Photography

A friend did this semi-successfully in the early 2010’s.

He spoke a few different languages, including helpfully Arabic and French, and would fly out to somewhere at the first sign of troubles kicking off, work and charm and convince his way to the front and then ‘embed’ with people who wanted to get their pictures out there. He sold photos to the wires and to some newspapers directly and normally managed to cover his costs but not make much ‘profit’. I think one or two amazing shots could raise most of the money for a trip.

Over time he got to know people and they would ask him to go to places and be more explicit that they were interested in photos, “Are you thinking of going to Syria” etc. He also built up relationships in country, so he would have ‘fixers” or similar - particularly if someone was happy about a big photo that had been in newspapers. A lot of this was the Arab Spring aftermath which sounded chaotic as hell, loads of militias roaming around Libya and Egypt etc. He almost got killed a couple of times in quick succession and decided to stop, it didn’t seem like there was an obvious route to a staff position or being better protected or paid.

To be honest hearing him talk about killed any sense of romance and adventure about it. It sounded incredibly grim all the time, living in squalor often with horrible people who generally didn’t care about him and hoping not to suffer an unpleasant death.