Is Travel Photography A Good Career? Sounds Lovely But What Is The Reality? Hi and welcome to Episode 83 of the Photography Explained podcast.
I’m your host Rick, and in each episode I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details. What I tell you is based on my lifetime of photographic experience. And not Google.
Before I go on if you have a question you would like me to answer just go to photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start
Here is the answery bit
Travel photography can be a career but there is tons of competition out there. To be successful in travel photography you need to be an excellent photographer, but more importantly excellent at marketing yourself and your excellent travel photos to the right people at the right time. The reality is that you can make some money from travel photography for sure, but I recommend that you have travel photography as part of a broader portfolio of products and services.
OK – that was my answer.
Who am I to talk about this stuff?
Well I am an architectural and construction photographer, and also a travel photographer. I am also the creator of multiple websites in the photography, travel, and travel photography sectors. And I am a serial traveller too so I know a bit about this.
Travel photographer - the dream
You turn up at a location, are welcomed by the client and off you go to take a set of stunning photos. In a couple of hours you are done then it is back to your swanky hotel room (paid for by the client) where you import the images to your shiny Mac, spend an hour editing and you are done.
Images transferred to the client, you stick your invoice in and slide off for a beer by the pool before a late lunch and a relaxing afternoon by the pool interrupted only by occasional social media behind the scenes shots being posted as and when you can be bothered.
Have a day off the next day (well you have earned it) and then it is off to the next location.
Rinse and repeat and life is sweet. The bank balance is great and you have unlimited stunning exotic resorts lined up demanding your skills.
You are so in demand you only need to do a couple of shoots per month, charging royally for the privelidge, and you are so well connected that you never pay the full price for anything.
That is living the travel photographer dream.
And for most people this is a dream.
The reality
Travel is hard work. Travel is tiring. Crossing time zones, packing, unpacking, going from place to place. Sure it is all exciting if you do it once or twice a year to go on holiday.
- But imagine if you did this all the time?
- If this was how you made your living?
- How long do you think you would last?
And photography is hard work too. It takes time, dedication, practise, and discipline to make money from photography. And you have to work to make yourself visible to people for them to find you, and then commission you to take photos for them for money.
Sorry but this is reality.
Is travel photography a good career?
Well there a couple of things to think about here.
Short answer is yes of course it can be. And let us not forget that you do not have to travel to some exotic place to take travel photos. Where you live is a travel location to someone somewhere else.
How do you make money from travel photography?
Well the competition is incredibly strong. Sure there is plenty of demand for great travel photography images but I suggest there are more people taking travel photos than there are people prepared to pay for them.
Online travel publications, travel companies, hotels, airlines, the travel industry in general, these are the people in the market for travel photos.
So it is very much a buyers market.
Can you make money selling photos online?
Sure you can, but you might not get anywhere near as much as you might have hoped. I have sold photos online, but not got that much for them.
Selling is the clever bit
Anyone in theory can take great travel photos. But not everyone can make money from them. That is the real clever bit. You have to be able to take great photos, but so many people can do that. But very few people are outstanding at sales and marketing of travel photos.
So that is where the clever bit is – the marketing and selling.
Have I put you off?
I hope not. There is tremendous demand for travel photos, but it is so hard to make good money from them.
Instagram is not real life for most of us
You know all those Instagram feeds showing endless luxurious, fantastic travel photos in exotic locations? That is not reality for most of us. If it was for me that would be great, but it is not.
I would wager that for every one of those there are a thousand, ten thousand, who knows feeds that have great travel photos that get very little attention.
Sorry but this is the reality.
Prove me wrong
If I am wrong let me know. If you are living the dream I described earlier get in touch and tell me how you did it. I will get you on my podcast and you can share your story with my listeners.
What do I do?
I have a number of travel and photography websites which I am working on to build up a solid platform. But this takes a lot of effort and a lot of time. But this is my chosen path.
This is part of my portfolio which covers travel, travel photography and also architectural photography. And of course this podcast which is just about photography stuff.
How much money do my websites make?
Not a lot. Not enough to give up my day job unfortunately. But I am plugging away at this and other things.
The talky bit
Being a travel photographer sounds like the dream job. I mean the dream job.
All those photos of those exotic locations. Now I am sure there are people living that very dream, but I bet there are not many of them.
As I said before, if you are one of them get in touch and share your secrets for success with me and my listeners.
But the reality of any commercial photography is somewhat different from what you might expect.
How much time does a commercial photographer spend actually taking photos? I would guess 5, 10, 20%. 20% if you are lucky and very busy.
Taking the photos is the culmination of everything up to that point, which will be a lot of time and effort. I won’t say blood sweat and tears, I hate that term. But a lot of hard work.
And if you chuck in all that travel then that is hard work too, and more time.
So being a travel photographer is probably not what you thought, hoped, or expected.
But it can as I said be part of a broader range of products, goods, and services.
Or you could just give it a go on holiday and see what you get. This is how I started off, and I still love doing this. I get a couple of times in a week to capture a sunrise, do a bit of exploring and generally enjoy myself.
And yes I do make a bit of money from travel photography but that is all, and I am fine with that.
One line summary
To make a career as a travel photographer you have to be a good photographer but an excellent marketer. The reality for most of us is that travel photography forms part of a broader range of things.
What’s next?
Photography Explained Podcast Episode 84 – 3/ 5/ 10/ 15/ 20 Not So Obvious Bonus Travel Photography Tips From Me To You – I have not written this post yet so the number is unknown.
Shout out
This episode shout out is to me. Well surely I have earned one?
I’m done
Thanks for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast. To find out more about my podcast and do stuff to help me check out Photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start.
Brought to you by
This episode was brought to you by me. Well why not.
I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to me and for giving me 10 (ish) minutes of your valuable time, and I will see you on the next episode.
Cheers from me Rick