this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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Photography
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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.
This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.
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As a photographer that's "made it", it takes a lot to get there. I've said it elsewhere, but it took me way longer to get from 0/year to 10k/year in photography than 10k/yr to 100k/yr. I did it on the side as a teenager until my early 20s. My first year truly full-time, I netted about $15,000. Now I make that or more in a good month (early 30s now). But it's still feast or famine and very much subject to the whims of the universe. I need to stay on top of my personal finances to not get cocky. I can make 1k one month and 20k the next. It's not a steady paycheck, and just because you're working hard, it doesn't always mean you're actually making money (things don't pan out like you hope, clients get shitty about paying on time, you can end up spending $10k to make $5k while still doing 10k of work, etc.). You can mitigate against that in a lot of ways, but it's still always there at the core.
I "made it" in a very specific low competition (if you're good) niche. It's about a billion times harder in a saturated niche like weddings, fashion, nature, landscape, etc. That shit's cutthroat. I'm lucky enough that I have work coming out of my ears and don't spend a dime on marketing or promotion.