Can i make a living of of photography?

Relic123

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I was looking into black hills state for a college, majoring in mass communication with an emphasis in photography. My main question would be could I support myself to a reasonable extent with photography as my main profession? Or would i have to have a 9-5 mon-fri I hate so I could live and do photography as a side venture? Any input would be greatly appreciated
 
It all depends.
How good are you? How good are you at selling yourself? What area of photography are you considering? What are the market opportunities in your area? How committed are you (are you going to become a photographer because you have to - or are you just thinking about it because it seems easy and fun?)? Are you prepared to be poor and hungry for at least a year while you get established? And once established are you prepared to live on a knife edge knowing that next week the work might dry up and you'll go under?

Of course it is possible to make a living doing Photography. But you have to do your research and put in a heck of a lot of hard work - and even then you might just scrape by.
And it's getting tougher all the time because there are so many wannabe photographers who can't make it full time so just do a bit of it on the side. This leads to a lot more competition and so it's harder to get work.
Only seek to become a photographer if you really cannot think of anything else you'd rather do - and then think twice - and then don't do it. Become an accountant instead. ;)
 
The biggest single reason good photographers have a hard time in the marketplace is they almost always are bad business people. On the other hand, in our area there is a terrible wedding photographer that is making a killing. He was a small chain restaurant owner that took his marketing skills and applied it to a photography business. Now he has a staff of basically point and shooters he sends out and burns a CD instead of presenting the traditional album. He has sold this as the modern equivalent of the traditional wedding photographer and people have bought into the idea in droves. So, if I were to be contemplating school in todays marketplace, I would seriously consider a major in business management and a minor in photography. Yes, a minor in photography. You already have the drive to be a photographer, and if photography becomes just a 9 to 5 job and you loose your drive you have a foundation to fall back on. As for me, when photography became a job, I started to treat it as just a job. I needed to back away to learn to love it again.
 
Sure you can. You just have to find a niche that will support you. That might be a challenge in light of the ever changing definition of photography brought on by developments in digital photography and magic software and the fact that public media are willing to accept and use images taken by poor quality camera phones. Aside from that I am not sure that people even know what good photography is anymore.

Rusty Tripod
 
If you think that you can make a just a small group of masterpieces say 10 of the most amazing pictures that people will buy an ilfochrome print of for $10000, then you can get on easily. But if you lack that you will need the business senses explained above. Something to make you stand out from every other photographer in the business.

One of our engineering lecturers came up with a good analogy a while ago. "If you can't make something work, tell it to marketing."
 
I think a lot of people are under the impression that they can just start up a business shooting and selling photographs, mainly portraits. They're almost always wrong. There's no money in it unless you shoot a lot of weddings, or you own one of those repulsive portrait places in a shopping mall. Even then it can be very tough. I don't mean to say that you can't make any money, just that you normally can't make enough to comfortably live off.

There are two markets in which you can make a living shooting photos. One is commercial, the other is fashion. To do either one successfully, you're talking about a good $50,000 investment in gear. MF digital camera, though you could probably get away with a 1d or a 5d if you had to. Powerful, consistent lights. I mean Elinchroms and Profotos and the like, not AB's or WL's or JTL's. Backdrops and stands, light stands, strobe attachments, lightboxes, etc etc. Then there's studio space. High ceilings are practically a must-have. Buy or rent. Then there's promotional materials...your business cards, your comp card type things, the crap you mail out, the hosting and design fees for your website. And on. And on. And on.

I'm not trying to scare you away from a photo business. When you think about it, $50k or so isn't all that big an investment compared to most businesses. All I mean to say is that all of those above things are required if you want to be able to live well off the business.
 
To tell you the truth, being a good shooter almost has nothing to do with your ability to sell yourself. I've seen commercail shooters that make horrible photographs, but make bank becuase they get the job done right the first time.

Max has it right, if you're going to be doing fashion, you have to conform to the lifestyle of it, you need to constantly send stuff out to keep clients, and give them overkill. I know a fashion shooter that does the shooting for Nordstrom catalouges and they tell her she needs to use the 39-megapixel hasselblads, even though you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from a 2 megapixel camera looking at the catalouge. The clients want overkill.
 
Exactly. The good commercial photographers here in Richmond, VA shoot with an H3D, or a Hassy CW with a digi back. This isn't NYC. It's just how the commercial business goes.
 

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