Well, this is something that I think about and write about all the time. So, it being December, I thought I should put all these things together and give you a single list of things to think about for 2022.

Here are 21 great ways to make money from photography in 2022

1. Take photos for clients
2. Sell prints online
3. Sell photos locally
4. Sell photos in galleries and exhibitions
5. Get into stock photography
6. Sell travel photos and travel stories
7. Create products
8. Take a class
9. Create a class
10. Start or grow a website
11. Start a blog 
12. Start a podcast
13. Enter some photography competitions
14. Grow a social media presence
15. Get on You Tube
16. Become a second shooter
17. Start a niche business
18. Create an online shop
19. Get into affiliate marketing
20. Just get known locally as the go to photographer
21. Personal branding

OK, lots to think about here, so let me tell you a little bit about each of them, one by one. By the end of this blog post you will have some great ideas for making money from your photography in 2022. And I am going to work on a few of these myself next year.

Will these make me rich?

No, they will not make you rich. But they are all real ways of making money from photography, and having a range of things each making a bit can soon add up to a decent amount of money coming in which has to be a good thing right?

Ok, let’s look at these one by one.

1 Take photos for clients

Yep, old school being a photographer and taking photos for clients for money. This is bread and butter for photographers, and what I love to do.

Now I don’t do anything other than photograph buildings for clients. So, if that is not your thing fine, but decide what you are best placed to make money taking photos of, and what you want to make money taking photos of.

Much better to do what you like doing, which is what I do.

2 Sell prints online

Yes you can sell prints online. There is still a strong demand for this, so well worth a look. In fact, this is on my list for next year myself, something else that I want to set up in the background.

Etsy is one of the best-known places for doing this, and that is where you will find me. Other online print selling stores are available.

3 Sell photos locally

Local people will have a use for local photos. Newspapers still use photos, and now that I mention them just getting photos published and out there is a positive thing that can only do good.

Shops, bars, restaurants, offices – all sorts of places display local photos so this is worth a look, and if you haven’t got any photos this will give an incentive to do just that. And when we start creating new photos with purpose good things happen.

4 Sell photos in galleries and exhibitions

I have never done this, but it is a thing. Go to an art gallery, have a look, chat to the people who work there and see if this might work for you. After all the good folk in art galleries are always looking for things to display and sell, so if you have what they are after they will be delighted to meet you.

And what is the worst that can happen? That they say no.

5 Get into stock photography

Now back in the day stock photography was a great source of income for photographers. Sadly, those glory days are behind us but there is still money to be made from stock photography.

I use a UK based stock agency, to whom I submitted a few photos some years ago. I spent some time on this, but not a lot. Not enough time to for it to mean that I was taking it seriously.

And do you know what? Last month I received £60 for a photo that they sold, that I forgot that I had sent to them.

And I also have photos on Adobe Stock. And I sold one of them last month too. See money coming in from all over the place.

I wish. No, my princely fee from adobe was £0.35.

I know.

Choose your stock site agency carefully, and if you are going to do this put some decent effort in and you just don’t know.

6 Sell travel photos and travel stories

Apparently there is strong demand for travel photos and stories to go with them. I guess that the cliched travel photos that we all see need something more, which is words and stories to accompany them.

Worth a look if you love your travel – the dream many of us photographers have, including me, is to be paid to travel the globe taking photos of lovely places.

7 Create products to sell

I know, sounds scary, but worth looking into. There are all sorts of things that you can create, be they physical things or digital things.

Dare I suggest NFTs? Well, they are a product of sorts, and this shows that I am at the cutting edge of things clearly. Ok that would be true if I knew what they actually were…..

8 Take a class

Learn something new. Learn a new skill, learn how to do something that you can make money doing. Investing in yourself and your skills is a great way to make money, and the cost of any decent course you should recover quickly.

This is another case of deciding what you want to do and then sticking with that path. If you are going to spend some of your head earned money on a course you have to take the course, and work on what you have learned.

You don’t just take a course and that is that – all a course does is gives you new knowledge that you have to go away and work on and with.

9 Create a class

OK this is one thing that I have done this year, and I am not going to apologise for this shameless plug.

My course is called “How To Become A Real Estate Photographer – Straight Talking Advice For Beginners To Get You Making Money Quickly And Build A Career”. I have created a web page for my courses, yes there are more on the way.

If this sounds daunting my advice is this – if you know enough about something that you can teach people and they will benefit just do it. It sounds terrifying but once you have done it you realise that, like all these things, it sounds worse than it is.

Do you need to be an expert? Well, no, I heard something very interesting from someone who is incredibly successful in the online training arena – if you know 10% more than most people in a subject that is enough for you to create a course that will sell.

Don’t forget, I have just done this, so I do know what I am talking about here.

10 Start or grow a website

If you don’t have a website and you want to make money from photography create a website. You need an online place of your own for your photography, social media is fine, but you do not have control or ownership of those platforms. Having your own website will give you just that.

It doesn’t have to be flash; it just needs to contain your great photos and helpful text. I started off with a template website which got me up and running nice and quick.

And if you already have a website are you working on it, and adding new content to help it grow?

Talking of which…

11 Start a blog

Why should you start a blog? Well, let me tell you. If you get into the discipline of writing one blog post per week on the subject that you want to make money from, in time Google will find you and rank you for those posts. And Google loves regular, fresh, original quality content on websites.

And do you know what else this will do? You will learn a new skill, writing, and in the very process of writing blog posts you will learn new stuff. I did not expect this to happen, but I can assure you this happened to me when I wrote blog posts about things that I thought I knew everything about.

I ended up learning lots of new, good stuff.

12 Start a podcast

Yes, I think I know what you are thinking. Start a podcast? Me? What do I know? Well, this is another thing that I have done. I am the creator and all things at the Photography Explained Podcast.

A podcast is not a business in its own, certainly not when you start off, but a podcast gets you out there in a unique way. You are in someone’s ears for the duration of each episode, which is a unique and special thing.

A podcast broadens your presence, and gets you known to people who might have never come across you. And if you are lucky enough to get regular listeners you are building your own fan base, your own group of people who love what you do.

I have done this and have an audience which is growing slowly and steadily week after week.

And again, I have learned lots of new skills and lots of new stuff in the 90 odd episodes that I have created to date.

13 Enter some photography competitions

Not something that I do, but another thing that I am going to have a go at in 2022. You can win money, and gain valuable exposure.

14 Grow a social media presence

I am not the biggest fan of social media, but it has a place in making money from your photography. At one extreme you can earn money from a decent presence on Instagram, although I am not sure how.

At the other end of the scale being present on social media and getting known and found must be a good thing right?

15 Get on You Tube

If you work hard on your You Tube channel you can earn money from ads. I have a few You Tube channels which I am growing, although I haven’t made any money from them yet.

Another long-term thing that costs you nothing other than the time you put in is well worth giving a, go to get yourself known on the second biggest search engine after Google.

And it is not that bad doing this – the first time you record yourself is awful, the second time less awful, and in time it becomes just a thing that you do.

16 Become a second shooter

And now for something completely different. If you want to learn how to take photos for money, get in touch with photographers and ask if they need a second shooter.

This is a great way of getting into wedding photography. Wedding photographers often need other photographers, and this is a great way to learn this trade whilst getting paid but without the total responsibility of being the wedding photographer.

17 Start a niche business

Whatever this might be, I strongly recommend that you start a business in a specific niche. Do this and you have instantly made life easier. You have one target market, and you have a focus for everything that you do.

It is so much easier to operate in one small area rather than being all things to all people. This might sound counter-intuitive, but think about this for a second. If you are trying to be the photographer for all people everywhere how do you market yourself? How do you develop a personal brand?

This is what I did for years, and it got me nowhere.

Now, this is what I do. 

I have my work, architectural, construction and real estate photography in Dorset and Hampshire. It is very specific.

And I provide training globally in how to become a real estate photographer. These make sense and work together.

I also have my Photography Explained Podcast, which is separate thing serving a different need. And this niche is photography things explained in plain English in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant detail.

So, I have two niches which are separate, but each works on their own.

And I have two niches because this is what I do, so don’t worry about choosing one path, you can always add another one later.

But the two are separate.

18 Create an online shop

This is a natural evolution of stuff that I have already mentioned. Create a website, create some stuff to sell and an online shop is the logical next thing.

I have sort of done this with my courses page on my website, where I direct people to buy the stuff I have created. 

19 Get into affiliate marketing

Get a website, sign up for affiliate partnerships and add links to stuff on your website. If someone clicks on a link and buys something you get a commission.

Point of order here – I only promote stuff that I use and can personally recommend – you need to maintain your integrity if you want to be treated seriously.

20 Just get known locally as the go to photographer

Get out and about where you live and make yourself known. There are so many ways that you can do this, starting with local online community groups, to making yourself prominent online locally, which is easier to do than trying to take over the world.

You need to get people to know you the person, as whatever genre of photography you go into you will be in a people-to-people business.

21 Personal branding

Whatever you want to be, make that your personal brand. There is only one you, and that is what you need to market. Who you are, what you do and how you can help people?

This is the single most important thing – how you can help people. Start with that mindset and you should be just fine.

Ok then, like I said plenty to think about.

What do I do?

I take photos for clients. They find me through my website.

I have a weekly blog which helps bring traffic to my website. Traffic to my website brings me income from ads, and more client enquiries. And the more people who visit my website the more affiliate income I can earn.

I have my own podcast, the Photography Explained Podcast, which also has its own website and You Tube Channel. I have adverts on my podcast which promote my own stuff.

I have a You Tube channel which is growing and getting me known to a new audience. I need more subscribers to get ads on my You Tube Channel, but this is growing.

I have created a course which is available to buy – How To Become A Real Estate Photographer. I promote this on my podcast.

So, my niches are separate but can interlink and help each other.

This is what I am doing now, and I plan to do more of these things in 2022. Like I said I am going to try to sell prints on Etsy for a start.

A word on consistency

A lot of these things require you to create and publish new content every week. And I mean every week. Don’t do things like a blog, podcast or You Tube and expect instant results. These are all long-term projects, so start them and stick with them.

Do things that are sustainable.

Don’t start something that you cannot continue with. If you can only produce one blog post per week then fine. If you can only produce one You Tube video a week fine. Best stick to doing one thing properly and consistently rather than lots of things badly and inconsistently.

And a word on choosing the right things for you.

Don’t dive in and do everything. Pick the one that works the best for you and give that your all. You should get to a point where things are set up and it takes less time, and that is the time to find something else to do next.

Being a photographer is not just about taking photos

These days being a photographer is more than taking photos. You must be a great photographer, but also a smart businessperson, a smart marketer, and work smart. And you probably need more than the income stream that comes from taking photos for clients.

You need other things to supplement your income that do not have to detract from the core business of taking photos for money.

Last word

The things I have written about are not the answers, they are ways that you can make money from photography in 2022. But the rest is up to you – I have given you some things to think about, but it is time for you to work on what you want to ok?

Some helpful resources from me

Well, I have created a Photography Business Resources page which will add to what I have told you in this post. And check out my blog for lots of other good, related stuff.

Related viewing

Yes, related viewing. You can watch the video for this blog post right here on my You Tube Channel.

Thanks for reading this post, any questions get in touch via my website. Cheers from me Rick