How to Make a Living as a Photographer

On behalf of tvlesson.com, this is Steven Anthony, professional photographer. I work out
of New York and Miami.

Let us talk about some of the different opportunities photographers have for careers.
There are so many things that you could do as a photographer that you can make a living
at the most basic would be just taking pictures with your friends and neighbors if you
have decent camera, preferably an SLR that you can use interchangeable lenses. You can
set up a small portrait studio for little money. And if you are good at it and you become
professional at it, you want to study and learn from the experts.

There are online resources where you can learn various techniques for portraiture and just
put out little flyer or hand bill, portrait photography in your area. You might even have a
portable studio or you can go to somebody’s home. Take pictures of them in the comfort
of their home. A lot of people are very interested in doing something like that.

Photo journalism is still a very popular field. If you are adventurous and you like get into
the middle of situations and you have got your camera ready and get a decent lens, good
high speed lens, fast lens is good to have because your lighting conditions are going to
vary wild. But if you cover events and go around with the news screw, another
potentially looking to the area for photographers is actor head shots. Most markets, most
towns or big cities actually there’s all sorts of actors and want to be actors who are going
to need head shots on pretty regular basis. And it is wide open field if you can set up
small and expensive studio and get the word out—you can all the local actors in your area
at some point or another are going to need new head shots and they have keep doing them
on a regular basis because they have to have a current look for themselves.

So, gets an idea of what people looking for in that field and start putting word out and
musicians have the same need and photographs bands maybe even in live performance.
They like to have some pictures of themselves for their website or for album covers or
what ever.

Another that you make a living as a photographer is as a wedding photographer. This is a
tough field. It is very specific in terms of what is required of you as a photographer and it
can be very stressful. You know traveling to the venue and you never know you can be
running all around town to different wedding events and it is highly stressful. You’ve got
to be right there at every moment for every shot and if you missed it, there is no really
chance to recreate it. It can be quite lucrative but it is a lot work and there’s a lot of stress.