Make Money from Landscape Photography | My Plan to Earn a Living

so far since going full-time as a landscape photographer in my videos I have covered my decision why I did it and how I'm going to promote myself on social media so this week we're gonna look at how I intend to try and make some money a couple of weeks ago in my I quit my job video I talked about how for the first year at least my focus is going to be on improving my photography but I do also need to start thinking about how I'm going to be able to business there's very naive of me to think that I could just spend the next 12 months shooting and everything else is gonna be alright I'm gonna start this video by talking about the things that I'm not going to do so the first thing that I'm not going to do is weddings now I am a landscape photographer I am NOT a photographer as so to speak I don't know anything about any other genre of photography I do anything about motorsport portraiture wildlife photography I am a pure landscaper my first love is the countryside is the Lake District and photography comes second and so I want my photography to give me more and more opportunity to spend time in this amazing landscape and so for that reason I don't really want to look at any other kind of photography the second thing I'm not going to do is to rely too heavily on YouTube to generate part of my income I do make a little bit of money through ad revenue on YouTube but I really do YouTube for fun I love putting these videos together and I really really love sharing my passion and showcasing the beauty of the Lake District and that's why I do it it's not really a serious income stream for me the third thing that I'm not gonna do is well actually there isn't a third thing I've been racking my brain trying to think of something and I can't come up with anything it does seem that there's a huge amount of opportunity for me and the trick is actually deciding what to focus on first this morning I've come to Moe's there with a friend of mine and we've been shooting this river that meanders its way through the mountains and we've been trying a few long exposures and I'm pretty pleased to the shots that I've got [Music] I've talked about what I'm not going to do now it's time to talk about some of the things that I am going to try as I said before there are lots of different opportunities open to me and I think that's really important I think in order to be successful I need to develop lots of different income streams and not just focus on one or two fairly predictably the first income stream that I'm going to want to develop is my print sales now I am aware of it's going to be very very difficult to make a living just selling prints which is why I have to do other things but as a landscape photographer prints house has to form at least part of my income now I already have a website set up and I need to get some of my later work on there as soon as possible in my first year as a full-time landscape photographer I intend to be quite prolific I intend to take lots of shots remember back to last week where I said that it's my main intention to get out and shoot as much as I can in order to improve the standard of my photography and that means I'm going to have a relatively high number of shots to sell so it's my intention to limit the number of copies of each shot that's going to be available now I haven't made up my mind fully on the numbers just yet but I think what I'm going to do is sell just five copies of each shot what I intend to do is to put my very best work after sale and so my limited editions will be what I consider to be my very best shots but I'm not always a good judge of what is my best work and so I'm going to take a selection of my shots that almost made it and I'm gonna sell those a single editions those are prints where only a single copy will be sold and so that will be people's opportunity to buy something that is completely unique that nobody else has and I've had a bit of a nightmare this morning clowns nightmares a bit of an exaggeration it was originally my intention to go and shoot castle rigged stone circle and when I got there there was somebody actually camping in the middle of the stone circle if you ever come to the lake district don't do that you're not supposed to be world camping anywhere below the top wall of the FEL so you can camp up on top of the fells and even then it's not strictly legal but you shouldn't camp below the top dry stone wall so I decided at the last minute to come to do on water I was out shooting with a friend yesterday she showed me a fantastic photo that she'd got of the Centennial stone and the water level was about halfway up perhaps a little bit lower it's almost perfect horse when I arrived here this morning a day or so later maybe two days later the water level has dropped so much that the stone is now completely out of the water so that shot doesn't work and so the shot that I've had to go for today is one of the jaws of Borradaile and whether or not this is one that makes it on to my shop as print I'm selling very much doubt [Music] the next income stream I need to develop is my teaching business and so that's workshops guided tours and one to ones I've already started running a few workshops the first was back in March and it was a huge success for no other reason then I made three very good friends that day in cat Ian and Jeff and to this point the workshops have been free I wanted to make myself as accessible as I possibly could and share my love for landscape photography and my love for the Lake District with as many people as I could but unfortunately now that I'm a professional the days of the freebie are behind me the sort of thing I want to start with our small local workshops here in the UK I cut a half-day workshop for no more than four people I want to do that with my fellow YouTube photographers the guys that started out with me the guys that supported me from the beginning people like James burns and I think that gives really good value for money because rather than one instructor you end up getting two once that set up I want to start working in other places throughout the UK most probably Cornwall where I've already done some stuff with Tom Peters initially my workshops are going to be targeted at beginners people at the very start of their photography journey people who need help with their compositions and help with their photography in general now if that's you and you're interested in coming on one of these workshops then you should definitely check out my website as a link in the description below autumns coming if my workshops are going to be targeted at beginners what about you more experienced photographers now in my opinion you don't need help with your compositions or with your photography in general you need is location advice and so it is going to be possible to hire me as a location guide and I will take you around and show you some of the best locations in Lake District now at this stage I don't know how busy I'm going to be so if you want to hang out with the wali off the internet best book now to avoid disappointment now I might have only just started as a full-time landscape photographer but I have been in this game long enough to realize that the amount of effort that you put into a shot is not always reflected in the quality of the final image and this morning I was up at cilia o'clock I hiked up here to the top of sale fell in the dark I had half an hour to wait before I started to get any light at all and unfortunately what really happened now as well as the workshops and photo tours one of the other things that I want to do a one-to-ones but I don't want to have to do them in a howling 10-4 scale you've got get you've gotta get that map buddy is better I really enjoy doing one-to-ones it's a really great opportunity for me to spend time with other photographers and a great opportunity for me to share my passion and my knowledge of landscape photography and also my knowledge of the Lake District today I've come out with my mate mark and we're spending some time working on his compositions and I've even let him ever go on my tripod this morning the great thing about one-to-ones is that we can focus in on things that you're weak at things that you want to improve we can look at specific things so for example if you want to practice your photography in strong winds and harsh light we can sort something out for you if you're interested in coming to the lake district to do a one-to-one with me the best thing to do is head over to my website go to my about page and get in contact that way but anyway today conditions have been extremely challenging here at butter Muir but I still think I managed to get one or two ok shots [Music] so that's selling prints running workshops and doing one-to-ones so far so predictable if I'm going to survive in this industry I'm gonna have to start thinking a lot more creatively the first thing that I'm going to try is working with brands and working on sort of commercials photography and also commercial video for brands that have an association with the outdoors with the Lake District's and with that kind of outdoor life now this is very very new territory for me but I do have a very good friend who is a very successful commercial photographer and he's agreed to help me and to start mentoring me through the process and that's something that I'm really keen to get started on as soon as possible now hopefully I will be covering some of my approach for that in future videos but for now I just need to try and change my mindset slightly and start to think a bit more in a commercial way there are lots of opportunities open to me but the final one I want to talk about this morning is working for magazines now that involves providing images for magazines and there's a special skill to providing images that work well in magazines images where the copy can be fitted around the main components of the image it's very different composing an image for a magazine than it is we would normally do for a normal landscape photography so there's a whole new skill there to be learned but at the same time I'm not a terrible writer I do write a blog and it's not too bad I think I have the beginnings of being a half-decent writer so I might also be able to provide full articles for magazines both written word and the photographs that go with it anyway all that aside I have had an absolutely fantastic morning of photography up here on Laphroaig brow we've had some beautiful mist over the lake of Windermere it's been absolutely superb and it's been made extra-special because I've had my mate Paul with morning [Music] [Music] I still don't think that that is going to be enough if I am going to be successful as a landscape photographer I'm gonna have to develop more income streams and get even more creative as we talked about in the last video if I am going to be successful then I'm gonna have them last a social media and once I develop those skills that's another commodity that I can sell so one of the things that I want to do is to start running small social media courses for local businesses to help them get benefit from marketing on social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube earlier in the year I did my first ever talk on photography I was actually invited by the lakeland horticultural society to run a very short course on garden photography and I actually really enjoyed it and one of the things I loved more than anything in the world is the sound of my own voice and so I what I want to do start looking at other talks that I can do other organizations where I can come and do a talk either about photography or about my life and the build up to be trying to become a professional photographer so if you're a member of a camera Club and would like me to come along and talk to you one evening why not get in touch via my website finally the one thing we haven't talked about is calendars and I do a calendar every year I've done it for the last couple years and I give it to friends and family as a Christmas present and I'm gonna do one this year but it's going to be completely exclusive the only way that you're gonna be able to get your hands on one of my counters is to join my patreon scheme which I'm going to set up now I think patreon could be really helpful as I'm trying to establish myself as a photographer very very helpful in the early days to bring some income in and so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to create a patreon ski now I'm not sure of the levels that we're going to have but certainly the first level is gonna cost somewhere in the region of about 10 pounds a month and if you're signed up for my patreon scheme before the beginning of December then you were qualified to get a free copy of this year's calendar exclusive to my patreon members and if you're then subscribed for a further 12 months you will also get one free limited edition print I had a relatively good lie in this morning I didn't get out of bed until quarter past five and then it's about a half an hour drive to here at the car park Aeroforce near hose-water and then about a half an hour hike up to this point here which is ivy crag and to do just that little bit of work and get up here for this cloudy inversion this has had to have been one of the best mornings photography I have ever had [Music] [Music] [Music] with a photographer to share my experience and to share my knowledge and understanding of the Lake District today I have come out with a friend of mine I forgot your name it's without good friends no you're not so you look great

Channel: Chris Sale

Views: 16,320

Rating: 4.8400002 out of 5

Keywords: landscape photography, make money from landscape photography, earn a living as a landscape photographer, landscape photography workshops, landscape photography 1-2-1s, lake district landscape photography, landscape photography prints, commercial landscape photography

Id: m1pVqjfCAgM

Length: 17min 14sec (1034 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 24 2019