Photography

High end commercial photography can still be very lucrative, especially if you’re shooting for large international clients. My day rate is $5k a day not including licensing fees but I’m nowhere near the top. There are bigger photographers who pull $250k a year easily. Of course it’s extremely competitive, all about connections and those jobs are getting fewer and fewer these days buts it’s very possible. I once worked as a 3rd assistant on a campaign shoot for a international beverage brand. The photographer cleared $120k for 3 days of work and delivered at most 20 images.

I have a friend who writes romance novels (yes, THAT kind of romance novel) and she's told me how ridiculous the prices for her cover photos are. According to her, the lack of proper models is what actually drives the price up so much. So, if you know any juicy dudes with lots of tattoos, you might wanna ask them if they wanna make some easy money together.

Industrial photography.

Once I got looped into that, it basically became my entire portfolio.

I've been published in local, regional, national, and international publications, but only for my industrial photography. Companies want pretty pictures for their websites and newsletters and they have no idea what something like that costs and will gladly overpay. Local governments, chambers of commerce, economic development organization, etc want pictures for their newsletters and press releases of economic growth. Newspapers and magazines want pictures for their articles, especially now that the economy is such a frequent topic of discussion.

I have yet to meet a fellow industrial photographer, but these industries talk among themselves and when one of them asks "who did the picture for your website?" My phone starts ringing.

It can be challenging; the speed, actions, and lighting will have you constantly adjusting your settings and lenses. It helps to know how industry functions, so you can talk to the people on the production floor, as well as management that's guiding you around. From an artistic perspective, it can also be difficult to get a picture to tell a story because there are these massive machines and people buzzing between them to attend them. One of my recent favorite shots was of a worker next to a massive drill press, he had his tool box open and inside were pictures of his family. I framed the shot to show him doing his work as well as capturing the pictures inside his tool box. I love those kind of shots, those that reveal the humanity among these giant machines. It got published in a local magazine with 22,000 subscribers. The magazine went and interviewed the worker. The industry was happy to be spotlighted, the worker was happy to be recognized, the magazine was happy to have content, and I was happy with my paycheck.

It's a difficult niche to break in to. You've got to build relationships and trust. I worked with my local economic development office. Contacted the director, showed him my portfolio (which at the time didn't include industrial photography), and told him "if any of the industries you deal with needs photography, I'd be happy to help." At first, he paid for my photography, sort of as a service they were providing for local industries. It wasn't great pay, but it wasn't bad either. But, it was good work, so he'd call me again and again. Eventually the industries just contacted me directly after they'd seen my work for other local industries. It just took of from there.

Photography isn't my main job, I've always subscribed to the notion that people need three hobbies; one for health, one for wealth, and one for relaxation. Photography is my wealth hobby, and since the demand for industrial photography is fairly low (like once a month, at best). It isn't something I could do full time, but it has paid for all of my gear plus extra, so I'll continue to do it, because it's worth taking a day off from my regular job to do.

Commercial photography. When i'm on the client side doing brand shoots, the quotes i'm getting for 1-2 day shoots are in the 35-50k range.

Taking photos of yourself, doing adult things, and posting on OF.

Blackmail.

Profitable and legal?

Toy photography. I’ve always loved photography but during the pandemic I feel into toy photography as a hobby and I fell hard.

bank robbery photos

Commercial photography, without a doubt, 100%

Big companies have shitloads of cash and are willing to pay really big dollars for the right photography. It’s rare but there are commercial photographers grossing over a million a year, and netting in the high 6 figures easily.

Going by how much this year's cost.... individual student school photos

£28 for 4 prints 2 large 2 small. Imagine a school of 500 done in a day.

Weddings and real estate. I do inventory photography for car dealerships and have made a living at it for the last 5 years, but I also have subcontractors who do a good bit of the actual work.

I temped for a corporate portrait photographer. These CEO/execs had limited time so we would get in, set up, have 15mins with the talent then get out. An hour tops. She would then turn around 5 frames the next day. I'm fairly certain she was banking 5k a shoot, and this was 10 years ago.

Boudoir. Although it's hard to get into.

Gona say horse photography. You can make a fortune from that if you get really good at it.

Weddings

- youtube gear review and clickbait ( you don't need to be an actual photographer for this )

- selling presets

- workshop - masterclass - online training ( very profitable when there is a lockdown )

in the real world of photography

doing commercial for big brands ( fashion and product )

doing headshot for vip and actors or businessmen

family and portrait session

all these 3 of course require having a complete studio

Surf https://aphotoeditor.com and you’ll find plenty of $100k+ jobs in commercial photography. Easier said than done!

Feet pics

My business partner and I went into a partnership with his photography business he started that mainly focused on nightlife photography (bars, nightclubs, etc) and we branch into private functions like birthday parties, engagement parties, corporate functions. We’ve made it so we have around 4 photographers that we rotate on a weekly basis to go around 8 different venues with an hour at each take photos, edit them and deliver to us. We pay them their rate and we get paid via the businesses we take photos at. We also try and win the private function leads that I’ll either do or book one of our photographers in for it. I make sure that all our photographers get the mentoring and coaching free of charge when required but this has been a pretty cool little niche way of making passive income (I work part time in a retail job during the week) but hopefully with a bit more work being put into the business it can become more of a full time thing.

Selling stuff to photographers trying to make money

OnlyFans

I've been doing real estate photography for about 8 years currently making about 150K per year

pornography.

Selling things to other photographers. Look at all the filters, bags, tripods, and other accessories that influencer photographers slap their names on and sell.

Also, pictures of potatoes, at least if you can get someone to pay 1 million dollars for one.

Selling stuff to other budding photographers I would imagine by a long shot. Nikon, Sony, Canon all makes lots of money. Then there's the people who make memory cards, batteries, third party chargers, straps, attachment devices, etc. Then there's the people who do photography trips and such.

The one you like the most

Police mug shots