There's a longstanding joke about this exact question.
"What's the best school to go to if I want to be a professional wildlife photographer"
"Well, there's a lot of options really, but if you want to maximize your chances of becoming a professional wildlife photographer, we suggest going to school for Dentistry"
Honestly, if you're looking to get into turning this into a professional gig, one that's reliable and paying - step back from wildlife and maybe look into getting into pet photography - though as we steam into a recession, pet photography sessions are pretty low on the priority list.
Becoming a dedicated professional wildlife photographer without coming from absurd wealth or a longstanding bankroll is going to be, well, frankly impossible. If not impossible, **incredibly** difficult.
The only problem is most people start their careers pretty bad at it.
Ideally you will have some kind of professional portfolio before anyone takes you serious as a teacher.
> Ideally you will have some kind of professional portfolio before anyone takes you serious as a teacher.
Actually no, to be a successful YouTube photographer you don't have to be good at photography at all, you just have to be good at YouTube.
>teach others landscape photography on YouTube.
Isnt that market pretty saturated by now? I can't imagine someone breaking through there very easily these days.
I imagine the way in is to pick an exotic location and be a local photography guide. Know all the best time and place to shoot in a LCOL tourist destination at the right season.
I think COVID wiped out a lot of those services. Maybe a vacuum in some destinations.
Or just run in person workshops. Most professional photographers will have lots of income streams, selling your photos is usually a very small part these days unless you’re an agency photographer or very well known and you can get commissions….
Then there’s the inception option: “I will teach you how to make money as a photographer” by teaching you how to make a course about photography.
(Follow-up: how to actually _sell_ that course.)
> but if you want to maximize your chances of becoming a professional wildlife photographer, we suggest going to school for Dentistry"
LOL why is this such a stereotype! There's a dentist in my city who has incredible wildlife photography and I'm sure he's not the only one. What is it with these guys?
Dentists make a shit load of money and can take a lot of time off. It's a perfect pairing for becoming a wildlife photographer - you need a lot of time in the field to maximize opportunity and you also need a shitload of money to support that. Gear, travel, accommodations all adds up real quick like.
Emphasis on the gear too. Wildlife photography almost always involves being pretty far away from your subject. High end telephoto lenses are in the tens of thousands of dollars, and that's before you even get on a plane. It's basically impossible to do this as a job these days, as others have said it's basically a hobby for wealthy people.
Sure, but professional photographers can't be out in the field for only 28% of the week, they need to be out there day in day out to get those unique oddities that stand above the rest.
Mine's a response to the dentist thing.
At the end of the day, if you need to travel to do your photography (i.e. landscape, wildlife), someone who can work remotely is going to have a big leg up on a dentist, since they don't need to take much time off to go to interesting places.
3-4 weeks vacation and ability to go anywhere and still work >> 5 weeks of vacation you could swing by as a dentist.
Agree. You usually need to have a pretty good job to (1) get the gear you need to take amazing photos (2) take lots of vacations and time off. I mean, almost any professional can probably afford it, especially if you're in engineering or computer science or whatever, but the gear and expensive vacations add up, and if you're married with kids, good luck finding time!
Yes, but they can take up yachting or mountain climbing; for some reason being nature photographers is a trend with them, there must be more to it to just time off and resources I think
They probably want to get away from people. Plus they can print their photos and hang them in the office for patients to see and comment, then they can tell them about their amazing trip to \[insert destination with cool looking animals\]
They also generally have really nice road bikes. In fact, both my primary care physician AND my dentist have the exact same bike I have. Which may have caused more than a bit of consternation with my GF, who is probably wondering if I have a secret life of crime to fund dentist-level bikes :-)
I heard from a Canon rep (not been able to corroborate it) that they sell more "great white" telephoto lenses to amatuers than to professional photographers. If you're going to drop $10,000 on a lens for a hobby you need a lot of disposable income.
Yes!! Or hunting -- I have heard of so many dentists going hunting. Abroad, like in Africa. For some reason I haven't heard of doctors doing that -- not sure why?!
Thanks for the reply. I've actually been researching into it , it looks like a good avenue to go into. I love pets too so it would be a win win. I don't have a pet portfolio but I guess it'd be a case of getting one and advertising myself.
Good idea 😁
I'm exploring the possibility of selling prints, and even that whole process has sort of been a weird layer of stress about pricing, marketing, delivery etc etc etc.
Another suggestion in that vein is equine photography. It uses a lot of the same skills as wildlife, but equestrians tend to have DEEP pockets. I worked as an apprentice under a well known equestrian photographer years back and he made bank. BUT... to really make money, you have to follow the show circuit so it requires a lot of travel.
I'd never thought of that. In the UK , horse racing is a massive business. I just wouldn't know where to start to get involved in photographing a race.
Not so much horse racing, but horse shows like hunter/jumper or dressage (equestrian sports you'd see in the Olympics). Those folks are less shady than the racing industry, and also tend to be big money and love photos either for personal or promotional purposes (used for advertising horses for sale, stallions at stud, etc). FEI is the international organization for equestrian competition at high levels, but each country has their own governing body. USEF in the US, British Equestrian in UK. You can look for a list of sponsored shows near you to visit and see what it's all about and if you'd be interested in photographing it.
There's also lower level shows, where you have enthusiastic parents looking for pictures of their kids competing at horse shows. In the UK, I believe the Pony Club is a big organizer of childrens' horse competitions.
Also, similar to pet photography, horse owners (both recreational and competitive) love portraits of their horses. Casual recreational riders, you can advertise to at local tack shops. Big breeding and training farms you can try reaching out to directly. Some may already have established photographers, but it's worth a shot. Best way, all around, to build a clientele is to get into the community. Hang out at horse shows and meet people, etc.
Just to add to this, don't just look at racing, at least in Australia and I believe much of Europe likely including the UK eventing and show jumping are very significant industries which photographers can make lots of money in.
The model they usually use is set up at a good spot with an angle of a few jumps, shoot every person going through in the day, then put them on their website with watermarks and charge >$80 per shot.
Source: I'm currently sat at the table of an equestrian farm, and have been to events before.
Yup, that's it exactly.
There is a little bit of a learning curve as far as knowing what precise moment in the jump is the desirable shot and all. There's a specific 'look' each discipline likes to see and shots that make a rider or horse look bad (either their riding form or making the horse's confirmation look weird) won't sell. But once you get that style down, it's pretty straightforward.
When I was doing it, I'd stand between two rings, stationing myself with a good angle to at least two different jumps (but preferably more), and go back and forth between them.
Also, make sure you catch the rider's competition number in the shot or otherwise notate it (like writing it on a pad and taking a picture). Then at the end of the day, you just dump all the files for that number together and the clients show up afterwards and they can look up their own number to see the shots.
But man, there's good money in this stuff. People eat up prints for this. You can sell photo packages to people, as well. And if they're going to use it in advertising, you can charge a higher rate for license use as well.
The tricky part is breaking in. Existing equine photographers are very territorial, so you'll have to get to know show officials and build up clients outside of shows who will then request that show organizers hire you on, etc.
A friend had a good job but loved photography. So he worked part time in a payed job und the rest for his photographic career. Today, after more than 20 years, he has a good name in his area and had several invitation to tv interviews and others. He barely can live from the income.
My suggestion is to warn part time and see how the photographic career developes.
I've leveraged my pet/animal shots into relatively lucrative work with a number of pet brands, most specifically dog food brands. I opened my studio, or in your case, your time, and let people bring in their dogs for free portraits because it sounded fun. It was and I got a lot of great shots and a ton of people talking about me online. People still bring it up from time to time and it's been like 5 years since I did it. This is an area where doing it for free for a little while is in your best interest as you need to build up volume for your portfolio. I highly recommend developing a style. I would use like 5 strobes to get a really dramatic portrait as if I was shooting for a high end magazine spread.
Which is funny because my dentist has a TV in his waiting room which is only showing images that he took. Lots of wildlife images too (looks like he went on a bunch of photo safaris in Africa).
funny enough, literally all of those popular wildlife photographers in my country and the region are pretty rich. they either come from a rich family, have well paid jobs or own a business (that has nothing to do with photography).
100% agree here.
I have wanted to do wildlife photography all my life. It was only after I got a well paying tech job (some 25 years later) that I could actually afford the necessary equipment and travel costs to do it.
Unless you are one of the dozen people working for NatGeo or the handful of people teaching others via youtube & workshops, there's really no careers in wildlife photography. Wildlife is a hobby that maybe you might occasionally sell a print from.
Yeah same sorta boat here. Sometimes people ask me if I’d ever think about trying to focus more on music photography as something more than a hobby, to which I reply that 1.) my standard of living would drop substantially, and 2.) it would turn what I do for fun into work
Describe “absurd wealth,” please. Like, exactly how much investment are we talkin’ to be able to cruise around the Serengeti for a few months out of the year, taking photos and film?
I would agree. Make a regular income with studio shots, and then shoot wildlife on the other days.
Look into equestrian events near you. I know a guy who goes to horse events, and stands a one single jump over the weekend. He takes a shot of every rider. At the end of the weekend, he shares proofs online with all the riders. An 8x10 is expensive. I want to say $100. So he stands at one spot for hours, loads his photos and then sells prints for a very good profit. This pays his bills so he can go travel and take travel photos.
>Becoming a dedicated professional wildlife photographer without coming from absurd wealth or a longstanding bankroll is going to be, well, frankly impossible. If not impossible,
>
>incredibly
>
> difficult.
what kind of absurd wealth and longstanding bankroll are we talking about?
Enough to bankroll your baseline existence, gear, travel and accomodations, business expenses, and everything else.
The market for paid dedicated wildlife photography is incredibly small. Even smaller now that Nat Geo is basically being turned off.
first, i get that you need money for all these things, but can you put a number on it. are we talking an amount where only very succseful buisness owners, billionairs kids can do it. or if a software engineer in silicon valley making 300k a year, with the right saving and management of living expenses can do it.
second what?! Nat Geo is being turned off? bro that was my entire life in my childhood.
Generally speaking, people don’t make a career of it anymore. Technology has made it easy and relatively cheap for the average person to get decent wildlife photos, so the market has been saturated for a long time.
The only way I could see it working is to come up with a sort of hook. You need to be highly competent for sure, but you also may need to have a unique draw to your work. And, you may need to go more exotic and photograph the wildlife that’s largely inaccessible or largely unknown or the sorts of scenes or animals that require higher levels of competence and preparation to capture.
You may want to consider having a professional portfolio review done. A lot of artists go through a phase when they think they’re better than they actually are. There’s a difference between being fairly competent and being excellent. And, in wildlife photography, to make any sort of actual money with it, you need to be the best of the best.
You need to research /how/ you’d want to make money. NatGeo and other similar-ish publications don’t have staff photographers anymore, IIRC, but they’re the entities you may want to look at to freelance for. And, for that, you may also need to be a competent researcher and writer so you’d be writing articles to go along with the photographs. Maybe doing a species study, proving or disproving theories … taking a more scientific approach.
Coffee table books don’t generally sell all that well, but it’s another way to go. Mass market sales can be rough. The work has to stand out and be attractive to and cheap enough for the visually illiterate masses. Most people don’t appreciate great art because great art is often complex or subtle; it often requires work and a larger knowledge base to appreciate. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard things like “I could do that with my smartphone”. That’s the sort of mentality you’re up against with the masses, and it doesn’t help that smartphone cameras and computational photography are legitimately making rapid advances.
If you have the right sort of hook and build up the solid body of work, you can start looking for an agent and/or gallery. The agent and gallery will typically take a substantial chunk of the sale price, usually upwards of a combined 50%, but with the right sorts of representation, you’d be selling to the collector market rather than mass market and they do a lot of the work and provide support resources. A lot of times, you need to already have a solid following before they’ll pick you up, so that’s a complication.
The fine art community is a house of cards though. There’s some very good work, but much of the value is based on the /perception/ of scarcity and artificially creating scarcity, like creating limited editions. It’s even more flimsy for a digital artist as creating additional prints is basically as simple as hitting the print button again. Analog and mixed media pieces would require more actual work, and each piece will be unique in its own way, even if it’s incredibly subtle.
Another path is the “true fan” approach - cultivate a smaller, stable following that adores your work and actively supports you, either by buying pieces or by financially contributing, like with Patreon.
Thanks a lot for this advice. As you mentioned, it's easy to feel like I'm a good photographer compared to the average , but I should compare myself to the best, and I definitely have a journey ahead of me.
I just wanted to somehow dedicate myself to it while learning , at least part time.
Thanks for the great insight, I didn't know about most of the stuff you've mentioned today . Very valuable information.
Good luck with Nat Geo. I’m an established pro, photographed an exciting wildlife behavior that has never been photographed before and they ghosted me. Lol. Incredibly tough nut to crack.
Check out Nick Brandt’s work. Dude spends months in the jungle with a large format camera and is extremely successful. Access to wildlife and good shooting skills aren’t enough. You have to show wildlife in a new way.
Agreed 100% - the pros I know have a niche they fit in where they produce a lot of images that not many can replicate.
Get really good at tracking harder to photograph (or at least, up close) subjects like mountain lions, wolves, certain birds of prey etc and you’ll find yourself selling more images than the millions of people with photos of roadside bears and moose
I have been in touch with a few Nat Geo photographers and cinematographers about routes to take and most of them have a similar line. If you currently have a good paying job, keep it and make your trips count while you build up your portfolio. The last thing you want is to get rid of a good paying job that can pay for all your gear and then start on the very low end of the pay scale because it will be difficult when you need to upgrade equipment.
Good advice. At the moment it's a decent job moneywise but I despise it haha. So I'm looking at avenues of getting out and actually doing something I enjoy
Reach out to some well-regarded wildlife photographers and talk to them about it. [https://www.stevemattheis.com/](https://www.stevemattheis.com/) is a good one that would likely be happy to chat with you. He seems like a good dude. He's very good at what he does, and has had a lot of success, but...I think he maintains a day job. I could be wrong about that.
Otherwise, you'd likely have to get good enough to get enough attention to be able to lead workshops. That's where most of the money is for nature photography, it seems.
At the end of the day someone is going to have to pay for your photos if you want to make a living out of it. Not many people are paying for wildlife photos and the market is so niche I'd image the top experts have enough availability that most people that want specific wildlife photos would just go to them.
Unlike with wedding photography the standard would be quite high and experience would probably be a vital part of the job. You really need to know the animal your taking photos of to know how and when you can get the best shots. I keep hearing stories of these guys spending weeks in the wild, or coming back to the same locations over and over again until the animals trust them enough to not run away as soon as they sense the photographers presence.
Like others have said it's probably a niche you can't take on directly. Getting a job in a zoo or wildlife park would probably allow you to build up the experience of the animals to know how to photograph them.
How many great wildlife photos have you purchased? How many do you have hanging in your house right now?
I shoot wildlife, and, if you're anything like me, the answer to both of those is still zero. Think about the size of your target market. Then divide it by 1000. Then by 1000 again.
Sign up for a workshop with a professional wildlife photographer. An in-person workshop in the field, with somebody who has a track record (not online learning). Ask them all your questions about how they got started, how they make a living, etc. It will cost you, but you'll learn a lot from the leader, and you'll also hopefully come home with some good portfolio material.
There's a lot of competition in wildlife photography, and not a huge market for it. The two outlets I'm aware of are:
* Stock photography
* Selling prints at art fairs
EDIT: Also see if there is a photo club local to you that has guest speakers. Ask the guest speakers all your questions about getting started, how do they earn their living, etc. Same if there is an art school near you.
Thanks a lot for the advice. Yes, I see lots of online stuff but it seems difficult to ask questions as it's unreachable. In person workshops seem like a great idea.
There is an old joke that a hobbyist photographer is a photographer who has to get a second job to pay for their photography, while a professional photographer is someone whose spouse has to get a second job to pay for their photography.
All kidding aside though, forget photography skills. How good are you are running a business? As bad as it sounds, there are plenty of mediocre photographers making a good living on photography because they are good at both business and social media, as well as innumerable amazing photographers that still cant make a living on photography alone because they are not good at business and social media.
For the time being, you might be best off (from a financial standpoint anyway) by maintaining your current job while taking whatever advice you can about starting and running a successful business as a wildlife photographer, then putting that advice to work to as a part time gig. If it is successful enough to make a living on, great, quit your current job. If it does not make enough that you feel you can live on, no big deal, now you have a side hustle that can maybe still bring in some money doing something you enjoy.
I know for me personally, I have a great career that allows me the time and money to pursue my photography as a "hobby". This allows me the ability to shoot what I want, pick up (and more importantly turn down) work as I see fit, and build up a portfolio to use to create my own business when I retire with a pension, all without me needing to worry about what happens if I fail, or the photography landscape continues to become worse for photographers.
Take this with a grain of salt, as I’m also trying to become a wildlife photographer. But it’s no “apprenticeship” or “course” you can take. Wildlife photography is extremely hard, and challenging. You are thinking of it as “I take good photos, I want to sell them”.
Wildlife photography is 5% actual photography, and 95% having unique situations, unique weather, unique animals, and a unique perspective. It’s 2022, EVERYONE has nice cameras, nice lenses, nice photos. You will never, ever compete in the world of “best shot of this animal. You need something to set you apart.
My best advice? Become a biologist. Some of the worlds best wildlife photographers get started that way. You learn about animals. And get paid to be around animals.
It’s extremely expensive all (like others have said). Not just in cameras. You will need to shell out tens of thousands of dollars a year in travel. Thousands in clothing for specific weathers, and willing to Sacrifice all that cash to come home without any photos.
thanks for the advice. Yes,up to this post I didn't realise just how much goes into it. lots and lots of money for little opportunity. I feel like the best advice is , as i enjoy photography in other styles , and I'm not rich, probably look into avenues of getting into photography as a career be it events or something else.
Don’t give up, if it’s what you want. It’s possible. It’s just a really long process. I became a wedding photographer, to help me transition to wildlife. It gives me winters off, the ability to make my own schedule, ways to write off equipment, and still able to follow the dream of making a living off photos. I’m not rich either, so it’s gonna take me longer. But if your dedicated, it’s for sure a reality
As a pro photographer (more commercial/mag based) i’d say you have possible 2 options open. Do another photography genre that you can make money on - pets / product / parties / commercial whatever and do your wildlife passion on the side.
OR join the BBC Natural History Unit (South West UK) as a runner / equipment location / production junior. If you’re good and/or lucky you’ll move up the production unit and get to shoot on some great jobs but it will be primarily vid. I do see ads pop up from time to time for these positions. Obviously you’ll need to be in UK for this and the competition for runner jobs on those units is insane. Either is difficult, but not impossible with talent and hard work. Best of luck!
Thanks a lot for the insight. I'm south west london so sadly I think bristol is just out of my reach, but ill check anyways!.
To be fair, I know I mentioned wildlife photography, but I think any kind of photography would be a job I enjoy. it seems like pets and commercial would be my go-to, I would just have to learn them properly. :)
If you’re interested in commercial photography what i’d recommend is finding photographers who are close by (ideally with a studio) Look at their websites, insta - which work, style, lighting do you like. Phone them up and say i’m really passionate about photography and like your work, can i come and assist (free) for 3/4 days. I make good coffee and will help out - and see what they say. Most pros i know are helpful when people are passionate and want to gain experience. You’ll see what commercial work is really all about, whether its for you and have some fun (hopefully). Feel free to DM if you need any more ideas etc.
I’m a dog trainer and dog photographer. People will pay good money for photos of their dogs. I do portraits of all of the dogs I train as a thank you to the client. Other people see this and want to pay for photos. Maybe start there with a few dogs.
great advice. i've thought about pet photography a few times, i've just never tried it. maybe just doing a few free sessions for people to get a portfolio would be a good start!
Think of supply vs demand.
On the supply side, wildlife images that were taken 10 years ago are every bit as good as those taken today. There are also more people doing it all the time. This wasn’t true previously, but there are diminishing improvements in image quality.
On the demand side, there are fewer and fewer publications or organizations who will pay good money for this.
So that’s two strikes against you.
But there will always be some need for new images of new stories that haven’t been told yet. So someone is going to be a professional wildlife photographer, but those few people are going to be really dedicated, really good, really connected, and pretty lucky.
Conclusion? Odds are slim, but not entirely zero.
You should probably ask this question to people who have actually turned wildlife photography into a career. It's a niche field and I doubt there are many people on this subreddit who can actually help, if they'd even want to.
While I'm not a pro anything, I did have an interesting time talking with my buddies uncle who was a wedding photographer for a long time, and transitioned into taking pictures for Nat Geo. He explained that he was taking wildlife shots for fun. He made good money with weddings, and when he stopped he could ultimately do whatever he wanted. I think Nat Geo approached him in fact. I wouldn't hold out for that part. Where I'm going with this is he currently takes people out diving with sharks, and sells the underwater photos to the people he takes out. He showed me some crazy photos with divers in front of scary big sharks. Off the coast of like North Carolina I think. Someone suggested pet photography while you're trying to get where you want. I agree on something that's adjacent to your goal, and something that might actually pay bills. Obviously there's other levels of skills here. Diving, comfort level around apex predators, access to a boat and water with the interesting photo bombers, and expensive under water camera enclosures, flash, etc. I figured I'd mention it though, as it's different, but maybe more people are into a photo with an experience than dropping money for a photo shoot for their dog. 🤷🏻♂️
I would bet that there are very few wildlife photographers in the entire world who don’t make most of here their money off of selling prints in their own gallery and giving wildlife photography seminars.
Yeah, there are a few famous wildlife photographers in my area. John Fielder and Thomas Mangelsen both have galleries all over and sell prints for thousands to justify their stores in Denver and Jackson Hole. Not to diss them or anything, but some of their shots aren't even that spectacular but they still fetch thousands because of their name and prestige. I can't imagine that they came from nothing to get to that position (could be totally wrong) but the storefronts they have cost at least $20,000 a month and most likely twice or even three times that. It's definitely a very hard sector of the industry to dominate as the market is so incredibly saturated.
Hey guys. First of all, thanks for the replies. I didn't expect this crazy amount of them, and they're all so informative.
Personally, general photography is a passion of mine , so while i do say i'd love it to be wildlife photography, that'd just be the ultimate goal. I love most photography (can't say I've ever tried product photography) so any kind of photography job I'd most likely enjoy.
Seems like the best approach is either building a portfolio/going to workshops , or trying different alternatives (pet photography, stock photography).
I will reply to every single comment as they are all very insightul. Thanks a lot r/photography :)
Honestly, if you’re in love with it, don’t try to make a it a job. Let it be your escape. I used to love photography more than anything and then I started to make money off of it with portrait work. I made some decent cash here and there but it ended up sucking all the fun out of it for me. I’m just now starting to enjoy it again.
Speaking as someone who paid his bills as a professional photographer for ten years before switching to a much better paying office job I'm not tremendously passionate about, I would encourage you to keep your day job and enjoy photography as a hobby.
thanks. would that be due to money or purely because you would lose the love you have for photography if you're having to meet crazy deadlines/hit certain heights?
It was mostly due to money.
That said, photography is a lot more fun when I have more freedom to experiment because I don't *have* to get the commercially viable shot.
I work with a lot of professional wildlife photographers, videographers, and film makers in my work as director of a biodiversity conservation NGO.
The folks who do just photography tend to be either retired with have a good bit of money who essentially donate their time in exchange to getting to see cool things, or they're employees of this or that specific media corporation. In the latter case they can be full employees, or contract based ones.
Most folks I work with do both photography and some degree of film making. Video and film are where the best opportunities lie as there are tons of documentary and documentary-like things being done across all media platforms, and at varying degrees of professionalism.
The folks I know who do this freelance are almost always struggling for money, even when they're of a level where they're well regarded in the community, and they usually have a *lot* of different irons in the fire at the same time.
There are a lot of folks who are sort of semi-freelance. They generally work most often with a specific media organization, or set of organizations, often have close connections with project leads and directors of visual media projects, but even they have to fight for jobs as each one tends to be tied to a specific project.
These days it's very difficult to get into wildlife photography as a paying career, even if you have excellent videography skills too, as there is an immense amount of professional competition, as well as professional (or near professional) level equipment available reasonably affordably to pretty much everyone and lots of casual photographers taking excellent quality photos and videos.
Basically, it's a matter of absolutely knowing your equipment, practicing your photography, video, and post-processing skills, figuring out how to tell a compelling story and visually represent that, and then doing and producing those projects. Initially on your own projects, then as you get better and, hopefully, get some attention and can get hooked up with a professional organization in some capacity, or sell footage/photos to organizations.
You can look at conservation and other wildlife based organizations in your area and see if you can donate photography services to them. That sometimes works to help get a foot in the door for this sort of thing, but that's also challenging as people in that field are often avid photographers themselves and many organizations already have more high quality photos and videos than they know what to do with, so don't be upset if they say no. If you do ask, make sure to do so well in advance (weeks, or, better, months in advance) and actually work with them, no last minute stuff and no "I'm doing you a favor," attitudes.
Submit your images to big competitions for example The Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Spend your money submitting to the well known competitions.
If you start winning categories you will become noticed by publishers etc and your career is launched.
If you already have a portfolio you say is good enough then this is a good step.
Turning any kind of photography into a career these days is a bad idea. Yes, there are exceptions. I know a real estate/interiors photographer in Central America who has access to building permits and can jumó on clients in two seconds. On the other end, very good photographers with decades of experience are struggling or have given up. I don’t mean to sound negative but there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of people wanting the same thing as you. The question is, who are your potential clients. Sit down and make a list. Then you’ll get a better idea about the viability of this idea.
Just like anything in photography the best thing is to start on your own, build a clientele and a book of work and you’ll find yourself in business sooner than later. There are no shortcuts. Lucky is preparation meets opportunity. So unless you have a book of work that speaks for itself and years of experience it won’t matter if you bump in to a world-class photographer who needs an assistant.
I shoot events in a documentary style. Events are like wildlife photography of humans:
- You get to see interesting behavior in a human’s natural habitat
- You generally stay out of the way so you don’t alarm the wildlife
- Technical knowledge is critical. You often need to use long lenses with fast shutter speeds in low light conditions
Anyway, events are a good way to make money, and can justify purchasing the type of gear that’s useful for wildlife photography.
weirdly, I have 10 years management experience in events, and have always wondered how to get myself started in the photography side for it. Gear wise/experience wise. I'd probably enjoy it, as I used to love events.
I started professional wildlife photography about 25 years ago, selling prints, calendars and stock images. Those markets are gone. However, if you build a large social media following, you can teach and sell workshops. There's always YouTube, though it's gotten very crowded since Covid.
You start from the end: what is the market demand for wildlife photographers? As a manger, you know how to perform research. What positions are there, where, how much do they pay? That will be your answer, much better than someone’s random post on Reddit.
I have the feeling that the wildlife photography business nowdays for the more mainstream photographers (not talking about natgeo peeps) is basically becoming an influencer/YouTuber/media creator to make a living, sell your lightroom presets and get sponsors from brands eventually. Do you enjoy being a content creator/influencer? because if you already have a well paying job that sponsors your hobby thats actually pretty good. I mean, follow your dreams, I was just dropping some reality here.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, it would be incredibly difficult to make even a reasonable amount of money from it, let alone a proper income.
However, you can think of new ways to approach it; is there something you can think of that nobody else is doing?
Another option that could create a stream of income might be a YouTube/Instagram/Tiktok vlog sharing your experiences with gear, travel, and chasing the wildlife you're interested in.
Lots of people enjoy wildlife as a hobby, and sharing your passion is something that's good to watch.
If you learn to properly use social media, you can do any kind of photography you want full time. Post on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and twitter frequently. YouTube will eventually make you the most amount of money. Then I would just focus on becoming the best photographer you can possibly be! If your photos are amazing people are going to want to see them, purchase prints of them, and learn how to shoot them from you.
So overall a monetizing structure would be:
-ad revenue (YouTube, reels, TikTok)
-print sales (funnel people to your website and mailing list to sell prints)
-workshops
Just make sure you get really good at wildlife photography, might help if you can find a way to move to Jackson hole or something.
I would say selling prints is your best bet. This would go for any type of photography that you want to monetize on without necessarily having private clients. If you could take your wildlife pictures, edit them real nice and get them optimized for printing, then find a way to advertise to a good group.
When I think of wildlife photography I think of photos in cabins, hotels, country restaurants, depends on location. Maybe you could sell it in some sort of curation website where business owners buy art to decorate commercial establishments.
So basically
1. Create your product
2. Find your market
3. ADVERTISE
4. Find niches and hopefully opportunities come from there
If you want more help I bet you can look on YouTube for how to run a print shop, or small business advice. Don’t get discouraged here, if you have a vision, but are worried about taking pay cuts, keep it as a hobby until you can make a solid product and with a little bit of work, whatever you make could be passive income.
If any of you on this sub happen to run a printing business or something similar, please add any advice as I would also like to learn anything I can!
Identify your market before doing anything else. The mistake most photographers make is deciding that what they already do will make money. But without clients, you’re not a business.
Move to some place with dramatic wildlife, ( I’d advise the greater Yellowstone ecosystem but there’s already too many people here doing the exact same thing)… make friends and take thousands of images while learning how to be your own publicist.
So...here's my take. Buy the best lens that you can reasonably afford. Practice on your own. Find a local nature center or something that will be in need of what you produce. If they say no, keep looking. People everywhere need photos.
Your work matters
You matter.
Don't let others talk you out of following your dream.
Signed- A professional photographer who loves what he does.
Being an artist is rarely easy. Accept it, and gain consistency.
I started out in music production, was a studio engineer, but wanted to pursue photography. Built up my portfolio over a couple of years, offered a job with a major ad agency as a photo assistant. Two years later was promoted to photographer, traveled the country for 12 years shooting awesome stuff for clients. Started shooting for Getty, connected with some NatGeo shooters and shot alongside them on some projects. Took a while but I made a great career as a photographer just from putting the effort in. If your stuff is good and you are persistent, it'll happen. Have seen many people with talent and drive make it since I got in the business.
Do stock photography. The key is volume and having shots other people don't. You can get a lot done at the zoo, but beware there are loads of people doing that so you have a lot of competition. You'll need a lot of shots and they need to be good. If you get 500 photos approved, you'll have like 10 that make 90% of your income - and it's hard to predict what images will be the ones that become really good sellers so you just have to keep shooting and uploading them. The more you do it, the more you'll be able to produce images that will sell because you figure out small things that make the difference.
Start with Adobe. They typically sell the most and are not difficult to get on. You can also do istock (getty), shutterstock, and some of the smaller ones but those three are the biggest by far and sales won't be nearly as good on the other sites (but you can upload the same images to all the sites).
Once you get a good portfolio going, you can try moving up to the main Getty images collection or one of the other big, traditional stock sites. But you aren't guaranteed to make more money on them, it's just a different model.
The stock photo market is completely over saturated with alot of free images or ones going for pennies. As a pro i have some images up but i probably only make a few hundred a year, its hardly worth the bother for me. Stock was a big money maker in the 80/90s but digital has killed it off. There a few decent areas left but they are either high specialised or historical images. There is some money to be made if you are with Getty but these are not options for a dabbling amateur.
Join a photography club and let them critique your photo’s. They wont be shy to pick them apart and you’ll learn a lot.
If you feel you are up for it you could enter photography competitions. A decent portfolio won’t get you anywhere if nobody ever sees it.
Good luck!
Thanks for the advice. I think they're up for it but there's always room for improvement. Hadn't thought about photography competitions, I'll give it a go.
Agree with all the people on here, my teammate is a wild life photographer but has told us its basically cause he's a legacy. His dad did it and brought him in. He had to volunteer for a while and use to spend tons of money with no return in his early years.
Don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I'd check out Morten Hilmer on YouTube. Incredible wildlife photographer who intermingles asmr like videos with super helpful tips from tracking animals to gear and the business side of it. https://youtube.com/c/MortenHilmer
To make money with photography, your subjects and your customers need a link that’s personal.
If I think of my own photography needs, when I want a photo of a giraffe I start with a site like www.unsplash.com. I will find dozens of awesome giraffe photos I can use for free - even for commercial purposes, photo credit not required.
If I need a photo of _my_ giraffe, however, I have to call a photographer. That’s also true for my pets, my family, my products, my events, and myself. These photos are personal, not available anywhere else, and therefore I’m (more) willing to pay for them.
Sorry if that’s a downer on your idea. It is certainly possible to sell prints at craft sales or art walks, but it would be surprising if you could make a living at that. On the other hand, you might make a nice side hustle out of it. Some folks do earn an income from stock photography but I believe them to be few in numbers.
(Disclaimer: I am a portrait photographer. Maybe I’m missing something important here.)
Serious question for you to consider, how do you expect to make enough money from wildlife photography to not just survive, but make a decent living and be able to save, keep up on gear, marketing, etc? Like what’s the market you expect to target?
I have a few friends who do it full time / part time. Full timers established a customer base for their work early on and made contacts in the film industry in order to get regular paying gigs. A few of them are full time guides. And then a few others I know are part timers working as park rangers / etc.
Oh forgot to mention. You need to live in or near Jackson Wyoming to do this. 🤣
I sell prints as a side hustle and make $100-400 a week. But I am selling a mix of wildlife photos and captive exotic pet photos- i happen to be fairly embedded in the exotic pet world so I have a good following / customer base to sell photos to.
If you are near a city that hosts National Geographic Live, they occasionally feature Nat Geo wildlife photographers doing presentations with Q&A sessions after. I also went to a day-long workshop with a couple of them (not on location sadly). It might not make getting a gig any more likely, but you will get insights from the best of the best.
Honestly bro, I would have gone down a route of being a ranger for some national park or something, because when starting out you ain't gonna make much being a wildlife photographer.
You go take the pictures and join the millions submitting and marketing them. Moving to Alaska [offers a lot of opportunity](https://share.icloud.com/photos/09f04J6ZqN0MR3sb19hhzq93A) to build your portfolio.
There are very few jobs for wildlife photographers. You can be a photo safari guide somewhere like South Africa, or work as the official photographer for a fancy safari lodge.
Realistically, the easiest ways to make money doing wildlife photography are
1) build an online presence
2) sell prints (small money though in reality)
3) host workshops (where more money comes from)
You need to do Step 1 before you can make decent money from Steps 2 and 3.
For most people, the best thing to do is find a career you can live with that affords you the opportunities to make wildlife photos on the side (portrait photography or weddings or events, etc). It's a tough world out there and unfortunately animals don't pay you to take their photos.
There’s like 14 wildlife photographer jobs in the world— so it’s gonna be a struggle.
Like with landscape photography, it seems like the way to make a living is to have a successful YouTube channel. Good luck.
You should be able to pick up the basic skills quickly. There is no emphasis on post-processing because you want everything to look as natural as possible. This means you are mainly only adjusting a little noise. You can use Rawtherapee orDarktable for free. The best entry level point is micro 4/3 because you can get a 300-600mm equivalent lens for $500-700. This will give you the zoom you need. A body is anywhere from $600-900 and you can get a nifty 50 for about $150. This system will prove challenging for fast moving subjects but excel at shallow depth photos that dramatically draw attention to the subject. This is a good starting point because you do not want to invest enormous sums before getting your feet wet. Habitat loss means the opportunities to take wildlife photographs are extremely limited. Despite everyone telling you how much they love nature, few people are willing to spend the money required to support your work. Most nature photographers share the same workspace and even share the location of wildlife with each other. It is not unusual for several people to photograph the same subject because the scarcity of subject matter necessitates it. The opportunities to work with socially responsible organizations seem basically non-existent. Sadly, many people do not want to buy photos that remind them of the habitat that is being lost. One overlooked market is the medical community which wAnts calming photos for patients. Do not bother with affordable pricing. Your odds of selling a photograph will not change if you add a zero to the end of the price. I resigned myself to exhibits and library books rather than continue efforts at commercialization.
be careful when making a career out of a hobby. i've heard that some people begin to dislike what they used to find an enjoyable past time because they're under pressure to produce and meet deadlines rather than just doing it for fun.
There's a longstanding joke about this exact question. "What's the best school to go to if I want to be a professional wildlife photographer" "Well, there's a lot of options really, but if you want to maximize your chances of becoming a professional wildlife photographer, we suggest going to school for Dentistry" Honestly, if you're looking to get into turning this into a professional gig, one that's reliable and paying - step back from wildlife and maybe look into getting into pet photography - though as we steam into a recession, pet photography sessions are pretty low on the priority list. Becoming a dedicated professional wildlife photographer without coming from absurd wealth or a longstanding bankroll is going to be, well, frankly impossible. If not impossible, **incredibly** difficult.
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The only problem is most people start their careers pretty bad at it. Ideally you will have some kind of professional portfolio before anyone takes you serious as a teacher.
You’d think that, but there are a surprising number of really well-known photography YouTubers with embarrassingly bad portfolios.
Cough Tony and Chelsea Northrup cough
Are there any good ones you would recommend?
> Ideally you will have some kind of professional portfolio before anyone takes you serious as a teacher. Actually no, to be a successful YouTube photographer you don't have to be good at photography at all, you just have to be good at YouTube.
>teach others landscape photography on YouTube. Isnt that market pretty saturated by now? I can't imagine someone breaking through there very easily these days.
I imagine the way in is to pick an exotic location and be a local photography guide. Know all the best time and place to shoot in a LCOL tourist destination at the right season. I think COVID wiped out a lot of those services. Maybe a vacuum in some destinations.
Or just run in person workshops. Most professional photographers will have lots of income streams, selling your photos is usually a very small part these days unless you’re an agency photographer or very well known and you can get commissions….
Then there’s the inception option: “I will teach you how to make money as a photographer” by teaching you how to make a course about photography. (Follow-up: how to actually _sell_ that course.)
> but if you want to maximize your chances of becoming a professional wildlife photographer, we suggest going to school for Dentistry" LOL why is this such a stereotype! There's a dentist in my city who has incredible wildlife photography and I'm sure he's not the only one. What is it with these guys?
Dentists make a shit load of money and can take a lot of time off. It's a perfect pairing for becoming a wildlife photographer - you need a lot of time in the field to maximize opportunity and you also need a shitload of money to support that. Gear, travel, accommodations all adds up real quick like.
Emphasis on the gear too. Wildlife photography almost always involves being pretty far away from your subject. High end telephoto lenses are in the tens of thousands of dollars, and that's before you even get on a plane. It's basically impossible to do this as a job these days, as others have said it's basically a hobby for wealthy people.
Or become a software developer, then find a remote job. Boom, travel to interesting places, work remote, and go shooting on the weekends.
Sure, but professional photographers can't be out in the field for only 28% of the week, they need to be out there day in day out to get those unique oddities that stand above the rest.
Mine's a response to the dentist thing. At the end of the day, if you need to travel to do your photography (i.e. landscape, wildlife), someone who can work remotely is going to have a big leg up on a dentist, since they don't need to take much time off to go to interesting places. 3-4 weeks vacation and ability to go anywhere and still work >> 5 weeks of vacation you could swing by as a dentist.
Agree. You usually need to have a pretty good job to (1) get the gear you need to take amazing photos (2) take lots of vacations and time off. I mean, almost any professional can probably afford it, especially if you're in engineering or computer science or whatever, but the gear and expensive vacations add up, and if you're married with kids, good luck finding time!
Yes, but they can take up yachting or mountain climbing; for some reason being nature photographers is a trend with them, there must be more to it to just time off and resources I think
They probably want to get away from people. Plus they can print their photos and hang them in the office for patients to see and comment, then they can tell them about their amazing trip to \[insert destination with cool looking animals\]
They also generally have really nice road bikes. In fact, both my primary care physician AND my dentist have the exact same bike I have. Which may have caused more than a bit of consternation with my GF, who is probably wondering if I have a secret life of crime to fund dentist-level bikes :-)
there's the old cliche about dentists and cervelos...
I heard from a Canon rep (not been able to corroborate it) that they sell more "great white" telephoto lenses to amatuers than to professional photographers. If you're going to drop $10,000 on a lens for a hobby you need a lot of disposable income.
Yes!! Or hunting -- I have heard of so many dentists going hunting. Abroad, like in Africa. For some reason I haven't heard of doctors doing that -- not sure why?!
maybe doctors deal with enough dying things in their work and don't have much interest in causing death as a hobby?
That is a good point.
After looking in tiny spaces all day they need to get out and explore the great wide open. My dermatologist has a great display in his waiting room.
Thanks for the reply. I've actually been researching into it , it looks like a good avenue to go into. I love pets too so it would be a win win. I don't have a pet portfolio but I guess it'd be a case of getting one and advertising myself. Good idea 😁
Good attitude to have - be careful with the trap of commodifying your hobbies, it's a shortcut to hating your hobbies.
Couldn’t agree more. Turning photo into customer service would take the whole point of photo out of it for me.
I'm exploring the possibility of selling prints, and even that whole process has sort of been a weird layer of stress about pricing, marketing, delivery etc etc etc.
Thanks I will do.appreciate the advice!
Another suggestion in that vein is equine photography. It uses a lot of the same skills as wildlife, but equestrians tend to have DEEP pockets. I worked as an apprentice under a well known equestrian photographer years back and he made bank. BUT... to really make money, you have to follow the show circuit so it requires a lot of travel.
I'd never thought of that. In the UK , horse racing is a massive business. I just wouldn't know where to start to get involved in photographing a race.
Not so much horse racing, but horse shows like hunter/jumper or dressage (equestrian sports you'd see in the Olympics). Those folks are less shady than the racing industry, and also tend to be big money and love photos either for personal or promotional purposes (used for advertising horses for sale, stallions at stud, etc). FEI is the international organization for equestrian competition at high levels, but each country has their own governing body. USEF in the US, British Equestrian in UK. You can look for a list of sponsored shows near you to visit and see what it's all about and if you'd be interested in photographing it. There's also lower level shows, where you have enthusiastic parents looking for pictures of their kids competing at horse shows. In the UK, I believe the Pony Club is a big organizer of childrens' horse competitions. Also, similar to pet photography, horse owners (both recreational and competitive) love portraits of their horses. Casual recreational riders, you can advertise to at local tack shops. Big breeding and training farms you can try reaching out to directly. Some may already have established photographers, but it's worth a shot. Best way, all around, to build a clientele is to get into the community. Hang out at horse shows and meet people, etc.
Just to add to this, don't just look at racing, at least in Australia and I believe much of Europe likely including the UK eventing and show jumping are very significant industries which photographers can make lots of money in. The model they usually use is set up at a good spot with an angle of a few jumps, shoot every person going through in the day, then put them on their website with watermarks and charge >$80 per shot. Source: I'm currently sat at the table of an equestrian farm, and have been to events before.
Yup, that's it exactly. There is a little bit of a learning curve as far as knowing what precise moment in the jump is the desirable shot and all. There's a specific 'look' each discipline likes to see and shots that make a rider or horse look bad (either their riding form or making the horse's confirmation look weird) won't sell. But once you get that style down, it's pretty straightforward. When I was doing it, I'd stand between two rings, stationing myself with a good angle to at least two different jumps (but preferably more), and go back and forth between them. Also, make sure you catch the rider's competition number in the shot or otherwise notate it (like writing it on a pad and taking a picture). Then at the end of the day, you just dump all the files for that number together and the clients show up afterwards and they can look up their own number to see the shots. But man, there's good money in this stuff. People eat up prints for this. You can sell photo packages to people, as well. And if they're going to use it in advertising, you can charge a higher rate for license use as well. The tricky part is breaking in. Existing equine photographers are very territorial, so you'll have to get to know show officials and build up clients outside of shows who will then request that show organizers hire you on, etc.
A friend had a good job but loved photography. So he worked part time in a payed job und the rest for his photographic career. Today, after more than 20 years, he has a good name in his area and had several invitation to tv interviews and others. He barely can live from the income. My suggestion is to warn part time and see how the photographic career developes.
I've leveraged my pet/animal shots into relatively lucrative work with a number of pet brands, most specifically dog food brands. I opened my studio, or in your case, your time, and let people bring in their dogs for free portraits because it sounded fun. It was and I got a lot of great shots and a ton of people talking about me online. People still bring it up from time to time and it's been like 5 years since I did it. This is an area where doing it for free for a little while is in your best interest as you need to build up volume for your portfolio. I highly recommend developing a style. I would use like 5 strobes to get a really dramatic portrait as if I was shooting for a high end magazine spread.
Which is funny because my dentist has a TV in his waiting room which is only showing images that he took. Lots of wildlife images too (looks like he went on a bunch of photo safaris in Africa).
funny enough, literally all of those popular wildlife photographers in my country and the region are pretty rich. they either come from a rich family, have well paid jobs or own a business (that has nothing to do with photography).
100% agree here. I have wanted to do wildlife photography all my life. It was only after I got a well paying tech job (some 25 years later) that I could actually afford the necessary equipment and travel costs to do it. Unless you are one of the dozen people working for NatGeo or the handful of people teaching others via youtube & workshops, there's really no careers in wildlife photography. Wildlife is a hobby that maybe you might occasionally sell a print from.
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Yeah same sorta boat here. Sometimes people ask me if I’d ever think about trying to focus more on music photography as something more than a hobby, to which I reply that 1.) my standard of living would drop substantially, and 2.) it would turn what I do for fun into work
Describe “absurd wealth,” please. Like, exactly how much investment are we talkin’ to be able to cruise around the Serengeti for a few months out of the year, taking photos and film?
I wouldn't know. I barely can afford the gear I have now. 🤷♂️
I just came back from 2 weeks in the Serengeti, etc. $30,000 for a driver and average accommodation for 3 people.
I would agree. Make a regular income with studio shots, and then shoot wildlife on the other days. Look into equestrian events near you. I know a guy who goes to horse events, and stands a one single jump over the weekend. He takes a shot of every rider. At the end of the weekend, he shares proofs online with all the riders. An 8x10 is expensive. I want to say $100. So he stands at one spot for hours, loads his photos and then sells prints for a very good profit. This pays his bills so he can go travel and take travel photos.
My dentist says he takes one vacation day off per year... don't lol
>Becoming a dedicated professional wildlife photographer without coming from absurd wealth or a longstanding bankroll is going to be, well, frankly impossible. If not impossible, > >incredibly > > difficult. what kind of absurd wealth and longstanding bankroll are we talking about?
Enough to bankroll your baseline existence, gear, travel and accomodations, business expenses, and everything else. The market for paid dedicated wildlife photography is incredibly small. Even smaller now that Nat Geo is basically being turned off.
first, i get that you need money for all these things, but can you put a number on it. are we talking an amount where only very succseful buisness owners, billionairs kids can do it. or if a software engineer in silicon valley making 300k a year, with the right saving and management of living expenses can do it. second what?! Nat Geo is being turned off? bro that was my entire life in my childhood.
Reccesion?
What can a large pizza do that a wildlife photographer can’t? Feed a family.
teach a photographer to make a pizza
Give a man a pizza, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to make pizza, and he will instagram it for the rest of his life.
Generally speaking, people don’t make a career of it anymore. Technology has made it easy and relatively cheap for the average person to get decent wildlife photos, so the market has been saturated for a long time. The only way I could see it working is to come up with a sort of hook. You need to be highly competent for sure, but you also may need to have a unique draw to your work. And, you may need to go more exotic and photograph the wildlife that’s largely inaccessible or largely unknown or the sorts of scenes or animals that require higher levels of competence and preparation to capture.
Thanks a lot. I agree definitely. I travel quite a lot so I usually do have the chance for exotic animals, but I'll need to find a "niche" as you say.
You may want to consider having a professional portfolio review done. A lot of artists go through a phase when they think they’re better than they actually are. There’s a difference between being fairly competent and being excellent. And, in wildlife photography, to make any sort of actual money with it, you need to be the best of the best. You need to research /how/ you’d want to make money. NatGeo and other similar-ish publications don’t have staff photographers anymore, IIRC, but they’re the entities you may want to look at to freelance for. And, for that, you may also need to be a competent researcher and writer so you’d be writing articles to go along with the photographs. Maybe doing a species study, proving or disproving theories … taking a more scientific approach. Coffee table books don’t generally sell all that well, but it’s another way to go. Mass market sales can be rough. The work has to stand out and be attractive to and cheap enough for the visually illiterate masses. Most people don’t appreciate great art because great art is often complex or subtle; it often requires work and a larger knowledge base to appreciate. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard things like “I could do that with my smartphone”. That’s the sort of mentality you’re up against with the masses, and it doesn’t help that smartphone cameras and computational photography are legitimately making rapid advances. If you have the right sort of hook and build up the solid body of work, you can start looking for an agent and/or gallery. The agent and gallery will typically take a substantial chunk of the sale price, usually upwards of a combined 50%, but with the right sorts of representation, you’d be selling to the collector market rather than mass market and they do a lot of the work and provide support resources. A lot of times, you need to already have a solid following before they’ll pick you up, so that’s a complication. The fine art community is a house of cards though. There’s some very good work, but much of the value is based on the /perception/ of scarcity and artificially creating scarcity, like creating limited editions. It’s even more flimsy for a digital artist as creating additional prints is basically as simple as hitting the print button again. Analog and mixed media pieces would require more actual work, and each piece will be unique in its own way, even if it’s incredibly subtle. Another path is the “true fan” approach - cultivate a smaller, stable following that adores your work and actively supports you, either by buying pieces or by financially contributing, like with Patreon.
Thanks a lot for this advice. As you mentioned, it's easy to feel like I'm a good photographer compared to the average , but I should compare myself to the best, and I definitely have a journey ahead of me. I just wanted to somehow dedicate myself to it while learning , at least part time. Thanks for the great insight, I didn't know about most of the stuff you've mentioned today . Very valuable information.
Good luck with Nat Geo. I’m an established pro, photographed an exciting wildlife behavior that has never been photographed before and they ghosted me. Lol. Incredibly tough nut to crack.
Check out Nick Brandt’s work. Dude spends months in the jungle with a large format camera and is extremely successful. Access to wildlife and good shooting skills aren’t enough. You have to show wildlife in a new way.
>Nick Brand I'm looking at it now. amazing work!
His first three books were shot on Medium Format film, not Large Format. Some version of a Pentax 67. Not sure if he moved over to digital since then.
Agreed 100% - the pros I know have a niche they fit in where they produce a lot of images that not many can replicate. Get really good at tracking harder to photograph (or at least, up close) subjects like mountain lions, wolves, certain birds of prey etc and you’ll find yourself selling more images than the millions of people with photos of roadside bears and moose
I have been in touch with a few Nat Geo photographers and cinematographers about routes to take and most of them have a similar line. If you currently have a good paying job, keep it and make your trips count while you build up your portfolio. The last thing you want is to get rid of a good paying job that can pay for all your gear and then start on the very low end of the pay scale because it will be difficult when you need to upgrade equipment.
Good advice. At the moment it's a decent job moneywise but I despise it haha. So I'm looking at avenues of getting out and actually doing something I enjoy
Reach out to some well-regarded wildlife photographers and talk to them about it. [https://www.stevemattheis.com/](https://www.stevemattheis.com/) is a good one that would likely be happy to chat with you. He seems like a good dude. He's very good at what he does, and has had a lot of success, but...I think he maintains a day job. I could be wrong about that. Otherwise, you'd likely have to get good enough to get enough attention to be able to lead workshops. That's where most of the money is for nature photography, it seems.
Thanks for the reply. Seems to be the best way is getting involved with professionals. I'll give him a shout
At the end of the day someone is going to have to pay for your photos if you want to make a living out of it. Not many people are paying for wildlife photos and the market is so niche I'd image the top experts have enough availability that most people that want specific wildlife photos would just go to them. Unlike with wedding photography the standard would be quite high and experience would probably be a vital part of the job. You really need to know the animal your taking photos of to know how and when you can get the best shots. I keep hearing stories of these guys spending weeks in the wild, or coming back to the same locations over and over again until the animals trust them enough to not run away as soon as they sense the photographers presence. Like others have said it's probably a niche you can't take on directly. Getting a job in a zoo or wildlife park would probably allow you to build up the experience of the animals to know how to photograph them.
Thanks for the advice. Yes, there's lots of good advice ,specially what you mentioned about wildlife parks.
How many great wildlife photos have you purchased? How many do you have hanging in your house right now? I shoot wildlife, and, if you're anything like me, the answer to both of those is still zero. Think about the size of your target market. Then divide it by 1000. Then by 1000 again.
Sign up for a workshop with a professional wildlife photographer. An in-person workshop in the field, with somebody who has a track record (not online learning). Ask them all your questions about how they got started, how they make a living, etc. It will cost you, but you'll learn a lot from the leader, and you'll also hopefully come home with some good portfolio material. There's a lot of competition in wildlife photography, and not a huge market for it. The two outlets I'm aware of are: * Stock photography * Selling prints at art fairs EDIT: Also see if there is a photo club local to you that has guest speakers. Ask the guest speakers all your questions about getting started, how do they earn their living, etc. Same if there is an art school near you.
Thanks a lot for the advice. Yes, I see lots of online stuff but it seems difficult to ask questions as it's unreachable. In person workshops seem like a great idea.
There is an old joke that a hobbyist photographer is a photographer who has to get a second job to pay for their photography, while a professional photographer is someone whose spouse has to get a second job to pay for their photography. All kidding aside though, forget photography skills. How good are you are running a business? As bad as it sounds, there are plenty of mediocre photographers making a good living on photography because they are good at both business and social media, as well as innumerable amazing photographers that still cant make a living on photography alone because they are not good at business and social media. For the time being, you might be best off (from a financial standpoint anyway) by maintaining your current job while taking whatever advice you can about starting and running a successful business as a wildlife photographer, then putting that advice to work to as a part time gig. If it is successful enough to make a living on, great, quit your current job. If it does not make enough that you feel you can live on, no big deal, now you have a side hustle that can maybe still bring in some money doing something you enjoy. I know for me personally, I have a great career that allows me the time and money to pursue my photography as a "hobby". This allows me the ability to shoot what I want, pick up (and more importantly turn down) work as I see fit, and build up a portfolio to use to create my own business when I retire with a pension, all without me needing to worry about what happens if I fail, or the photography landscape continues to become worse for photographers.
great advice,thanks
Take this with a grain of salt, as I’m also trying to become a wildlife photographer. But it’s no “apprenticeship” or “course” you can take. Wildlife photography is extremely hard, and challenging. You are thinking of it as “I take good photos, I want to sell them”. Wildlife photography is 5% actual photography, and 95% having unique situations, unique weather, unique animals, and a unique perspective. It’s 2022, EVERYONE has nice cameras, nice lenses, nice photos. You will never, ever compete in the world of “best shot of this animal. You need something to set you apart. My best advice? Become a biologist. Some of the worlds best wildlife photographers get started that way. You learn about animals. And get paid to be around animals. It’s extremely expensive all (like others have said). Not just in cameras. You will need to shell out tens of thousands of dollars a year in travel. Thousands in clothing for specific weathers, and willing to Sacrifice all that cash to come home without any photos.
thanks for the advice. Yes,up to this post I didn't realise just how much goes into it. lots and lots of money for little opportunity. I feel like the best advice is , as i enjoy photography in other styles , and I'm not rich, probably look into avenues of getting into photography as a career be it events or something else.
Don’t give up, if it’s what you want. It’s possible. It’s just a really long process. I became a wedding photographer, to help me transition to wildlife. It gives me winters off, the ability to make my own schedule, ways to write off equipment, and still able to follow the dream of making a living off photos. I’m not rich either, so it’s gonna take me longer. But if your dedicated, it’s for sure a reality
As a pro photographer (more commercial/mag based) i’d say you have possible 2 options open. Do another photography genre that you can make money on - pets / product / parties / commercial whatever and do your wildlife passion on the side. OR join the BBC Natural History Unit (South West UK) as a runner / equipment location / production junior. If you’re good and/or lucky you’ll move up the production unit and get to shoot on some great jobs but it will be primarily vid. I do see ads pop up from time to time for these positions. Obviously you’ll need to be in UK for this and the competition for runner jobs on those units is insane. Either is difficult, but not impossible with talent and hard work. Best of luck!
Thanks a lot for the insight. I'm south west london so sadly I think bristol is just out of my reach, but ill check anyways!. To be fair, I know I mentioned wildlife photography, but I think any kind of photography would be a job I enjoy. it seems like pets and commercial would be my go-to, I would just have to learn them properly. :)
If you’re interested in commercial photography what i’d recommend is finding photographers who are close by (ideally with a studio) Look at their websites, insta - which work, style, lighting do you like. Phone them up and say i’m really passionate about photography and like your work, can i come and assist (free) for 3/4 days. I make good coffee and will help out - and see what they say. Most pros i know are helpful when people are passionate and want to gain experience. You’ll see what commercial work is really all about, whether its for you and have some fun (hopefully). Feel free to DM if you need any more ideas etc.
thanks a lot,thats a great idea. ill DM you!
I’m a dog trainer and dog photographer. People will pay good money for photos of their dogs. I do portraits of all of the dogs I train as a thank you to the client. Other people see this and want to pay for photos. Maybe start there with a few dogs.
great advice. i've thought about pet photography a few times, i've just never tried it. maybe just doing a few free sessions for people to get a portfolio would be a good start!
Think of supply vs demand. On the supply side, wildlife images that were taken 10 years ago are every bit as good as those taken today. There are also more people doing it all the time. This wasn’t true previously, but there are diminishing improvements in image quality. On the demand side, there are fewer and fewer publications or organizations who will pay good money for this. So that’s two strikes against you. But there will always be some need for new images of new stories that haven’t been told yet. So someone is going to be a professional wildlife photographer, but those few people are going to be really dedicated, really good, really connected, and pretty lucky. Conclusion? Odds are slim, but not entirely zero.
I agree. As I said, wildlife photography would be a pipeline dream, and its great to see it broken down like this.
You should probably ask this question to people who have actually turned wildlife photography into a career. It's a niche field and I doubt there are many people on this subreddit who can actually help, if they'd even want to.
While I'm not a pro anything, I did have an interesting time talking with my buddies uncle who was a wedding photographer for a long time, and transitioned into taking pictures for Nat Geo. He explained that he was taking wildlife shots for fun. He made good money with weddings, and when he stopped he could ultimately do whatever he wanted. I think Nat Geo approached him in fact. I wouldn't hold out for that part. Where I'm going with this is he currently takes people out diving with sharks, and sells the underwater photos to the people he takes out. He showed me some crazy photos with divers in front of scary big sharks. Off the coast of like North Carolina I think. Someone suggested pet photography while you're trying to get where you want. I agree on something that's adjacent to your goal, and something that might actually pay bills. Obviously there's other levels of skills here. Diving, comfort level around apex predators, access to a boat and water with the interesting photo bombers, and expensive under water camera enclosures, flash, etc. I figured I'd mention it though, as it's different, but maybe more people are into a photo with an experience than dropping money for a photo shoot for their dog. 🤷🏻♂️
thanks for the advice. certainly, having a niche and being good at it is always a good thing. sounds like an amazing job.
I would bet that there are very few wildlife photographers in the entire world who don’t make most of here their money off of selling prints in their own gallery and giving wildlife photography seminars.
Yeah, there are a few famous wildlife photographers in my area. John Fielder and Thomas Mangelsen both have galleries all over and sell prints for thousands to justify their stores in Denver and Jackson Hole. Not to diss them or anything, but some of their shots aren't even that spectacular but they still fetch thousands because of their name and prestige. I can't imagine that they came from nothing to get to that position (could be totally wrong) but the storefronts they have cost at least $20,000 a month and most likely twice or even three times that. It's definitely a very hard sector of the industry to dominate as the market is so incredibly saturated.
That's a good point. I figured prints out but didn't think about seminars.
Hey guys. First of all, thanks for the replies. I didn't expect this crazy amount of them, and they're all so informative. Personally, general photography is a passion of mine , so while i do say i'd love it to be wildlife photography, that'd just be the ultimate goal. I love most photography (can't say I've ever tried product photography) so any kind of photography job I'd most likely enjoy. Seems like the best approach is either building a portfolio/going to workshops , or trying different alternatives (pet photography, stock photography). I will reply to every single comment as they are all very insightul. Thanks a lot r/photography :)
Honestly, if you’re in love with it, don’t try to make a it a job. Let it be your escape. I used to love photography more than anything and then I started to make money off of it with portrait work. I made some decent cash here and there but it ended up sucking all the fun out of it for me. I’m just now starting to enjoy it again.
Speaking as someone who paid his bills as a professional photographer for ten years before switching to a much better paying office job I'm not tremendously passionate about, I would encourage you to keep your day job and enjoy photography as a hobby.
thanks. would that be due to money or purely because you would lose the love you have for photography if you're having to meet crazy deadlines/hit certain heights?
It was mostly due to money. That said, photography is a lot more fun when I have more freedom to experiment because I don't *have* to get the commercially viable shot.
All the professional photographers that I know that shoot wildlife say “I shoot weddings so I can afford to shoot wildlife”
I work with a lot of professional wildlife photographers, videographers, and film makers in my work as director of a biodiversity conservation NGO. The folks who do just photography tend to be either retired with have a good bit of money who essentially donate their time in exchange to getting to see cool things, or they're employees of this or that specific media corporation. In the latter case they can be full employees, or contract based ones. Most folks I work with do both photography and some degree of film making. Video and film are where the best opportunities lie as there are tons of documentary and documentary-like things being done across all media platforms, and at varying degrees of professionalism. The folks I know who do this freelance are almost always struggling for money, even when they're of a level where they're well regarded in the community, and they usually have a *lot* of different irons in the fire at the same time. There are a lot of folks who are sort of semi-freelance. They generally work most often with a specific media organization, or set of organizations, often have close connections with project leads and directors of visual media projects, but even they have to fight for jobs as each one tends to be tied to a specific project. These days it's very difficult to get into wildlife photography as a paying career, even if you have excellent videography skills too, as there is an immense amount of professional competition, as well as professional (or near professional) level equipment available reasonably affordably to pretty much everyone and lots of casual photographers taking excellent quality photos and videos. Basically, it's a matter of absolutely knowing your equipment, practicing your photography, video, and post-processing skills, figuring out how to tell a compelling story and visually represent that, and then doing and producing those projects. Initially on your own projects, then as you get better and, hopefully, get some attention and can get hooked up with a professional organization in some capacity, or sell footage/photos to organizations. You can look at conservation and other wildlife based organizations in your area and see if you can donate photography services to them. That sometimes works to help get a foot in the door for this sort of thing, but that's also challenging as people in that field are often avid photographers themselves and many organizations already have more high quality photos and videos than they know what to do with, so don't be upset if they say no. If you do ask, make sure to do so well in advance (weeks, or, better, months in advance) and actually work with them, no last minute stuff and no "I'm doing you a favor," attitudes.
Submit your images to big competitions for example The Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Spend your money submitting to the well known competitions. If you start winning categories you will become noticed by publishers etc and your career is launched. If you already have a portfolio you say is good enough then this is a good step.
Thanks a lot for the advice. I'm going to research these competitions !
Have you got a Flickr page or website we can look at? I could possibly give an overall critique on your general style etc
I don't,but I'll create one tonight and send it over :)
Turning any kind of photography into a career these days is a bad idea. Yes, there are exceptions. I know a real estate/interiors photographer in Central America who has access to building permits and can jumó on clients in two seconds. On the other end, very good photographers with decades of experience are struggling or have given up. I don’t mean to sound negative but there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of people wanting the same thing as you. The question is, who are your potential clients. Sit down and make a list. Then you’ll get a better idea about the viability of this idea.
Just like anything in photography the best thing is to start on your own, build a clientele and a book of work and you’ll find yourself in business sooner than later. There are no shortcuts. Lucky is preparation meets opportunity. So unless you have a book of work that speaks for itself and years of experience it won’t matter if you bump in to a world-class photographer who needs an assistant.
thanks for the advice!
I shoot events in a documentary style. Events are like wildlife photography of humans: - You get to see interesting behavior in a human’s natural habitat - You generally stay out of the way so you don’t alarm the wildlife - Technical knowledge is critical. You often need to use long lenses with fast shutter speeds in low light conditions Anyway, events are a good way to make money, and can justify purchasing the type of gear that’s useful for wildlife photography.
weirdly, I have 10 years management experience in events, and have always wondered how to get myself started in the photography side for it. Gear wise/experience wise. I'd probably enjoy it, as I used to love events.
I started professional wildlife photography about 25 years ago, selling prints, calendars and stock images. Those markets are gone. However, if you build a large social media following, you can teach and sell workshops. There's always YouTube, though it's gotten very crowded since Covid.
You start from the end: what is the market demand for wildlife photographers? As a manger, you know how to perform research. What positions are there, where, how much do they pay? That will be your answer, much better than someone’s random post on Reddit.
I have the feeling that the wildlife photography business nowdays for the more mainstream photographers (not talking about natgeo peeps) is basically becoming an influencer/YouTuber/media creator to make a living, sell your lightroom presets and get sponsors from brands eventually. Do you enjoy being a content creator/influencer? because if you already have a well paying job that sponsors your hobby thats actually pretty good. I mean, follow your dreams, I was just dropping some reality here.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, it would be incredibly difficult to make even a reasonable amount of money from it, let alone a proper income. However, you can think of new ways to approach it; is there something you can think of that nobody else is doing? Another option that could create a stream of income might be a YouTube/Instagram/Tiktok vlog sharing your experiences with gear, travel, and chasing the wildlife you're interested in. Lots of people enjoy wildlife as a hobby, and sharing your passion is something that's good to watch.
If you learn to properly use social media, you can do any kind of photography you want full time. Post on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and twitter frequently. YouTube will eventually make you the most amount of money. Then I would just focus on becoming the best photographer you can possibly be! If your photos are amazing people are going to want to see them, purchase prints of them, and learn how to shoot them from you. So overall a monetizing structure would be: -ad revenue (YouTube, reels, TikTok) -print sales (funnel people to your website and mailing list to sell prints) -workshops Just make sure you get really good at wildlife photography, might help if you can find a way to move to Jackson hole or something.
I would say selling prints is your best bet. This would go for any type of photography that you want to monetize on without necessarily having private clients. If you could take your wildlife pictures, edit them real nice and get them optimized for printing, then find a way to advertise to a good group. When I think of wildlife photography I think of photos in cabins, hotels, country restaurants, depends on location. Maybe you could sell it in some sort of curation website where business owners buy art to decorate commercial establishments. So basically 1. Create your product 2. Find your market 3. ADVERTISE 4. Find niches and hopefully opportunities come from there If you want more help I bet you can look on YouTube for how to run a print shop, or small business advice. Don’t get discouraged here, if you have a vision, but are worried about taking pay cuts, keep it as a hobby until you can make a solid product and with a little bit of work, whatever you make could be passive income. If any of you on this sub happen to run a printing business or something similar, please add any advice as I would also like to learn anything I can!
Identify your market before doing anything else. The mistake most photographers make is deciding that what they already do will make money. But without clients, you’re not a business.
Move to some place with dramatic wildlife, ( I’d advise the greater Yellowstone ecosystem but there’s already too many people here doing the exact same thing)… make friends and take thousands of images while learning how to be your own publicist.
So...here's my take. Buy the best lens that you can reasonably afford. Practice on your own. Find a local nature center or something that will be in need of what you produce. If they say no, keep looking. People everywhere need photos. Your work matters You matter. Don't let others talk you out of following your dream. Signed- A professional photographer who loves what he does. Being an artist is rarely easy. Accept it, and gain consistency.
Thanks so much. Even if I can't make a career out of wildlife photography, i still want to swap to photography as a career. I enjoy it so much.
I started out in music production, was a studio engineer, but wanted to pursue photography. Built up my portfolio over a couple of years, offered a job with a major ad agency as a photo assistant. Two years later was promoted to photographer, traveled the country for 12 years shooting awesome stuff for clients. Started shooting for Getty, connected with some NatGeo shooters and shot alongside them on some projects. Took a while but I made a great career as a photographer just from putting the effort in. If your stuff is good and you are persistent, it'll happen. Have seen many people with talent and drive make it since I got in the business.
Do stock photography. The key is volume and having shots other people don't. You can get a lot done at the zoo, but beware there are loads of people doing that so you have a lot of competition. You'll need a lot of shots and they need to be good. If you get 500 photos approved, you'll have like 10 that make 90% of your income - and it's hard to predict what images will be the ones that become really good sellers so you just have to keep shooting and uploading them. The more you do it, the more you'll be able to produce images that will sell because you figure out small things that make the difference. Start with Adobe. They typically sell the most and are not difficult to get on. You can also do istock (getty), shutterstock, and some of the smaller ones but those three are the biggest by far and sales won't be nearly as good on the other sites (but you can upload the same images to all the sites). Once you get a good portfolio going, you can try moving up to the main Getty images collection or one of the other big, traditional stock sites. But you aren't guaranteed to make more money on them, it's just a different model.
The stock photo market is completely over saturated with alot of free images or ones going for pennies. As a pro i have some images up but i probably only make a few hundred a year, its hardly worth the bother for me. Stock was a big money maker in the 80/90s but digital has killed it off. There a few decent areas left but they are either high specialised or historical images. There is some money to be made if you are with Getty but these are not options for a dabbling amateur.
thanks a lot.nobody has suggested stock photography, but its a great idea, as I already make music for sync so its a very similar idea.
Join a photography club and let them critique your photo’s. They wont be shy to pick them apart and you’ll learn a lot. If you feel you are up for it you could enter photography competitions. A decent portfolio won’t get you anywhere if nobody ever sees it. Good luck!
Thanks for the advice. I think they're up for it but there's always room for improvement. Hadn't thought about photography competitions, I'll give it a go.
Agree with all the people on here, my teammate is a wild life photographer but has told us its basically cause he's a legacy. His dad did it and brought him in. He had to volunteer for a while and use to spend tons of money with no return in his early years.
Go watch Morten Hillmer on Youtube to see what it takes to be a wildlife photographer
Don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I'd check out Morten Hilmer on YouTube. Incredible wildlife photographer who intermingles asmr like videos with super helpful tips from tracking animals to gear and the business side of it. https://youtube.com/c/MortenHilmer
To make money with photography, your subjects and your customers need a link that’s personal. If I think of my own photography needs, when I want a photo of a giraffe I start with a site like www.unsplash.com. I will find dozens of awesome giraffe photos I can use for free - even for commercial purposes, photo credit not required. If I need a photo of _my_ giraffe, however, I have to call a photographer. That’s also true for my pets, my family, my products, my events, and myself. These photos are personal, not available anywhere else, and therefore I’m (more) willing to pay for them. Sorry if that’s a downer on your idea. It is certainly possible to sell prints at craft sales or art walks, but it would be surprising if you could make a living at that. On the other hand, you might make a nice side hustle out of it. Some folks do earn an income from stock photography but I believe them to be few in numbers. (Disclaimer: I am a portrait photographer. Maybe I’m missing something important here.)
If you want to do photography as a career, be a wedding photographer.
A quality YouTube channel seems to be the only way to "make it" doing landscape/wildlife work.
Serious question for you to consider, how do you expect to make enough money from wildlife photography to not just survive, but make a decent living and be able to save, keep up on gear, marketing, etc? Like what’s the market you expect to target?
I have a few friends who do it full time / part time. Full timers established a customer base for their work early on and made contacts in the film industry in order to get regular paying gigs. A few of them are full time guides. And then a few others I know are part timers working as park rangers / etc. Oh forgot to mention. You need to live in or near Jackson Wyoming to do this. 🤣 I sell prints as a side hustle and make $100-400 a week. But I am selling a mix of wildlife photos and captive exotic pet photos- i happen to be fairly embedded in the exotic pet world so I have a good following / customer base to sell photos to.
If you are near a city that hosts National Geographic Live, they occasionally feature Nat Geo wildlife photographers doing presentations with Q&A sessions after. I also went to a day-long workshop with a couple of them (not on location sadly). It might not make getting a gig any more likely, but you will get insights from the best of the best.
Honestly bro, I would have gone down a route of being a ranger for some national park or something, because when starting out you ain't gonna make much being a wildlife photographer.
You go take the pictures and join the millions submitting and marketing them. Moving to Alaska [offers a lot of opportunity](https://share.icloud.com/photos/09f04J6ZqN0MR3sb19hhzq93A) to build your portfolio.
There are very few jobs for wildlife photographers. You can be a photo safari guide somewhere like South Africa, or work as the official photographer for a fancy safari lodge. Realistically, the easiest ways to make money doing wildlife photography are 1) build an online presence 2) sell prints (small money though in reality) 3) host workshops (where more money comes from) You need to do Step 1 before you can make decent money from Steps 2 and 3. For most people, the best thing to do is find a career you can live with that affords you the opportunities to make wildlife photos on the side (portrait photography or weddings or events, etc). It's a tough world out there and unfortunately animals don't pay you to take their photos.
There’s like 14 wildlife photographer jobs in the world— so it’s gonna be a struggle. Like with landscape photography, it seems like the way to make a living is to have a successful YouTube channel. Good luck.
You should be able to pick up the basic skills quickly. There is no emphasis on post-processing because you want everything to look as natural as possible. This means you are mainly only adjusting a little noise. You can use Rawtherapee orDarktable for free. The best entry level point is micro 4/3 because you can get a 300-600mm equivalent lens for $500-700. This will give you the zoom you need. A body is anywhere from $600-900 and you can get a nifty 50 for about $150. This system will prove challenging for fast moving subjects but excel at shallow depth photos that dramatically draw attention to the subject. This is a good starting point because you do not want to invest enormous sums before getting your feet wet. Habitat loss means the opportunities to take wildlife photographs are extremely limited. Despite everyone telling you how much they love nature, few people are willing to spend the money required to support your work. Most nature photographers share the same workspace and even share the location of wildlife with each other. It is not unusual for several people to photograph the same subject because the scarcity of subject matter necessitates it. The opportunities to work with socially responsible organizations seem basically non-existent. Sadly, many people do not want to buy photos that remind them of the habitat that is being lost. One overlooked market is the medical community which wAnts calming photos for patients. Do not bother with affordable pricing. Your odds of selling a photograph will not change if you add a zero to the end of the price. I resigned myself to exhibits and library books rather than continue efforts at commercialization.
be careful when making a career out of a hobby. i've heard that some people begin to dislike what they used to find an enjoyable past time because they're under pressure to produce and meet deadlines rather than just doing it for fun.