5 Ways to Make Extra Money If You're Good at Photography - What Mommy Does (2024)

Ok, let me tell you – I am super excited about today’s post because it’s something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time.

You see, when people hear I’m a blogger, they assume I’m great at photography. That’s because many bloggers have craft or food blogs, and their success depends 100% on their ability to take good pictures of their creations.

I am sorry to say I don’t have the photography skills to be one of those bloggers (I still to writing about making money online, holidays, and having fun as a family), and I rely nearly 100% on stock photography that I purchase to accompany my writing.

But I know SO MANY PEOPLE who are excellent at photography and could honestly make a killing as bloggers if they just knew what to do! And beyond blogging, photography can bring in supplemental income in many different ways. It’s just about the best money-making skill I know of for stay-at-home-moms or anyone who wants to make extra cash on the side.

If you enjoy taking photos for Instagram, pictures of your kids’ birthday parties, or created a photo calendar made from your own photos you are probably good enough at photography to consider making money from your photos.

5 Ways to Make Extra Money If You’re Good at Photography

Below I will explain five different ways I would set out to use my photography skills to earn extra money (if I was good at it). If you are good at taking pictures or know someone who has a nice camera, you might want to share this list with them!

1. Selling Your Photos to Stock Photography Websites

An easy way to make extra money if you’re good at photography is to sell stock photos. There are dozens of stock photography websites that are looking for contributors. istockphoto and shutterstock are the first two that come to mind when I think of selling pictures you take. All you have to do is photograph whatever you like, upload it, and give it good tags and a description. Then the website makes it available to thousands of people and tries to sell the photos, without any further work required from you. Given the number of websites, magazines, bloggers, and graphic designers who are constantly looking for good photos, there’s sure to be an audience for whatever you like to photograph! I wouldn’t go out and purchase a nice DSLR camera just to be able to take good pictures to sell online, but if you already have a decent DSLR like a Canon Rebel or Nikon D3500, then you might want to give taking stock photos a shot (no pun intended!) 🙂

2. Pet Photography – Taking Pictures of Cats, Dogs, Other Pets

Pet photography can be a fun way to make extra money if you like animals! Post ads online or on bulletin boards in your local community centers and coffee shops, and wait for people to start contacting you. You’ll get even more job offers if you can link people to a nice portfolio online. Once you get a job, all you have to do is meet up with the pet owner, either at their home, your home, or the park. Once you take the pet portraits, you will need to edit the photos in a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop /Photoshop Elements, but you probably already know all about that if you are really into photography.

You can charge a surprising amount for pet photography. I don’t have a pet at the moment, but I know some people who love their pets as much as they love their children! And I pay anywhere from $100-$300 for a photography to take pictures of my family. So I’d assume you could charge around the same to take photos of a dog. What do you think?

3. Become a Food Blogger

If you like to cook, food blogging is a great way to make extra money if you’re good at photography! Cook up delicious dishes, then work to make them beautifully presented. As a food blogger, your readers can’t taste your food unless they make it themselves, so good photography is critical. If you can make photos that are both clear and appetizing, you’ll quickly have a popular food blog! Remember how I said I don’t have very good photography skills? Well, I pay someone to do the recipes you see on this blog. You can see some of her work in these two posts:

Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Wing Dip

Trix Treats

This is the kind of photography I’m talking about when I say food photography. Up close shots of delicious food and a short write-up of the steps required to make each dish. Easy enough, right? I have a handy FREE tutorial for anyone interested in starting a blog on this page. While we’re talking about blogging, another angle you could take is teaching moms how to take good/cool/interesting photos of their children and then earning money by placing ads on your blog and recommending specific products from Amazon like a nice camera lens or pretty camera bag.

4. Teach Photography Online or In Person

A good way to make money with photography at home is to teach photography online or in person. If you teach photography classes online, you could offer classes at specific times, then use Skype, Google Hangouts, or similar to host your class. Or you could offer pre-recorded videos and just review assignments and answer questions. All you need is something like PowerPoint to help you explain photography tips and tricks. There are tons of possibilities, and you can do them all from the comfort of your home! The website Craftsy offers a formal class like this. If you want an idea of how a course like this is taught, you could take the Craftsy class for ideas.

The other way you could teach photography is in person. My local community college and my hometown both let anyone suggest courses they’d like to teach. You could go this route OR another idea is to teach something specific to those who are new to fancy cameras. I have some friends who took a class called “10 Tricks to Getting the Most Out of Your DSLR Camera” or something like that last year. It was taught by a self-taught photography who knew there were moms out there with nice cameras and no clue how to use them! LOL

5. Sell Printed Products

A really fun way to make extra money if you’re good at photography is to make products from your photos!

• Idea #1: Using a content-on-demand site like Redbubble, Zazzle, or CafePress, you can turn your photos into canvas prints, T-shirts, coffee cups, etc.You could easily create your own brand based around your photos using these sites. This takes a lot of creativity, but is very possible if you work hard to choose the appropriate items that people would be interested in buying. Some of these websites handle selling, producing, and shipping your products.
• Idea #2: One popular photo product I see at local markets, antique shops, and gift shops is pretty photographs turned into postcards and note cards. You can take one picture and sell it over and over just by packaging it as a card. I’ve bought these myself, especially when they’re pretty flower photos or photos of landmarks that mean something to me. I think it’s a genius way to make money with your camera skills!
• Idea #3: Similar to idea #2 but with coasters. I see these for sale in several of the shops in my small town. I think they make great gifts! If you live in a larger area, you could probably find success selling these in local buy/sell/trade Facebook groups or even Facebook groups dedicated specifically to anyone who makes handmade goods. The coasters are usually made from bathroom tiles, which are rather inexpensive.

Have you ever made money with photography?

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I created a community just for like-minded moms to network and brainstorm different ways to make money from home (that don’t require direct sales!). I would LOVE for you to join me! It’s called Money Making Moms….pop on over, Like the page, and then introduce yourself if you want. Share a little bit about yourself so we can get to know you and your dreams! 🙂 (Note: I just started this page, but I hope it will grow to thousands of strong women over time.)

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• How to Make Extra Money if You’re Good at Photography
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