style that made the big money. Below the line was high volume quick turnaround which still made great money and was more of a craft than an art.
Fast forward to today and it’s that below the line work that has had its budgets slashed due to the digital revolution. The above the line work is still a decent, if stressful, way to make a living.

Hi, thanks for the sharing your experience. How about boudoir photography?

What an odd cold-call to get, mainly because of the "I have a studio, now... what do I do with it?" setup. You'd think they would have worked that out beforehand(?). Perhaps I'm making some assumptions about how it all came about for them. Anyways, some really sound advice here, thanks!

With respect you've got to do more than just 'love it'. That's pretty meaningless. It's really really easy to say 'I love it' or 'I really want this'. People delude themselves every day using those terms. Whatever niche within photography you choose (or it chooses you) then if you don't have the talent, the USP, the eye, the experience or whatever it takes you simply won't make it longterm....So many people deny the existence of 'talent' but in photography you really really need it (Rankin excepted)....

Lol. This was some-what a discouraging video. 🥴

This advice (specialization and love of genre) applies to just about every career one can think of. It certainly applies to software engineering.

thank you!
well i just want to make a reasonable living, be my own boss and do what i love !

“regardless of how lucrative it is, if you do not love it, i mean absolutely love what you’re doing, you won’t get to that point.”

Hey, thank you so much for all your knowledge over the past few years. Really enjoy these.
I’m not sure if I’ve not come across it yet, or if you haven’t hit of this yet. But do you have more information about usage fees?
The correct language to be used and how to charge for that? 😊
Please and thank you

I spent a month shoot beer every day to get it right at my own expense and at weekends I shoot local bands to make some money.

Love your videos! Thank you for your honesty and efforts.

Great advice man! What about shooting for restaurants or chef or catering as a food photographer.

after so much time in photo (since 2008) i had tested all until 2014 when ive notice that sports photography is what i like and what i love to shoot. after knowing you during covid crap ive started developing new skills and thank you for all of those nice advice's!!!

Some of the very best YT content, insight and considered advice available. Fantastic. Thank you.

First it should be defined what good Money means...I think there are several genres with Lots of Work where you can make 60.000-100.000 after relatively short time, starting as a side hustle

Hi can I charge my new camera batteries from US in Africa?

Great insights into the industry once again. I've been at it for around 10 years now and still have the occassioanl wobble. Should i move more into portraits or stick with weddings.... I think it's only natural to need to ask that of ourselves on occassion.

The one area I had a lot of success in was nightclubs and bars, not selling the keyrings or anything, just for the venue socials. You can get a decent hourly rate and build up a body of work to use in a portfolio which lends itself well to other niches.

Fine art photography is the most lucrative genre. However, it requires numerous factors to fall into place, including stellar representation and the acknowledgement of big investors and buyers. A top 20 of the most valuable photographs revealed most are not the classics we might imagine, but images made in recent years. If there is a consistent aesthetic thread, it's shoot on the largest format available and print really big (though there are exceptions). Individuals and institutions buying this stuff need to impress people immediately, and size and scale tick the box.

You're not wrong about landscape photography, it also bloody lonely sometimes. But i make money from sitting on the side of a hill in the pi**ing rain and I love it. The thought of getting a real job again is terrifying.

Scott. Has the way you describe your niche changed from bold and graphic photography for food brands to now include that style but for everything still life? If so, just wondering why the broader, blunter positioning.

I been doing this for about 3 weeks I went deep down on photography and it’s fun as a hobby I’d say my pictures are by far 8/10

Great advice. I’m in a small area so fashion is probably out of the question for me which is a shame cause that’s what I truly love. Product photography is second. I joke and say I shoot dancers, models, and whiskey bottles. But that’s really what I love to shoot.

have you ever been wrong with your advice? nope. thanks a lot!

have you ever been wrong with your advice? nope

Nice advice.. ‘do what you want’ n you will excel ..

Excellent video, I wish more people would talk online the way you do. Photography, like filmmaking, is always changing. You have to change with it or be left behind. :) Also what was fashionable yesterday is out today. Define your market audience first b4 starting!!

Sir. Your my mentor. For over a year now. Thanks for sharing your struggles! Keeps me clear for whats ahead of me and doesnt make me stress out during the proces! Thanks a lot!

I love how honest you are! Never change Scott

'Do what you love and stick with it'... perfect advice. The sticking with it part and seeing it through, is the tough part. Thank you.

Great video, thanks.
Do you have already a video about what to do when you have tried everything and you are still not seeing results? Like, posting daily, network, engaging and pitching correctly and still no evolution no work, nothing? Even after years.

Great stuff as always! Do you have any tips on promoting your work after setting up your own website? For instance, I plan on documenting my vacation in September with a variety of landscapes, resturants/bars, animals, etc. Would love to get into travel journalism and don't want to waste this opportunity to build my portfolio!

Here's another, related question ... granted photography is hard to make a "good" living on: but is it also really hard to a) break even in terms of basic costs (e.g., studio rent, etc.) and/or b) break even plus a "little" bit?

Everything you said is absolutely correct. If you don’t have very thick skin and can’t take rejection, do something else.
You can make hundreds of thousands a year, but it takes a least 10 years of painful dedication to get there. Even though you make it to the top of your game there are loads of people trying to get the same work. The struggle never ends.

Would you do a post on how to find your style or visual language? One of the things I did to helped me find my style was to print out small images and lay them all out on the studio floor. I started seeing a consistent look and feel to the images. That is the way I found my visual language. I wasn’t able to see it until I printed the images out and looked at them as a body of work.

“There is no quick…”. SO true! Good vid!

This is basically (almost) all my thoughts about my photography career. I was starting my photography career in 2009 as well, going through a lot of rejection, and a lot of doubt from my surroundings, but eventually get into my place right now as Still Life Photographer. Even I shot some bold-style still life photography before I know this channel. Sometimes I wonder how everything is just so similar, and that's why I am always excited to follow your works and videos. Sometimes it helps me when I feel burnt out.

You are completely wrong, life is not about making money.

This job is a super marathon, it will take years a will have good times and really bad ones !!

Totally agree with you Scott. I would also add, you need to love what you do AND shoot in a style that is commercially acceptable. I have come across photographer's who go way too "fine arty" and go too hard on the Photoshopping and then they wonder why they don't get hired.

Photography is very profitable in the lowest end too. In my economy, the old studios who do graduation pictures, schoolbook portraits, seasonal shoots, visa photos... They never dip. The only problem is how boring and repetitive it is. You do it for some time and keep being the only professional people know, it's a very good path