TOP 6 Most Profitable Photography styles

This the written version of my YouTube video – The TOP 6 Most profitable photography styles. I thought it would be a good idea to have it on my blog.

Besides being an amazing artist, you will also need to know your way around business planing to become professional photographer. After you combine these two it comes to the fight with the competition.

In the past decade Photography has become extremely popular and every kid and his pet with a camera are slapping the “Pro Photographer” tag on their pics. So your first fight before the major battle is with them. You need to clean the road ahead of you of these amateur photograpgers or hobbyists. You do that with your professional approach to business and then crush them with your mind blowing artistic touch in your work.

The battle actually can never be won, because you will be facing people with similar ideas and passion for photography just like yours. So in the end, it will be a healthy competition that might end up in collaborations or even merging your businesses.

After having your business properly set up you will need to increase your presence on the net, be everywhere. The quality will be seen by potential clients eventually, and then, with the help of word-of-mouth your business will start growing and if clients are satisfied, new ones will fight to hire you.

This basically applies to every photography style. The expenses might be higher or lower depending on which field you want to dive into. But the work and the fight with the competition will always be the same if you want to turn your photography into a business.

But today we are not here to talk about business planing or tips on how to fight your competition. We are here to see which photography style can actually be more lucrative if you do everything right. Which photography is the easiest to sell, most required and most likely to be published.

These are the TOP 6 Most profitable photography businesses

1. Marketing/Social Media/Corporative

These days every small/medium/large business understands that marketing is key to their success and having the top spot on Time Square is not necessarily the best one for their business’ needs. Social media has taken over the marketing world and opened more jobs for photographers, videographers, editors and designers than any other media before.

You go on Instagram or Facebook and you are bombarded with ads from anybody that has a debit or credit card with at least 1$ on it.

So making the decision to go all-in might be the easiest way to make money in photography business of this kind.

Because this is one of the most profitable photography styles, here the competition is fierce, since there are large marketing companies employing photographers, lowering the cost of the actual photoshoot just to sign the client on a longer term deal.

Building and working on your own marketing photography style can help you get hired by clients who want something more unique. For example clients who want to have the “photographer’s name” on their ad, instead of just some impersonal stock shots made by a company.

A great example for this, is photographer Peter Csakvari, who managed to strike a deal with some big clients with his unique style. The Hungarian artist creates miniature mock-ups of everyday life by using pin-sized figurines. One of his latest big clients was Red Bull.

UPDATE: Peter Csakvari is not a pioneer in this style, he got inspired by Tatsuya Tanaka’s book – Small Wonders

To grow your own marketing photography business — beside the things that I mentioned in the beginning — you will constantly need to send offers and promos of your services to every business you can find, plus you might even have to do door-to-door sales in person. Today even the smallest businesses are present online and all of them want great shots of their products or services.

2. Event Photography (Wedding, Concerts, Conventions) – One of the most profitable photography styles that kills the passion for very quickly

Almost every YouTuber that talks about photography or video has worked or is still working in this field. I also did my fair share 10 years ago, when I was doing the editing of the photographs taken by the pro-weding photographers.

• Check out the book: One Wedding: How to photograph a wedding from start to finish

To start in this business you need to be good! When I say good, I mean the best — especially in capturing emotions, moments that the clients want to be captured in a spontaneous and natural way and of course, being able to follow a timeline of the event and be totally invisible.

To start by yourself you might have to work for free at a few weddings to fill up your portfolio, or maybe work for a pro-wedding photographer for a small fee.

When your pictures go viral among the guests and friends of the guests, the wildfire has started. Meaning that you have the quality and the personal mark on the shots. Word-of-mouth is the best marketing for you! On every wedding there are at least 5 other couples (potential future clients) that are planning their engagement or wedding and will need a photographer…

Besides making money by photographing them and sending them the shots, you can also sell prints to the guests during the wedding. First you collaborate with a printing studio, then when the business goes up, invest in printers and employ someone to work for you.

With this photography business you can grow also in other branches of the wedding industry, by offering lights, video, decor etc.

3. Family/Baby photography

Of course, after the wedding comes the family portrait and the baby photoshoot. You all have seen those cute pictures of babies in cradles, resting in a basket with puppies etc. Well, everybody these days wants that kind of shot of their kid, especially for Christmas time and Birthday. Believe it or not, some photographers are charging more than 10K for this kind of shooting.

The investment is not that big (separate video/post) but you will need to acquire clients and need a portfolio. So you could do some shots of your kids or the kids of your friends, neighbours etc. and you will see the wildfire effect.

Also, wedding photographers have extended their services towards this type of photography, by offering “Future Happiness” packages to their clients. The bride and groom are basically paying a deposit for their baby photoshoot when they are being charged for their wedding.

Lots of money in this stuff…

4. Travel & Landscape & Wildlife Photography – The most profitable photography styles for the adventurers

Lots of work, lots of expenses, lots of traveling and lots of waiting & patience. The more followers you have the more likes you’ll get, the more likes you have the more gigs you will get.

Sadly nowadays is very difficult for these type of photographers to get exposure if they haven’t started in the beginning of Instagram, but not to discourage anyone, amazing art always sees the light!

These types of photography are extremely popular but there are not that many clients. The big travel magazines or websites, have a list of photographers with whom they work, and very rarely they are open to try new photographers.

The other thing is that, the so called ‘honey pot’ locations around the world are over photographed by pro-landscapers many times. This means, to sell an image of Iguazu Falls for example will be extremely difficult, because every magazine has terra bites of that similar composition.

But hard work always pays up and being persistent brings success. Try to offer you work to galleries, upcoming bloggers, promote your work everywhere, and you will find clients for sure. Because everybody loves breathtaking images of nature and wildlife!

Wildlife photography can bring you more money than landscape and travel, because a unique shot of two elephant bulls fighting or a polar bear hunting for food can always be sold, if not to a magazine, then to a gallery. The problem is that this type of photography is extremely expensive, but TOP 5 Most Expensive photography styles will be in the next video with more details.

5. Stock Photography

If you work A LOT you will eventually earn good chunk of money with stock photography. By working a lot, I mean having a portfolio with thousands of images. The price can vary from a few cents to a dollar or 2 per image.

To start is not that expensive, but requires endless day and night work. Shooting images of seeds, cables, nails, the tip of a fork, broken tile and other wierd things. Yep, there is demand for everything, just use your creative imagination. I’ve read that some people have earned up to 40/50K a year just from stock photography.

6. Photojournalism/Street/Documentary

Ok, these three are basically the same but not the same. “Same, same but different!” — as they would say in South East Asia.

This can easily be one of the most profitable photography styles if you are determined to hunt for the best story, no matter the consequences

You can google it if you want to learn more about the difference of these styles, but we are here to talk about whether they are profitable or not as a business.

Capturing the right moment is not an easy thing. For some it will never happen while some will capture it today and tomorrow. Right moments can be sold for lots of money, depends of the emotion and the story in that moment.

See also: Books that inspired Steve McCurry

I’ve always been a freelance moment hunter and I had some luck during my years, but I also had some bummers.

• I came back from Kathmandu, literally days before the major earthquake on the 25th of April 2015. For my family it was a great news, but from a photo-storyteller point of view, it meant missing out on a big photo opportunity, a big story. I know a guy that made 40K$ just from one image. 40K$!!! Good for you man!

You can watch the movie “The Bang Bang Club” a true story about the life of a freelance photojournalist/war photographer and see how the things are going in this photo industry.

There are still some people out there that buy street shots, but not even as many as landscape or wildlife photography buyers.

Hunting for good stories is my passion and I must say that I am doing it successfully for a few years now around the world. For a good and unique story there is always a medium that wants to publish it, but the money are not always that good, unless there is blood or sorrow.

Back in 2015 I did a photo story of the village of Langtang, Nepal. Those images would’ve never seen a light if it wasn’t for the earthquake that destroyed the whole village few weeks after. I wish those images never saw that bloody daylight…

Okay, that was my TOP 6 list of the most profitable photography styles. If you did like this round up, stay tuned for the next one… The TOP 5 most expensive photography styles.