What to do, what to do…?
So you’ve taken thousands of photos, and they’re all sitting on your hard drive, but what are you going to do with them?
That’s the question I’m going to try and answer in this article.
The great thing about modern images is that they’re digital, and that means they can easily be edited, copied and pasted using simple software tools to make a whole host of products, including books, calendars, coffee mugs and key chains.
The other asset you have as a photographer is your expertise, and that can be turned into another set of ‘products’, including talks, lessons and workshops.
Here’s a brief outline of what I’ve done myself and what you might choose to do - either to make some money or just to delight and impress your friends and family!
Pictures
Whether you want to make money from your photographs or simply give something back to your loved ones, it’s very easy to produce a whole range of merchandise and generally put the word out.
Competitions
I’ve entered a lot of photography competitions, and I’ve been lucky enough to win a few of them, including the Sunday Times/Audley Travel Big Shot competition. I won a £250 Wex Photographic voucher for that, which went towards buying a new camera, but competitions aren’t really a way to make money unless you win a really big one such as the Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
For the most part, the prizes are benefits in kind donated by sponsors, and I’ve won a nice pair of Opticron binoculars and a few memory cards, but that’s about it.
Having said that, it’s nice to win things, and sometimes my victories have even made it into the national press. When my shot of a bear catching a salmon won one particular award, it appeared in The Sun under the headline Bear Gills, and I was happy to borrow that for the new caption!
Merchandise
I have an agreement with Redbubble, for example, which sells all kinds of goods decorated with my work:
T-shirts
Phone and tablet cases
Wall art
Home decor (including pillows, mugs, clocks and acrylic block prints)
Accessories (including stickers, greetings cards, spiral notebooks and hardcover journals)
Prints
I guess prints are the obvious product to sell, but it’s not easy.
On my website, I sell packs of 10 A6 greetings cards and framed prints in a range of sizes:
A3: £250
31 x 24”/80 x 60cm: £750
53 x 38”/135 x 97cm: £1,500
However, I’ve only ever had one print order through my website, and I’ve had much more success with online galleries such as Etsy and Artfinder.
If the worst comes to the worst, you can always print out a few of your favourite images and put them up on your wall. That’s what I’ve done…!
Stock photography
Another option is to sell your images stock and microstock agencies.
Microstock agencies are online intermediaries that accept work from photographers and then market those images to potential clients such as creative directors of newspapers, magazines and other buyers.
The advantage of using them is that it's 'making money while you sleep', in other words, it's a passive income that you can build over time as you add more and more shots to your portfolio.
I make around £300 a month, but it’s worth picking and choosing your agencies carefully.
Some agencies sell a lot of images but with low royalty rates, some the reverse, but here is the list of the ones I've used (in descending order of sales):
I should mention that not all agencies will accept you, and not all your shots will be accepted by any agency that does, but you shouldn't take it personally…!
Words
Back in the dim and distant past, writing a book and becoming a published author was a big deal.
The barriers to entry were huge, and it was a real achievement to be able to persuade a publisher to print hundreds or thousands of copies of your work in exchange for cold, hard cash.
These days, that route is still open to anyone with the ability and confidence to follow it, but you also have so many more digital options.
Self-published books
In the olden days, there would always be tales of a few authors who had managed to become successful after self-publishing their first book.
I think immediately of Matthew Reilly, an Australian writer of thrillers and adventure novels who started out by printing hundreds of copies of his first book and touting them to book stores in person when he couldn’t get a publishing deal.
Now that the internet is here, everyone has that chance to self-publish - and it doesn’t cost a penny! There are plenty of websites and software programs out there to help you, such as Canva, Bob Books, Lightroom and Photoshop, so all you really need to do is produce a few words and pictures and then design the book yourself.
Websites such as Bob Books offer an online distribution platform, and that means - hey presto! - you’re a published author!
Ebooks
Ebooks are another way of doing the same thing - and without all the costs of publishing a physical book.
I ended up writing a couple myself during the 2020 Covid lockdown when I happened to see an online ad for Expert Photography. They were looking for authors and presenters, and when I emailed them my idea for a wildlife photography book, they commissioned me to write Wonderful Wildlife. I was paid $6 for every 100 words, and the editors liked it so much that they asked me to write another one, this time on Social Success Strategies.
That whole experience was very enjoyable, and I made a few thousand pounds out of it - which came in very handy during lockdown!
I was lucky in the sense that I was able to sign a deal with a recognised publisher, but you don’t need to do it that way. It’s the easiest thing in the world to put together an ebook using Microsoft Word or one of the free online software tools, and you can email it to anyone you like for free…!
Blogs
If you think writing a book is too much like hard work, then what about a blog? Again, it’s very easy and free to set up, and you can write as much or as little as you wish, either with pictures or without.
I’ve been writing on my photography Blog since 2013, and I enjoy being able to talk about all the trips I’ve been on or the lessons I’ve learned while shooting or anything else that comes to mind. I now post three times a week (on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays), and I hope my articles will cause a few more people to get hooked on wildlife photography.
If you don’t think you have enough to write about, just consider everything you already know as a photographer. Surely that’s enough to write an article a week, say. Here are a few possible topics:
Trips (either planned or completed)
Techniques (eg star trails or slow pan shots)
Equipment (eg what you have in your camera bag)
Software (eg how to get the most out of Lightroom)
Exhibitions (eg an upcoming art fair)
Websites
If you’re even half-way serious about photography, then having your own website is pretty much essential. It’s easy to set up, cheap to run and provides a great place to showcase your work.
You can obviously choose the mix between words and pictures, but a website is the obvious place to put a blog, and it’s available for the whole world to see!
However, that comes with a word of warning: given that your website is often going to be a person’s first exposure to your work, your philosophy, your lifestyle and your ‘brand’, so to speak, there’s an obvious incentive to do it right.
If you don’t have a website that looks polished and professional with high quality content, then your reputation will take a hit, and even your friends and family won’t be too impressed!
I use Squarespace for this site and WordPress for my education website. Both are easy to use and won’t break the bank.
I suggest starting small with a gallery and/or blog and then bolting on modules as you get more experienced and want to expand your offer. I now have 12 tabs on my website:
Prints. An online shop for framed prints and greetings cards.
Gallery. A slideshow containing a selection of my favourite images.
Members. A private section for members to pay £7.99 a year to see additional galleries of images not available on the rest of the site.
Books. A collection of links to my published works, including books and ebooks.
Wallpaper. A few of my wildlife photographs that have been specially formatted to use as wallpaper on iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and iMacs etc)
Podcasts. Downloadable recordings of my thoughts on various aspects of photography.
Events. Upcoming talks, exhibitions or trips I’m due to lead.
Talks. Information on the kind of talks I can deliver plus a video recording of one of them.
Lessons. Information on my photography coaching business.
Offers. A selection of useful affiliate links plus discounts where available.
Blog. All the articles I’ve written on photography, covering techniques, trips, research, exhibitions, talks and workshops.
About. My biography, including an artist’s statement and a summary of my image sales, awards, exhibitions, publications and other achievements.
Podcasts
If you’ve written books, presentations or articles on photography, why not record one or two in podcasts?
It’s very easy these days, and you can either release them for free or try to make money out of them.
If you have a website using a platform such as Squarespace, it’s simple to create a library of podcasts for people to download, or you could always jump through a few more hoops and release them via the Apple store or Google podcasts.
I’ve recorded a few myself, and you can find them on my podcasts page.
Newsletters
It’s important to build up a mailing list so that you can market your wares to a receptive audience.
I have 3,000 email addresses on my list, and I send them all a monthly newsletter that covers all my latest news:
Blog posts
Shots of the Week
Events
Awards
Free stuff
Any other business
About a third of people open the email, and around 4% actually visit my site, but that’s enough to give a real boost to my traffic numbers.
I’m still finding it hard to generate leads for my prints, books and other products, but it’s good to keep in touch, and every now and again I get a nice email from an old friend.
Expertise
Talks
If you’re keen on photography and reasonably knowledgeable, then giving talks can be a fun thing to do.
It’s not for everybody, of course, but I’m comfortable with public speaking, and I’ve generally had very appreciative audiences.
I’ve given wildlife photography talks and webinars for a variety of camera clubs and other organisations including The Societies of Photographers, Cottar’s 1920s Safari Camp, Putney Women’s Institute (watch video) and the London Institute of Photography (watch video).
I only get around £100 for a slideshow and talk lasting for an hour or two, and I’ve even given talks for free, but it’s not really about the money.
I enjoy talking about my work, and it’s nice to get a bit of feedback in what can be a very lonely business.
Lessons
Again, you have to know what you’re doing if you’re going to set yourself up as a photography coach, but it’s one way of leveraging your knowledge and expertise.
I’ve given a few lessons to amateur photographers, and it’s always been fun.
I love to help people improve their skills, and I’ve been lucky that my clients have been very friendly and appreciative - one of them even tipped me 20 quid!
Workshops
If you develop a bit of a name for yourself, then you might be able to run a photographic workshop, either on your own or on behalf of another organisation.
I did one for Canary Wharf in 2019, and I was due to run another couple of classes at the London Wetland Centre for Handmade Workshops and a series in Richmond Park for Park Cameras until the Covid lockdown came along!
I’ve also signed up for a photo workshop as a guest, but I didn’t learn much from Marina Cano, and I was only really there to spend the weekend taking pictures with a friend at the Cabárceno safari park in Spain.
Trips
If you develop a good following on social media or you have enough enthusiastic friends and colleagues, then you might be able to run a trip.
Tour operators will often give you a free place if you can bring along 10 guests, say, so it’s worth a try.
However, it’s all about getting bums on seats, and I’ve never had the brand awareness to be able to do that - until now!
Running my own photography trip has been a dream of mine for a number of years, and it looks like it’s finally going to come true after a friend and wildlife photographer called Andy Skillen asked me to take over his trip to the Brazilian Pantanal in 2022.
Fingers crossed Covid doesn’t ruin that as well as just about everything else…!
Resident photographer
Finally, you could take a leaf out of my book and get yourself a job as a ‘resident photographer’.
I didn’t realise such a thing existed until I happened to read an online article about a wildlife photographer who’d managed to get himself 365 nights of free accommodation in Africa in exchange for copies of all his images.
I thought to myself, “I could do that,” so I emailed around 50 safari lodges in Kenya and Tanzania, and within a couple of weeks I had 17 invitations!
In the end, I spent three months at &Beyond lodges in Tanzania and a month at Cottar’s 1920s Safari Camp in Kenya.
It was a tremendous opportunity, and I took nearly 90,000 pictures while I was out there!
Around half of my top 100 images of all time came from that trip, so I’m very grateful for the chance to spend so much time with the animals.
That’s a big part of wildlife photography, which can often be a very expensive business.
In my case, I managed to do a ‘barter’ deal with the lodges so that in exchange for my pictures and coaching (for those who wanted it), I got free board and lodging and daily game drives.
Now that’s a good deal whichever way you look at it - especially at camps where guests normally pay more than $1,000 a night in high season!
Sadly, I wasn’t able to persuade &Beyond or Cottar’s to hire me again, but we’ll see what happens.
I’m due to take a few pictures in exchange for a discount on my trip to Antarctica in December, and I already have two three-week bookings at Muchenje Safari Lodge in May and October 2022.
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.