Can You Make a Living with Photography?

Ah, the famous question everyone asks before giving up their precious free time to learn something new. “Can I make a living doing this?” Now, of course when it comes to photography, we all know of someone with the job title of ‘Photographer.’ Some of them display a lifestyle that tells us they are making good money, perhaps more than ourselves. However, others may have secondary jobs and photography can only be seen as a fun hobby. With this, you are sitting, interested in photography and asking yourself that dreadful question, “Can I make a living with photography.”

Let me tell you a little bit about my experience.

Photography started with an obsession. An obsession for being able to relive experiences. A desire to have something tangible from a memory to show those close to me. In 2015, at 19 years old, I was visiting Europe for the first time. I was competing in freestyle mountain bike competitions in Austria, France, and Switzerland while staying with an Italian mountain bike rider for just over 2 months. This trip was one of the most surreal times of my life. I found new friends of multiple nationalities who I connected with in ways I never thought possible. I pushed my athletic abilities to new heights and began discovering what I was truly capable of. Unfortunately, aside from a few iPhone photos and a couple of Instagram clips, I really don’t have much tangible evidence of this experience.

Disappointment.

That is what I felt. After returning home to California I got tired of repeating to my friends at home that I didn’t have photos to show them. I couldn’t show them who I met. I couldn’t show them the things I saw. This disappointment led me to pick up my dusty Canon Rebel out of my closet with the intention of documenting my next trip.

After a a few months of taking photos of anything and everything, I returned to Europe for another series of competition events— except this time, I brought my camera. At these events, when I wasn’t riding I was photographing. I was photographing the crowds, the interactions, the reactions and most importantly to me I was photographing the other riders doing their tricks. Because I am too a rider, and I know each of the others, I was able to communicate with them. I knew who would be doing what trick, which jump they would be doing it on, and which angle would work best. I was snapping away. When the event ended for the day I was already editing the images and getting them sent off to my fellow competitors. I began getting tagged over and over on Instagram. Though there were many professional photographers at the event, everyone was posting my images. Perhaps they were better, or perhaps it was that since I have a personal connection to them and talked to them about their tricks before the event the image meant more.

Whatever the reason was that they chose to post mine didn’t matter. What mattered is that this gave me a stronger connection with each of my competitors. Not only did they respect me as their competitor, they were grateful that I was giving them something tangible to remember the experience. I was putting them before me. Instead of simply enjoying what was happening around me, I was working. I was documenting. I was telling the story. All for free of course.

“All for free?”

I know, you thought this was about my experience making a living with photography. Well, It is. But what you need to understand first is, the idea of making a living is very subjective. Making a living for one person might be making enough money for a house, a car, good food, good drinks, a retirement, and all the weekend activities you want to do. However, for me, I just wanted to live.

I knew I wanted to continue competing, traveling and making new friendships and photography became my way of doing this. I began doing family photoshoots and occasional senior photos. I was probably making around $250 per shoot. But hey, one of these was more than a week at my part-time bike shop job. I was able to put this money aside to save up for trips. More photo sessions equaled more trips. And because I was taking pictures for everyone else on my trips, other opportunities began to arise. I began getting the opportunity to have a majority of my trip paid for to create content for other riders while I was gone.

My friends back home were so impressed with how much I was able to travel.

All the experiences I was having. They saw pure success. The truth was though, I was just getting by. I can guarantee each one of my friends was making more money than I was. They were stable, they were already thinking of their retirement, they had nice cars and they ate good food. What I had though, was freedom. I was perfectly fine breaking even at the end of the year. I was fine returning from a trip abroad with less than $100 dollars in my account.

I began shooting weddings. Weddings were a way to make more money in less time. But still I was breaking even. I was still breaking even because I wasn’t actually making more money. I was making the same amount of money, but working less. If I wanted to travel more, I either did more photography sessions, or I found a way to leverage photography to pay for the trip.

To me this WAS making a living.

I was literally, living. I was supporting my lifestyle with photography. Both with money and free time. Was I rich?

Absolutely not. However, I knew that I had room to grow if I needed. As time went on, my passion for photography just kept booming. I slowed my competitive riding and began doing more photography projects. This led to actual profit at the end of the year. I began making close to what all my friends were making. I got to eat the nice food and drink the nice drink. But best of all, I still had my freedom. Money isn’t everything to me. It’s all about experience. I’d rather take on a project that I am passionate about, one that would be an enjoyable experience, over a high paying project that is miserable.

To sum up this long answer to a short question; Yes, you can make a living with photography. You can make whatever kind of living you want. With photography, you can have freedom. Freedom to choose, freedom to do, and freedom to be.

-Nic Hilton

View my wedding photography website at nichilton.com