Most people enjoy photography, but they don't monetize it, or at least don't seriously monetize it, and that is totally fine. Not everything has to be monetized, especially things that we do for fun, as a passion or as a hobby. Those

things we just do because we love them. And if you turn a passion or a hobby into a job, it can start to feel like a job, thus destroying the passion or hobby. But some people have a dream of making money with their photography, but they just don't know how to get started or

how to go about doing it. If that is you, then this video is for you. Today in this video, I'm going to walk you through a few different models of how you can turn your photography into income. Tell you a little bit about my model and then give

you some tips. So let's jump right in. First, I want to talk about active income. This is the money that you make by doing things actively. Think of yourself as a service provider. You are providing a service that requires your time and your talent and your gear, and you are

exchanging that service for income. This is probably what most people think about when they think about monetizing photography, and it is also the easiest onramp into making money as a photographer because as a service provider you can create a menu of services that you can provide. These can

be anything from portrait sessions, such as family photo shoots or couples or engagements. It can be events. It can be weddings, and it can even be commercial work, such as shooting a product line or shooting at a business. As a service provider, you're going to determine your

time and the deliverables and then you're going to set a price based upon those things. A really good starting point if you've never priced your photography is to see what the market around you looks like. Simply Google photographers in your area and see if

they have public pricing available that you can look at and determine if that's something you want to go above the same or undercut. Another way that you can get some active income as a photographer as well as build a portfolio even is to become a second shooter to a

photographer that is in your area. Find someone who's really busy and offer to come second shoot them. There's even websites that help connect photographers with second shooters. The nice thing about this is that they get to handle all the details, you guys determine a

rate and then you show up and shoot for them. If the wedding industry is something you're trying to get into, I would say second shooting is a great way to build that wedding portfolio and try wedding photography out to see if you like it. But second shooting is not just

limited to weddings. You can second shoot in a lot of different genres. In fact, my go-to second shooter is my really good friend Jen and she second shoots with me on commercial stuff all the time. All active income revenue streams are going to require a bit of hustle, but let's

just be real, all good work requires hustle. If I was starting starting from nothing, I would really start hyperfocused in my local area, right within my own city, in my own metro, in my own network even. I would build a website that demonstrates my portfolio and if I

didn't have a portfolio, I would go out and make one by whatever means possible that can demonstrate the kind of work that I want to do. I may run some ads on social media or Google. Probably the most important thing I would do is I would tell my friends and ask them to tell

their friends. You really got to put yourself out there and ask for those recommendations. And here's a pro tip for you: your friends want to recommend you to their friends and other people, so simply make the ask. Okay, next up, let's talk about passive income. This is the

money that you make when you're not actively working. Passive income happens mostly in the world of commercial photography through licensing. Licensing is when a company is essentially leasing a photo from you for a set period of time and a set usage. When that time expires or they want to change that

usage up, they come back to you and relicense that photo or add to the license that they've already gotten from you. You can make it annually renewable, and every year they can determine whether they want to use that photo again or not. I currently have photos

licensed with a few different brands on like the third year, and one brand for the fifth or sixth year. Specifically, that photo that I've had licensed with a brand for about 5 years was a photo that I shot in 2018, and they licensed it from

me in 2019, and I haven't done the work in now 6 years, but that photo has brought income to me every year since 2019. Now, there are other forms of passive income as well, not just licensing. Things that typically would

come a little further down the road for instance you may find yourself on a retainer for a brand at some point where they just want to make sure you are available if they need you and they essentially put you on a salary to make sure you have that guarantee with them of

your time I was on a retainer with a company almost all of 2022 even though I really only shot for them for about 3 months but I was there when they needed me because of that retainer other things that are passive that like I said come

typically further down the road are things like Fine Art and galleries or products like prints or photo books and photographers can be real scrappy with coming up with other forms of passive income so really your own imagination is your limitation passive income for me is really the goal because it buys my time

to do other things whether it's pursue more active income gigs or freely shoot the things that I want to shoot or spend time with my family I mean that is the ultimate goal for me is to be able to buy my time to have time to spend with

my small children and my family cuz they're only small once so now that we've covered active and passive revenue streams for photographers let me share with you my model but before I do that if this is your first time here my name is Dave I am a photographer and

videographer from the bay area of California I post two videos a week unless something goes horribly wrong so be sure to subscribe and follow along okay I didn't realize that was going to rhyme two videos a week unless something goes wrong please subscribe and follow

along maybe I'll cut that my model has changed over the years and I mentioned earlier this year that I wasn't taking any new commercial clients outside of this channel and I've been able to stand by that which has been really cool so I'm going to share with you what I was doing

for many years what I've been doing the last couple of years and then give you a real world scenario of how that's playing out for me now for many years I used to shoot off of a day rate I got really burned out with custom pricing

and trying to negotiate per case by case so I just came up with a flat rate I took what I wanted to make in a year as a photographer how many days of the month I wanted to give to that and then divided that into a daily rate and with

that rate I came up with a list of things that felt reasonable to provide for that day rate and then I had a few optional things that a client could add on as well things like aerial drone photography or videography and so forth but the problem with the day rate is

that you start treating the largest brands and the smallest brands as equals when they really aren't equals in terms of who they are reaching what their customer base is what their revenue stream is and what their budgets are so I started to feel like the day rate was

requiring more of my active time when I really wanted to build my passive time so what I've done over the last couple of years is when I would get contacted by a brand or company that wanted to hire me to do a commercial shoot I would

work with that person to come up with a flat rate and a list of deliverables based upon their budget that I could provide for them to get to that rate. I would do a little background research myself by just looking at their website, their social media, really understanding

what their intended use was going to be and what their potential reach was going to be for the work that I was providing and I would put together a custom quote for them or ask them just straight up, "So what is your budget for this so that I

can determine what I can deliver for your budget?" This model actually worked out really well and I'm going to give you a real world scenario of how because just recently I did a shoot for a company that's in a sponsored video on the Horizon. It's coming up maybe in a

couple weeks now with their budget and that mention. They also asked me to provide this long list of things like Instagram reels and stories and 15 images and a one-minute montage of clips and I looked at their budget and I just like, "That's not realistic. I'm happy to

give you the mention for what you're offering me and I'll give you five photos." And they wrote back and they agreed on that and we made it happen. But here's how I'm operating now and I would be doing this whether it was YouTube

related or not. I agree upon five photos with this company and I provided five photos, but I also provided an additional 20 photos in a gallery that they were able to pick the five they wanted from. So they got a link from me to a gallery that required them to sign in with a

password, and they're low-res enough that they're not going to steal them. I don't I don't worry about that kind of stuff, but they got to look through 25 photos to pick their five. And in the email when I sent them the link, I said, "Should you

want more than five, here is the rate per photo that I will give you. And if you decide you want the whole gallery, then here is a massively discounted price so you can have everything that I took that day that I'm delivering to you. And guess

what, they bought the whole gallery from me. So we had an agreement, we had their budget number, and it was all paid. And then on the back end, we doubled that by having them buy more photos from me. But let's talk about the active side of it.

Did that take me a significant more time? Did it double my time and effort? No, it did not, cuz I'm already doing the shoot. I'm already there. I'm not just going to snap five photos and move on. I'm taking like several photos to be able to determine

what five I would deliver anyway. But instead of five, I gave 25 with an upsell point. I'm making here is that I was able to double my money without doubling my effort. And that is a strategy I think that really works well in commercial

work. So we've covered active and passive income, the model that I've been doing. And just to land the plane on this video, I'm going to quickly tell you five things that you can do to begin setting yourself up to monetize your photography. The first thing I mentioned earlier, even

is build a portfolio on a website that demonstrates the kind of work you want to do. And if you don't want to just build one portfolio, you could have a few different portfolios through different links and categories. That's what I do. I have commercial stuff, I have travel and

tourism, and I have portraits and lifestyle, all of that just hosted on my website. Do not use social media as your portfolio. You could have the best photos in the world at a small following, and a brand might not take you seriously. So why even risk that? For some reason, we are

trained in social media to look at numbers and not quality of images. Put it on a website. Get away from social. You don't need social to sell yourself as a photographer. The second thing is determine your worth, like I did when I figured out my day rate. Just start with

what you want to make and then start dividing that. And then when you get there, look at your market and value engineer whichever way you need to to get a rate that makes sense for you, your market, and your potential customers, whether they're people down the street or commercial

brands in your own town. And speaking of model, the third thing is just find that model that works for you. Is it a day rate? Is it a flat fee? Find that model that works for you for delivering photos. I use a service called Pixieset, and

that is a very safe and clean and sleek way to deliver photos to clients. I've got a link right below if you want to check out Pixieset. You may find it to be very helpful. You can even build a portfolio there. So be sure to check out

Pixie set, this video is not sponsored by them. Fourth thing is, when you are ready, and that could be today or it could be further down the road, but when you are ready, be ready to turn this into an actual business. Now that's a different

video altogether, but start thinking like a business owner, not just someone who makes great photos. Track your income, track your expenses, track your conversion, save those conversations, feel out what's working and what's not. Make notes along the way so that you can fix the things that aren't working and

affirm the things that are. Just start thinking now like a business owner so that if you want to make this into a business later, it's a pretty easy step to do so. And the fifth and final thing, probably the hardest thing, is hustle. You have to work hard to do this. It is not

easy work. Put in the time, effort, and energy to make it happen. But if it's a dream, it's got to be worth it to you to hustle it. And ultimately, everything you do, monetizing, business, all these things, they come down to relationships. So treat

people with kindness and generosity. People want to work with people they like and they enjoy working with. So be that person, be that photographer, be that creative, carry yourself well. I hope you found this video helpful. Drop a comment below if you have any thoughts. I try to

reply to every single comment. Thank you guys so much for watching, for your continued support, and I'll see you next time.

Actually Make Money with Photography

Dave Herring

Monetizing Photography: Introduction and Active Income

Many enjoy photography as a hobby, but not everyone wants to monetize it.

Turning a passion into a job can sometimes diminish the enjoyment.

This video explores ways to generate income from photography.

Active income involves providing photography services (portraits, events, commercial work).

Becoming a second shooter is a way to gain experience and build a portfolio.

Tips for starting: build a portfolio, advertise, and network.

Passive income is generated without active work, mainly through licensing.

Licensing involves leasing photos to companies for a set period and usage.

Other passive income avenues include brand retainers, fine art sales, and product sales.

Passive income allows for more time for personal pursuits and family.

The speaker's model evolved from a day rate to a custom quote system.

Initially, a flat day rate was used, but it proved less efficient for varying clients.

The current model involves custom quotes based on client budgets and deliverables.

A real-world example shows how negotiating deliverables can increase profit without extra work.

Providing extra photos with an upsell option doubled the income without doubling the effort.

Build a professional website portfolio; don't rely solely on social media.

Determine your worth and adjust pricing based on market research.

Find a suitable model for delivering photos (day rate, flat fee, etc.).

Treat your photography as a business: track income, expenses, and conversions.

Hustle and work hard to build your business and relationships.