Making money with underwater photos?

On 10/21/2019 at 2:28 AM, TimG said:

Hey Nicholas

Good luck!

I've sold over 2500 u/w image downloads via Shutterstock and maybe another 500 or so via other stock agencies. They sell quite well - daily - but the rewards are, how can I put it, "not generous". Probably pays for a couple of lenses a year.

What sort of images sell?   Macro?  Wide angle?  Shots with divers?  Shots without divers?

Not macro! Maybe the occasional nudibranch. Not many sales of wreck photos. Nor "arty" pics.

My best sales volume has come from a dolphin pod in clear water in the Red Sea (KLM amongst others are using it); and then well-posed single diver on a colourful reef.

I did really well after one trip to the Red Sea - over 1000 sales from 129 images. Deep blue background, well-light colourful reef, single diver approaching with a torch.

Occasionally wide-angle shots without a diver. 

Kind of what I thought.  Non-divers like macros but don't buy them to hang on a wall.   Non-divers like the big stuff that is kinda boring - a turtle, a shark, maybe a diver near something colorful, perhaps a military wreck.   They just don't understand or identify with the cool stuff.   I did get a bit more used to using my wide lens on this last trip.  (Forced myself after losing one of my strobes early on.)   And what I realize in retrospect is that macro shots show a colorful subject, but wide angle tells a story.    I had a great story planned out last summer in Maui when I was going to dive on the Corinthian at the same time my girlfriend was passing by in the Atlantis submarine.  I told her to get some shots of me.   She didn't take a single one, not being anything like a photographer, unlike my late wife.   But I got some nice shots of the sub...

PhxAZCraig

Not like the 80's and 90s  and into the 2000's for sure as Digital photos crashed the market.

At one time you could sell images for $250 each for just about any use from calenderas to articles as thats what I did some of back then .

Most of my fellow full timers gave it up after the shift ,or shifted to film making.Same was true for top side phothogs as well. Still can do product shoots but its slim pickings.

I was not full timer then as I had another main job then and now.Now thats all ancient history now. Tours and classes and self publishing . And do not forget the You tubers

Its passion deal for me not for $ rewards

Find the demand and fill it 

it is probably like in the rest of the industry in general… you can survive but hardly make any more than that… i personally know 1 guy who lives from photography in general, just under water wouldn't be enough though… 

It`s possible, but from my experience it should be part of instructor work. Then can shoot photos for dive centers which know You and Your work. But if try to be concentraced at live from photography - it will be very hard.

On 5/25/2020 at 8:06 AM, marcinpsk said:

It`s possible, but from my experience it should be part of instructor work. Then can shoot photos for dive centers which know You and Your work. But if try to be concentraced at live from photography - it will be very hard.

The topic was from 2011..!