How to turn your photography passion into a business strategy!

BTS with Thomas Heaton on how he operates his Photography Business

Running and operating a photography business can be a rocky road! Read these easy photography business ideas to help you  out!

In this tutorial, photographer and content creator Thomas Heaton shares his business strategy for being a creative artist in 2022.

Photography Business Strategies & Product Ideas

Photography is your passion, now what?

You have decide to be a photographer. Now you are going out, taking landscapes or portraits or shooting weddings or street photography. 

Whatever it is, you have chosen it because you have a passion for this as a hobby and a creative outlet.

So how can you cash in on doing what you love? 

There are many ways to make money with photography. Online content through video platforms is one way if you are interested in getting into that whole setup.

Another idea is to actually print your work and sell physical copies of your photography in different formats.

Photography business ideas #1: Make Content for Youtube While Photographing

If you are interested in documenting the processes you follow, sharing tips and tricks of the photography you take, you could share that on platforms like Youtube. 

Setting up a Youtube channel can be time consuming and take some new skills and knowledge, but it can be very worth it in the long run.

You share enough content, you get more followers. When you get enough followers and views, you can turn on the advertising and earn some money. While usually inconsistent, it’s something. 

Then you can attract sponsors or other brands who want to pay you to talk about their products and services within your videos and that can be a good way to earn more money from your content.

Your photography business could benefit from you taking the time to record and upload simple content each week!

Photography business ideas #2: Turning Your Photography into Products

The other way to earn some money and run a business from your photography is to make tangible products to sell. These products can range from simple photo prints to framed or canvas prints to photo books and calendars.

Photo books are a great way to sell your photography. They are easy to make, fairly inexpensive to print and light for shipping. People love photo books for coffee tables and gifts, so they can sell very well.

You can easily order these in bulk and because they are flat and light you don’t need a huge storage space. Use an online site to design and personalise your calendar with you photos.

Also, people love calendars! They are great gifts and functional artwork that people love to have. You can do themes calendars and ones that just showcase all of your work. 

If you want to sell calendars with your photography, you can incentivize people to preorder. This can be done for example by signing the calendar and giving a free print with the sale. 

Other products you can make and sell with your photos include:

– canvas prints

– framed or mounted prints

– greeting cards

There are so many ideas to print and sell your artwork!

You can also consider setting up a booth or table at local art fairs and markets to sell your artwork to locals.

Don’t forget about Processing Orders!

You’re making sales, yay!

Thomas shows in the tutorial how he processes over a thousand orders for calendars with his systems. 

Like Thomas, make sure you have a good system for packing and labelling your orders! You can find good online commerce systems for your website orders and payments. 

Set up a business account with your local postal service so that you can save on postal charges. 

And add something to your packages like a branded thank you card or something personal from your business!

Once you have all of the order processing and shipping information sorted out, you are ready to take online orders and make your photography into products to sell!

Turn your passion for photography into a business with these product and content ideas!

Now that you’ve read these tips, you probably have other ideas for how your photography passion can make you money in business!

Which of these photography business ideas will you use to turn your hobby into a business TODAY?