If you’re a photographer or interested in photography, there are ways to make money from your photos from home.
I’ll admit that photography is not my strongest area. However, throughout my work from home journey, I’ve come across ways to profit from photos that may interest you.
My sister has more of a passion for photography than I do. She’s constantly snapping pics of her daily life and travels.
I only bust out the DSLR when absolutely necessary. My photography has improved slowly over time, but it’s still not anything that I genuinely love.
This post is to summarize ways to profit from your photos. I’ll go into further detail in future blog posts.
Profit from Photos – Ideas to Explore
Sell stock photos
You may notice I use mostly stock photos for this blog. Because photography halts my entire workflow, I was more than happy to purchase a stock photo package.
I am not alone with this! There are plenty of people out there who buy stock photos all the time.
If you have gorgeous, high-quality, high-resolution images, you can list them for sale on many sites like Cohley, Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Getty, Deposit Photos, Canstock Photo, and more.
Another option is to create a stock photo store. As a consumer, I loved the option to buy a whole bundle package of photos to match this site.
Instead of searching for
Many stock images websites give the option to pay for a membership, as well, which is an excellent way to make a consistent income.
My sister has listed a few of her travel photos for sale as
I can make zero predictions for how much anyone makes by selling
One thing to watch out for when listing images for sale as
While uploading pics to one of the sites, my sister noticed a checkbox for “exclusive,” which to me means handing over all rights to one buyer.
Since she’d already posted it to her Instagram, that’s not good. Read over each option carefully when handing over rights to an image.
- Investment: Time, assuming you already have photos
- Equipment: Good camera, possibly editing software, computer or device to upload images
- Skills: Photography, editing
- Income: Passive income potential, but impossible to predict sales
Create POD products
Print on demand (POD) is another way to profit from your photos potentially.
Create t-shirts, postcards, notebooks, mugs, and several other types of merchandise. The print on demand options seem to grow daily.
Merch by Amazon is one of the most popular platforms to create t-shirts, hoodies, and pop sockets, however, it’s also the most competitive platform.
There are other sites where you can upload images to create products like TeeSpring, TeePublic, Zazzle, (affiliate links) RedBubble, and Spreadshirt. Just to name a few!
We upload to print on demand sites quite a bit. In our experience, it’s a side hustle only.
I love that it costs nothing but time to upload images. However, we don’t see enough money from it to focus on it entirely.
We see it as an additional income stream with passive income potential.
- Investment: Time, Money if you choose to purchase designs
- Equipment: Photoshop or other software to design graphics
- Skills: Graphic design, keyword research
- Income: Passive income potential, but impossible to predict sales
Freelance
Offer local photoshoots if you’re cool with leaving your house. This one is not for me at all, but an idea for others.
Prepare an online portfolio and, ideally, a website showing your work and your package options.
- Investment: Time, Money if you need supplies or equipment
- Equipment: Camera, props, lighting, other photography gear
- Skills: Photography, editing, sales, marketing, organization
- Income: Active income
Food photography
If you’re good at food photography, I know for a fact that you are a gem in the blogging world.
There are many bloggers out there with older sites looking for new photos to spruce up old recipe posts.
Of course, you can create your own food blog. But, if you’re looking for other options, they are out there.
Redo images for bloggers’ recipes or sell recipe posts with gorgeous photos to bloggers.
This also works for crafts and other types of blog posts. I’m focusing on food photography because it’s a super challenge to capture drool-worthy images!
If you’re looking for a good course on how to get started creating photos for bloggers, this one (affiliate link) is taught by bloggers and will help you get started in a Facebook group full of buyers. The course isn’t always open, so join the waitlist if it’s closed.
- Investment: Time, Money for equipment and supplies
- Equipment: Camera, lighting, recipe ingredients, props
- Skills: Food photography, recipe creation
- Income: Active income, I’ve seen bloggers pay $50 more more per post.
Home photography studio
Opening a home photography studio is another way to work from home as a photographer.
If you have the space for a studio and are comfortable with people coming over, this could be a way to work from home.
Look into the liability issues and business regulations in your area on this one before doing anything.
- Investment: Time, Money
- Equipment: Camera, lighting, photo props, backdrops, software, business license, insurance, and more I’m sure I know nothing about
- Skills: Photography, editing, business, marketing, organization
- Income: Active income
Create an Instagram channel or channels to share your fabulous photography.
How does posting on Instagram make money? Honestly, there’s no guarantee what will happen, but Instagram is huge right now.
Pick a niche, use the right hashtags, post regularly, engage, and grow.
Once you get a nice following, chances are high that sponsors will reach out.
You can also sign up for influencer networks – list coming soon. I am not saying it’s easy to grow an Instagram channel, but it’s doable.
- Investment: Time, Money if you need equipment
- Equipment: Phone, optional editing apps, camera, platforms to organize your feed
- Skills: Photography, knowledge about Instagram’s best practices, hashtags, and algorithm
- Income: Active income if working with brands, passive income potential if you incorporate affiliate links
Conclusion
As I said, photography is not my favorite topic, so I’m sure there are many other ways to make money from home as a photographer.
Hopefully, the ideas above sparked an interest with you.
With the things me and my sister have tried, I will go into further details about our experiences in future blogs posts and link them in this article.
Do you know of any ways to work from home as a photographer?