With difficulty…!
On location
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin…
Once upon a time, a boy bought a camera and decided he wanted to become a professional photographer. He took hundreds of pictures, read everything he could about it and told his mother he wanted to study photography at the London College of Printing.
“Well,” she said, “you can always take it up later as a hobby…”
And that was that for 30 years!
Fortunately, a random email inviting him to climb Mount Kenya and go on safari gave him the chance to take up photography again, and he’s never looked back…
That boy, of course, was me. I doubt many people will take the same career path as I did, but it takes all sorts!
Do you Really Want to?
The first question you have to ask is, “Do you really want to become a wildlife photographer?” Every career demands sacrifices, but trying to make a living as a photographer involves more than most—especially of the financial kind!
It’s hard to make money in photography these days, and the median salary of a photographer in the United States is only around $14,500, so you need to be totally committed to your chosen career path if you’re going to succeed. They say, “Find a job you love, and you’ll never have to work another day in your life,” but it’s easier said than done!
I often have conversations with people who aren’t happy at work and want to do something different. The idea of travelling the world taking pictures of wild animals sounds very exciting—until it comes to the practical implications:
What will my partner say?
What about the kids?
Where will I live?
How much will it cost?
What about the mortgage?
etc, etc…
I loved photography when I was young, and I was lucky I felt just the same way when I took it up again in 2013. I might’ve been bored and decided to carry on doing whatever job I was doing at the time. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t.
I love the combination of artistic and technical skills that photography demands. It’s an easy way for me to be creative in my career because the camera does (nearly) all the work! At the same time, I’m a perfectionist, and I love learning and practising new skills and then editing and improving my images in Lightroom.
All this applies to any branch of photography, but wildlife photography is a law unto itself…! Almost everyone has a camera these days in the shape of a smartphone, and I read somewhere that 92.5% of all photos taken in 2023 were taken with a camera phone.
That’s what you’re competing against as a wildlife photographer. People want to take their own pictures, and it’s so much cheaper and more convenient to travel these days that it’s easier than ever to get to exotic locations.
If you’re already a ‘hobbyist’, there’s no shame in deciding to continue along that path. You can still be a wildlife photographer—you’ll just have the security of a regular paycheque to help finance your addiction to taking pictures!
If, on the other hand, you really want to give it a go, read on…
Can you Afford it?
Equipment
My NIKKOR Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S lens
The main problem with jacking in a ‘proper job’ to be a wildlife photographer is that you it’s very hard to make decent money, and the required investment in cameras, lenses and other accessories is pretty daunting for most people.
My camera equipment cost around £50,000, and it’s so expensive that I can’t even insure it at full value. There’s no way most people could afford that without at least taking out a bank loan—or even remortgaging the house!
Admittedly, I have a Sony ⍺1, a Nikon Z8 and a very expensive 600mm lens (see article), which all cost an arm and a leg. You obviously wouldn’t need to spend quite that much to get started. In fact, you probably already have a camera and a few lenses already.
I ended up having to trade in all my old equipment and borrow money from my bank to be able to afford my original Sony mirrorless gear. And even then, it was quite a tight squeeze. I bought one camera and my 400mm lens first to try them out, and then I went on a big splurge and bought everything else in one go!
Other Income
Private tuition
I’ve been a landlord since the late 1990s and a private tutor since 2009, so there’s always some money coming in. That gives me the flexibility to go to my favourite places and take the pictures I want without worrying about the expense—within reason!
As I tell people (only half-jokingly), any time I’m likely to earn enough to have to pay income tax, I just spend thousands of pounds on a photographic expedition!
If you work freelance or part-time or have a regular passive income, you can ease the transition to becoming a full-time photographer by running both careers in parallel. You can still go on ‘holiday’ to take pictures, but now you can try and sell them through stock agencies or perhaps hold an exhibition.
If your photography earnings reach a high enough level after a few months (or years!), you’ll then be able to take the next step. That might mean accepting fewer contracts to make time for your photography or even taking early retirement from your regular career.
The point is that you can manage the transition, only spending what you can afford and maintaining the security of a regular paycheque. If you’re successful in your new career, you can spend more and more time taking pictures and invest in more and better camera equipment.
How do you get Started?
Photography exhibition
There are many different ways to make money out of wildlife photography (see article), but I’ve found that you have to push every door to see if it opens. Here’s a rough breakdown of my earnings:
Downloads 40%
Writing 28%
Print sales 16%
Coaching 10%
Other (webinars, competitions, affiliate earnings etc) 6%
One of the challenges with wildlife photography is that it’s hard to develop ‘clients’. It’s not like portrait or pet photography. You can’t simply put an ad in the local paper and wait for people to book you for a gig.
Nobody’s ever hired me in advance to go on a photographic expedition, and I’m sure the same goes for most wildlife photographers out there. That means there isn’t much you can do to increase your revenue directly. Yes, you can take more (and better) pictures, but there’s no guarantee they’ll sell!
All you can do is invest in decent equipment and make sure you have the key building blocks for a business:
Website
Business cards
Social media presence
Shot list
Financial plan
My first job after university was as a software programmer for PwC, and I then spent 20 years using Excel on various strategy consulting jobs, so I found it relatively easy to build a website and create all the spreadsheets to manage my portfolio and my business.
I was never very good at sales and marketing, but it only cost me around 50 quid to print out a few business cards, and I made sure to keep a few of my favourite photos on my phone to show people if and when they asked.
I also learned that it was easy to develop quite a large following on social media through Facebook groups. I simply joined the largest wildlife photography groups I could find and then started posting an image with a helpful tip every morning. After a few months, I was reaching over two million people!
It’s hard to monetise that kind of following, but when it comes to building your brand, every little helps. To a certain extent, it doesn’t really matter how people heard of me, as long as they end up buying a photo or booking a lesson!
Verdict
Wildlife photography talk
If you have the passion, the drive and the determination to be a wildlife photographer, it can be a very rewarding career—emotionally rather than financially, of course! I tell people I have exactly the same problems as everyone else, except I never wake up in the morning wishing I didn’t have to go to work!
That’s a good start, and you can improve your chances by creating a financial plan, buying the right equipment and taking a few basic steps to market your work on social media and elsewhere.
If you’re ready to take the plunge and need a bit of help, feel free to drop me a line at nick@nickdalephotography.com or call me on +44 7942 800921. Good luck…!
If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.
If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.