33 Ways to GET PAID for Photography!

Make money with your photography with these tips

We all want to make money – and getting paid for your photography is the dream for photographers!

Whether you’re strapped for cash, wanting a quick payday, or looking for long term income ideas for photography, these tips will get you paid.

In this tutorial Evan Ranft shares a list of 33 ways you can get paid and make money from your photography.

There are many ways to get paid for Photography – here’s 33

Photography is a hustle! You’ve gotta work hard to make it work.

You probably won’t be able to do every single one of these, but look for ones where you have a competitive edge in or passion for and go make money!

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #1: Passport Photos

Everyone needs passport photos! Get people coming to you because you offer quick delivery and correct passport photo sizing.

You can package these photos or upswell passport photo clients to family photos or other packages.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #2: Youtube

It’s not for everyone, but if you start your channel you can make money via ads. 

Eventually if you stick with it and create a following you can get sponsors which are brands that pay to be featured in your videos. 

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #3: Travel Guides

If you are in a local area that is a great spot for photography or you travel a lot and know about lots of destinations, you can consider making travel guides.

Just an online document showcasing the best places to take photos in those destinations. 

You can either sell these directly or get paid from Google ads through your website providing people the information they want to know.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #4: Camera Guides

Similar to travel guides, if you’re an expert in your gear or technology you can create guides for this.

You can create a document that people can pay to download.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #5: Gear Rentals

You can put your gear online for people to rent. 

This is great if you find you have a lot of gear lying around that you don’t need that often but you still want to have it. 

Easy money renting out your gear to fellow photographers. Share

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #6: Presets

There are a lot of these out in the world, but if you have a unique way of editing photos you can package those edits and sell them as presets. 

You need to have a very unique selling point here but a lot of people look to buy different presets so it’s a money making option.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #7: Online Teaching

If you are an expert in a subject of photography, try teaching it to other people. This could be weddings, landscape, editing or any number of topics. 

Create digital guides, make an online course or hold a webinar and have people pay to learn from you. 

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #8: Workshops

Similar to online training, you can hold workshops in person for topics you are an expert in. 

Teach your community about beginner photography, location scouting, nature photography, travel photography, or anything.

This provides value for the people attending who want to know the information that you have.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #9: Online Art Sales

If you are an art photographer such as landscapes, street photography, etc, you can post your images online to sell digital downloads.

This requires some marketing effort on your part making sure the audience interested in your art will find your website, but worth it if you can get those sales.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #10: Gallery Art Sales

The same concept of the above, except you have to find someone with a bit of a following already who does similar art to you. 

You can approach someone who has an art gallery and ask if you can feature some of your photos in their gallery. 

If you are able to do this, you can get more exposure and hopefully sales through featuring in the galleries.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #11: Group Showcase

Host a group gallery! Get together with your photographer friends, invite your communities, and have a gallery showcase. 

Work with hotels or event spaces in your local area to host the event. You get to keep your sales money and the hotel gets the bar sales, a win win. 

Also great for networking with local photographers and the photog community.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #12: Subject Related Art Sales

Creating a website for a specific subject. This could be a local area specific sales.

For example, San Francisco photo prints could be your subject and you post only photos of that subject on a web domain with that title. 

This is a way to target a specific audience for a specific subject and makes sales from those.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #13: Merchandise

Again, if you have a specific subject matter to your photography, you can create physical products with your photos.

Mugs, t-shirts, hoodies, hats, etc. The sky is the limit with merch, and people love merch. 

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #14: Instagram Reels

If you are creating online content, this can be a great tool. Instagram is now paying content creators reels bonuses, so you can make some money from your content. 

For example, you can create reels with a quote or caption and have the video flip through your photos to a popular audio clip. 

It can take some time to build this up but if you do, there’s money to be made.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #15: Weddings

Wedding photography is a great way to make money.

Especially if you have a large social network and you can get weddings booked through who you know.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #16: Engagements

Similar to weddings, people love having engagement photos taken. You can be the person in your social network everyone knows to come to when they get engaged so they can share the happy moment!

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #17: Social Media Marketing Clients

Social media is a great marketing tool if you can use it right. And so many small businesses and clients need the ads created for them on social media. This could be you!

Try reaching out to clients inside of groups or networks that you are interested in or a part of, and pitch them to create their marketing content. 

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #18: Social Media Content

You can create content for individuals instead of brands or companies. A great example of this is the fitness industry where so many influencers in this space are making money and need content all the time.

Create influencer content for these individuals to make some money.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #19: Stock Images

A very saturated market at this point, but not altogether worthless.

Upload your old photos you have sitting around on a hard drive to stock image websites and get some nice side money coming in. 

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #20: Large Scale Print Licensing

Ever see the photo prints in IKEA or Target and wonder who made them? They are licensed from actual photographers and artists. 

Do some research to find out what photos these companies want and how to get your photos licensed by these large companies and try it out. You could earn a large signing fee and then continuous royalties ongoing, which is a great source of side income.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #21: Family Portraits

Like wedding photos, this is a well known way to make money. 

This is a great way to get referred as well, as you work with one family and then they refer you to their network, and on and on. Families know other families.

You can get lots of clients this way just offering family photos, which people love to have!

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #22: Graduation Photos

Take these for a friend or family member, and then have them refer you to their friends and families.

Grad photos are a great way to get paid work but also to network, just like the family portraits.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #23: Real Estate Photos

Reach out to local real estate agencies and get into their pool of photographers. 

Take professional photos of the spaces and you can now add this to your resume!

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #24: Professional Headshots

Similar to passport photos, most people need a nice headshot of themselves for various reasons. 

Find a business and offer your services for all the employees to get updated photos. 

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #25: Macro Product Photos

Since macro photography is so niche, if you’re good at this you can make good money with product photos. 

Small products are easy to ship especially for online companies, and if you can offer great macro shots you can get these jobs.

out to companies online who could use this service and see if they’ll send you products to photograph.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #26: Digital Wallpapers

Make custom wallpapers with your photos. You can get really creative with these, and charge for people to download them.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #27: Corporate Events

Find corporate events or the Advertising agencies that put these events together and join their pool of event photographers. 

A great way to make money for one off events.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #28: Brand Activation Recaps

Agencies and brands love to do events or experiences with the brands for the people attending. You can capture content at their booth or stand at conferences, events, etc.

And they always want recap videos and photos and you can be a photographer working with these agencies to go to these events and take the content they need.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #29: Interior Design Portfolios

Interior designers need content for their websites, social media platforms and portfolios when they decorate spaces. 

Network online or locally to find people who need these kinds of photos taken.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #30: Web Licensing

If you have a specific subject of your photography, like a city, you can approach companies to use your photos on their websites. 

You charge a yearly fee for the licensing to use it on their website and they get to use your content.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #31: Large Volume Print Sales

Selling a package of prints for a certain amount of money to businesses.

You can approach spaces like hotels or businesses to sell them a package of prints for them to decorate or redecorate their spaces.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #32: Patreon Subscriptions

You might have a growing following of audience, so you can make some of them pay extra for more content from you. 

Monthly subscriptions are common for extra monthly content, but you can provide content at different levels of subscriptions.

Get Paid for Photography – Tip #33: Concert Photography

This can be hard to get into, but if you find the right clients who need these photos it can be a good money making opportunity.

Try reaching out to online newspapers, publications, music blogs, and the like to see what content they need. 

These companies make money off their ads so having up to date content from concerts that have just been in town will be useful.

Whew! There are so many ways to make money as a photographer, and this is just a start.

Hopefully you found a few good ideas in this list and can get started making money this week. 

There’s a lot to be said for knowing people, networking, cold-outreaching and knowing what clients are looking for.

Want to improve your photography skills? Check out this comprehensive guide!

Which of these money making tips will you use THIS WEEK?

Comment below, we’d love to know!