[cookiecaper]

I'm sure you're sick of getting asked this, since it's asked every time someone who makes some money from photography mentions it, as there are many wannabe photogs out there, but how do you monetize your photos? Stock photo marketplaces like Dreamtime? Event photography (i.e., getting paid to take photos and provide prints of said photos, not getting paid for photos directly)? Online marketplaces for more artistic-oriented photos like 500px?

Personally my photos provide indirect value. People don't pay for them, but they drive traffic to a property that people pay to use. I've dabbled with the concept of selling them directly or taking more stock-style photos, but never really gotten serious about it.

Again, I know this question is annoying, so if you don't wanna answer, no biggie. :)

[uniclaude]

Many people ask the question indeed!

I sell prints and license photos to a small list of corporate clients I slowly grew with time. I haven't been lucky with marketplaces so far, and I'm doubtful it would be worth the effort with my type of photography (abstract/achitecture).

Any monetization strategy is probably too tied to the corresponding style of photography for any generic advice to make sense. A few of my friends have their income coming mostly (or 100%) from photography, and not three of them monetize the same way. None of them use any marketplace though. Artists, fashion photographers, event photographers, social media content producers, all have a different business model which more often than not looks like classic b2b.

[stevekemp]

A lot of this comes down to your niche. As you say there are many people who are "photographers", and many many many more who would never pay and take their own with their phones.

I accidentally found a niche when I took some fun pictures of a friend who was an escort. She shared them, for advertising purposes, and that lead to my name being mentioned on an escort discussion forum. Since then people get in touch every now and again and I arrange to shoot them in exchange for cash.

Finding people willing to pay is definitely hard, but sadly my own route is pretty hard to generalise.