Even as you keep your eyes on a singular prize, it can sometimes pay to spread out your offerings to form a firm base.
As I write today’s article, I am simultaneously preparing for a big day tomorrow. Is it a massive photoshoot? No. Is it a dream meeting I’ve been trying to get for a decade? No. Instead, I am knee-deep preparing a syllabus for a part-time film course I’ll be teaching at a local college this coming semester, which begins tomorrow morning. Does this mean that I’ve traded in my camera and ridden off into retirement? Not at all. It’s only part-time. Rather, doing side gigs such as teaching is just one of many ways I have learned to diversify my income from photography and filmmaking over the years. These may not be the most exciting parts of my artistic career, but these little side ventures can be critical to sustaining me during inevitable downturns in the market while simultaneously freeing me from the trap of having to take assignments that don’t appeal to me.
I remember back when I used to have a regular day job in a cubicle, one of the many things that used to give me a sense of disappointment in myself was the fact that I wasn’t making 100% of my income from my camera. Even towards the tail end of my day job days, when I was regularly using my sick and vacation days to go off and shoot ad campaigns, my legitimate photo accomplishments felt illegitimate to me because I still had the comfort of my day job to return to. By the way, this is completely illogical and makes zero sense. I’m just explaining how I felt at the time.
So, a big part of the joy I felt when I finally decided to quit the day job and go out on my own was the feeling that finally I would be standing 100% on my own two artistic feet. Sink or swim, I could tell strangers in earnest that I was a “photographer” without having to qualify it by saying, “Well, I’m really in accounting, but I take pictures on the side.”
I’ve been fortunate since taking the jump to full-time photographer without a net to be able to continue to make my living from photo or commercial assignments, and my accountant can confirm that I am, in fact, a professional photographer/filmmaker. But I’ve learned other things during my time as a full-time photographer as well. I've learned harsh realities of the business we are in that the day-job version of me might have been aware of on a theoretical level, but the full-time photographer version of me has lived in real time. These harsh lessons have thankfully not caused me to cash in my chips yet and head back to the cubicle, but they have helped shape the way I approach my business as well as inspired me to build out the complete picture to have a more sustainable path.
Lesson One: The Business Is Cyclical
One of the things that has helped sustain me during hard times is the fact that hard times don’t last forever. Nothing lasts forever. And, no matter how dark times may seem at the moment, given enough time, things will turn around. Of course, the flip side to that is that good times don’t last forever either. One would think that, once you really hit your stride, it is a signal that it is all happily ever after from here. But the truth is that good times are not made to last either. This business is made up of constant rises and falls, falls and rises. Even the most successful photographers will go through fallow periods. And part of your duty during the good times is to stash away enough acorns to make it through the coming winter.
Having side income, whatever the source, may end up being crucial to you during such a low period. A period like…
Lesson Two: Expect The Unexpected
I’ve been writing for Fstoppers now for seven years and counting. An article a week. That is, well, that is a lot of spilled ink. It's definitely not my main source of income. Some months, it’s hardly much of an income at all. But every little bit helps when you are trying to sustain a freelance career. And those dollars count more during some times than others.
For instance, you may not remember this, but a couple of years ago, there was something called a global pandemic. That particular pandemic literally shut down production for most of the year and severely limited it for going on three years. Especially during those initial months, we (at least here in Los Angeles) were essentially forbidden from leaving our houses aside from essential tasks. This poses a bit of a problem when my business is built around gathering large groups of people into one area at a time to do a shoot. Well, it’s during times like this when having my side hustle writing for Fstoppers really paid off. It was something I could literally do without leaving my living room. It would in no way be able to replace the income lost from photoshoots, but it was essential in helping me survive during a time when all of us were suffering.
Lesson Three: Having To Say 'Yes' To Jobs You Don’t Want Isn’t All That Much Better Than Having a Day Job
I’m always stressing to readers that what you say “no” to as a photographer is often just as important as what you say “yes” to. This is not to say that you have to fall in love with every assignment that comes your way. This is work, after all. But, sooner or later, you will be offered an assignment or a chance to work with a specific client that goes completely against everything you stand for as an artist. Or financial hardship will force you to take a lowball offer well below your value just to make ends meet in a particular month. I’ve been in all three of those situations. And, from my experience, no matter how hard up for money you might happen to be at the time, saying “yes” to jobs because you feel you have no other choice is a recipe for disaster. Either one of two things will happen. You’ll make great art but feel ripped off because you accepted a lowball offer. Or, you’ll make plenty of money but be put into a situation to hate your own work because it doesn’t represent who you are or who you want to be. So, even if it's inconvenient, if it is at all possible, saying “no” to certain jobs can be crucial to your long-term success and sanity.
But, with that said, you can only do that if you are going to have a plan for where you will be making up that income. For example, the one single solitary positive thing about my day job days was that I never had to worry about where my next paycheck was coming from. So, I could focus solely on the work I wanted to do. Now that I am full-time as a freelance photographer, I don’t have a steady paycheck. But I do still have different avenues for income. Some as side jobs related to photography, such as teaching or writing, which I’ve discussed earlier. As an artist, I also work in three distinct areas: as a commercial photographer, as a commercial director/cinematographer, and as a narrative director and screenwriter. All three of those areas are freelance and thus subject to the same ups and downs I mentioned earlier. But because I can make money in any of the three, I will often find my income being derived more from one than another at any given moment. If one is slow, I lean more into another. When that slows down, I lean into one of the other two. None of the three are ever going to be truly stable in the way a day job would be. But I can combine the income from all three to give me more opportunities to bring in revenue as opposed to having all my proverbial eggs in one basket.
The specific ways in which you diversify your business will be unique to your situation. Perhaps you have multiple revenue strands that all fall under the umbrella of photography. Let’s say shooting advertising, weddings, and headshots under different brand names, for example. Or perhaps you choose to only make photography a small portion of your overall creative business model. Or maybe you say, "Screw it all," and just keep your day job and shoot only the commercial jobs that speak to you as an artist.
Best case scenario, of course, is that you make 100% of your income shooting exactly the type of work you want and having to do exactly zero activities beyond creating your art. I’ve been there. It’s glorious. But, even if that is your current reality, it is always worth building up additional revenue streams to add to the stability of your business. Best case scenario, you’ll never need to depend on those additional revenue streams, and you can blow the extra money on a big screen TV. Worst case scenario, they can step in to help keep you afloat when the world shifts in an unexpected direction.
Well said!