Find freelance photography jobs online- 16 tested approaches that pay beginners and professional freelance photographers
As a photographer, you are a God-ordained explorer because you have to step out of your domain to capture reality from a camera lens.
Whether you are shooting those happy-wing butterflies pollinating your garden or recreating memories of an event from your lens, photography takes you away from home.
But you’d agree before the internet, finding freelance photography jobs was a needle-threading task.
I mean the stress it takes: to target big businesses and going all the way to introduce yourself and probably end up exchanging business cards. Followed by the expectation that the next caller is your prospective client.
Today, freelance photographers can now comfortably reach millions of clients online, showcase their expertise, and get high-paying jobs online.
All thanks to the internet for the numerous approaches it offers for freelance photographers to work online.
The downside of this impressive development is that not all approaches are legit and time-saving. Many freelance photographers lose their hard work to fake job clients online before they even know it.
I want you to always get the best reward there is for every photo you shoot and never run short of clients. That is why I have reviewed 16 sure-shot approaches freelance photographers can make money online.
But before you start finding remote photography jobs online, you must put the right foot first. Thus, I’ll start this guide by showing you 6 important things to do before you start your online photography business.
How to find freelance photography jobs- 6 things you need as a beginner.
Before you start finding freelance photography jobs online you must make plans for the task ahead. These six elements are essential for building a successful freelance photography business for beginners.
- A business plan
A business plan is to you what a compass is to a sailor.
If you want to sail your freelance photography business to success dork, you must not ignore it.
Creating a business plan might seem a daunting task, especially for beginners. It takes a lot of thinking and numerous procedures are involved.
For a start, you might not need a comprehensive business plan. All you need can be a simple guide for expressing your short-term goals.
Your business plan must clearly express what type of freelance photographer you are, the business market you want to explore, your goals and objectives, and how you seek to achieve them. These and everything in-between is the essential components of an organized success plan for any business.
If you ask successful freelance photographers, they’d tell you how they designed a business plan that guided their entire business affair. As a beginner, you will not go from 1 to 100 at once, but you can achieve steady growth with a business plan that helps you stay focused.
- Find a niche:
Why find “a” niche, and not find “your” niche? You may ask. It’s a thing I have said before and will again. Contrary to what most people think, a niche isn’t only about what you love to do. If you want to make money from freelance photography you must find the niche with all the juice and sauce.
A niche is the area of specialization a freelancer chooses to explore. While every niche can be monetized, it is easier to make money from one than the other. The most profitable photography niches you can explore include social media, fashion, family, events, landscape, and corporate photography.
If you are just starting, research deeply about these niches as they are the best means to scale your freelance photography business.
- Photography gadgets
This is where even the most aspiring freelance photographers give up on the game because they feel the need to start up with thousands of dollars worth of equipment. The reality is that talented photographers are not camera-made; they are eye-made. The quality of your camera does not matter if you do not have the eye of a pro-photographer.
What I mean is that you can start with some basic equipment such as low-cost cameras, prime lenses tripod stands, etc., and expand your business when you start making money from your shoots. It does not matter that you start with basic gadgets. If your shoots are excellent, clients will seek after you.
- Know your rates: One of the challenges most freelancers face at early stages is about rates; “how much should I charge”. Your first few jobs will be heaven and earth to you, and you wouldn’t want to miss any. Nevertheless, your business can quickly become a thing of the past if you charge too low or too high.
What should you do? Find a balance.
Freelance photography is ultimately shooting and editing images, exceptional cases involve secondary procedures. The best way to decide your rates is by creating packages for various procedures. A package price can be decided based on the number of photos, the type of photo, or the type of editing.
When you present a package to your client they don’t only feel you’re a professional, they also have a choice to spend as their pocket deems fit. In this case, it’s a win-win situation on both sides.
While you can offer lower prices or discounts at early stages when you need works to build a portfolio, ensure your pricing grows confidently alongside your level of expertise.
- Create awareness for your freelance photography business:
A business plan and good gadgets can only take your business to the top, excellent marketing will keep it there.
That’s right, your business can only grow further by creating awareness through marketing. Even if you are the most talented freelance photographer, no one would know you until you show them what you can do.
Are you thinking about Google ads and Facebook marketing? You should know that they are good options that are not necessary. If you are just starting, one of the best ways to market your freelance photography business is by engaging your social media audience. You should ensure to upload the best works on your Instagram and Facebook timeline regularly for your audience to know you and what you do.
- Build your portfolio:
If you want your audience and potential clients to take you seriously, you must create a place where they can see all your works. That place will be your portfolio or digital office space.
The traditional way of creating a portfolio is by building a website before creative designers developed new methods to reach a larger audience. Modern ways of creating a digital presence are the use of social media accounts like Instagram. This social media application has developed over time such that creatives can now share links that direct their network to their collections. Digital platforms like Behance.net are also a great portfolio design tool for photographers.
To make the most of your freelance photography business, consider creating other portfolio networks on digital places like Gloomme. This online network is one of the places high-paying clients find freelance photographers online.
The best freelance photographers are not the ones with the best cameras but those who take treat it like a serious business using a well-laid-out plan. A little bit of talent, essential gadgets, and a strong market plan will help you build a reputation in the photography gig economy. If you have these components, then you are ready to start finding remote photography jobs online.
Where to look for freelance photography jobs online
If you are looking for the best places to find photography jobs online, here are 21 places where beginners and experts can find all kinds of jobs.
For easy comprehension, we have divided these approaches into 3 categories and various sub-categories. This will help you determine the jobs you can find on Social Media sites, on Job boards, and by sending cold pitches.
How to find freelance photography jobs on Social Media sites.
1. Instagram
Instagram tops our list of social media sites where photography jobs can be found. Aside from that, it is a very large network, its network is photo-oriented. This makes it a perfect fit for beginners and experts in photography.
If you will be using Instagram for your photography business, you must understand that it is not a job board. Therefore you cannot simply search for “photography jobs” and get suitable results.
The best way to make use of Instagram is to build a community of freelance photographers and develop engagements onwards. Start by following people who are relevant to your industry, occasionally these people will post-hiring notices or engage you for outsourcing jobs.
To support this, you can also use Instagram hashtags to find gigs. This might not generate the best results but you might be lucky. For instance, if you search for #photography jobs today, only 8 results are generated. This means it is not reliable because you have to be right on time always.
The bright side of using Instagram to find gigs lies in the comment sections. With a strong portfolio and quality engagements, you are more likely to bring a prospective client from the comment section to the DM for job-related negotiations.
Ultimately, Instagram might not be the holy grail of finding photography jobs online, but with constant feed optimization and audience engagements, you can find long-term high-paying job offers.
- 2. Facebook
Like Instagram, Facebook is also a large network of social media connections that can be used to connect with prospective clients.
Aside from the ability to engage your audience about your business, you can also find freelance photography jobs on Facebook’s job board. This job board can be filtered to find job freelance remote job offers and even those in your local area.
More importantly, Facebook makes engagements better for freelancers than other social media platforms. This is commended by its numerous groups where you can find like-minded creatives and hiring clients.
- 3. LinkedIn
Unlike Instagram and Facebook, LinkedIn is a more business-like social media platform. It encompasses everything about career, jobs, and all that’s in-between. This makes it a great place to find freelance photography jobs online.
LinkedIn has its job board. To find jobs there, navigate to “jobs” and use the search filters to find the kind of job you want. In fact, you can search for a job according to the type of company you want to work with.
To get the most on LinkedIn, search for and connect with people that you share similar business practices. Doing that will position you for more engagements, and certainly more jobs.
Finding Freelance Photography Gigs on General Job Boards
These job boards are a combination of sites that are for only freelance jobs and those that offer all forms of remote opportunities.
- 4. ZipRecruiter
Without any doubt, Ziprecruiter is one of the best online job boards today and a great place to find freelance photography jobs. Just like Gloomme, Ziprecruiter automates the hiring process by connecting job-finders and hiring managers in no time. This is why it is among the most sought-after for everyone in the gig community.
To find a freelance photography job on Ziprecruiter, you must polish upload your resume. Instantly, the qualifications and skills are accessed and you will see your match percentage for every job you search. While it is a very competitive marketplace, if you match around 70–100% for any job, there are good chances that you’d be hired.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of using Ziprecruiter is that your resume is stored in the database so that recruiters can always find you. Not only that, but recruiters can also contact you further after a previous job because they also have your resume saved. For these reasons, it is a recommended job board for finding freelance photography jobs.
- 5. Upwork
In the freelance community, Upwork is a popular jingle. Not by name, but by the testimonies of aspiring freelancers like you who use jobs on Upwork to make passive income monthly. Finding photography jobs on Upwork comes with a lot of advantages, the ability to work flexibly is just the tip of the iceberg.
One benefit is that the job rate is not hidden on Upwork. Before you take a job, you already know how much the recruiter is willing to pay. This knowledge will help you access the job specifications, your level of expertise, and other crucial inquiries. This way, you can decide whether to take the job or move on to the next one.
As a freelance photographer, you will find reliable clients on Upwork (not ghosts). Just as freelancers are ranked, hirers are also ranked on Upwork. This way, you will know how to approach each recruiter. Similarly, there are social proofs that back up your job proposals and general profile. These social proofs offered by colleagues and previous recruiters help you scale your profile hirer. The higher the profile, the better jobs you get.
To begin, search for photography on Upwork and use the filters to select the most recent and most relevant results. When you find a suitable job, send a proposal and get started with your first client.
- 6. Indeed
If you looking to find the best freelance photography jobs online, you must not ignore Indeed. With over 200 million monthly visitors, it is one of the largest job boards online. Job seekers go there to find jobs and recruiters also check in to find talents. Thus, it is a great place to showcase your skills.
Creating a profile on Indeed is very easy because its interface is user-friendly and it only takes a few steps. As a freelance photographer, you can share links to your portfolios in your resume and upload them for millions of recruiters to find. This makes it very easy for hirers to find you.
If you have to find hiring companies, Indeed ensures you can access all the red flags there are about them. This is done through the company review system where you can see what past employees are saying about your potential hirer.
To find your next job, log on to Indeed.com and use the filter tool to find the kind of job you want. You can apply easily on Indeed and be redirected to the company job page, your call. This job board makes hiring easy for freelance photographers of all levels.
- 7. Virtual Vocations
Virtual vocations is another very impressive but not-free job board freelance photographers can find remote works. Priced monthly at $16, it is slightly more expensive than Flexjob. Although this price is a major con for most beginner freelancers, there are lots of pro benefits too.
Virtual Vocations is updated weekly with ONLY screened and verified jobs in the US and other locations. What this means is that no recruiter will waste your time asking for free service of sorts. More benefits are that Virtual vocations update jobs across more than 48 categories so that freelancers of all and sundry can find dream jobs.
Similarly, you can search and filter jobs in the US or other locations and also across all levels. Virtual Vocation might be a paid app, professional freelancer photographers have had a good reward on the investments required.
- 8. PeoplePerHour
Finding freelance photography jobs, Peopleperhour.com is peoples’ choice. Freelancers that use this job board enjoy a lot of benefits. One of them is that the platform has a large number of users so that there is a global diversity in its client base. In other words, this job board earns you more exposure and connection beyond your physical location.
Furthermore, Peopleperhour allows freelancers to do what only a few job boards will. That is the fact that you have the freedom to set your rates. By implication, you are not compelled to take a job except it complies with your financial projections.
Registration of PeoplePerHour is free like it is on most job boards. But not only is it free to use, but it’s also easy to navigate all types of jobs.
- 9. Flexjobs
Flexjob is a popular job board that has been in use for a long time. Although you must pay a monthly subscription to access the full function, it is worth the money. When you sum up all the benefits you get on Flexjobs, you’d have every reason to roll over your subscription.
First, there are NO scams on Flexjobs. We did not decide that, but thousands of customer reviews testify. Also, a host of online reviews claim Flexjob is the best place to find curated gigs for all kinds of freelancers.
For a start, freelance photographers can take advantage of the free service to access how the site works before proceeding to subscribe to the premium access.
What’s more? Its advanced search option helps freelance photographers seamlessly find job offers exactly how they want them. On Flexjob, you can search according to industry, career level, keywords, and work schedule. Instead of digging through a host of jobs on other sites, Flexjob brings your dream job without breaking a sweat.
Photography Job boards
We have said before that job boards come in all shapes and sizes. In the previous section, we have discussed the best general job board to find all kinds of freelance jobs, including photography gigs. In this section, we will review the best photography-based job boards online.
These job boards are industry-specific. This means that the jobs you’d find there are curated for freelance photographers only. These are the top 3 of their kind.
- 10. Photography Jobs
Photography-jobs-online is a leading photo-based gig place for freelance photographers. This is one of the best places to make extra income on your photography. On this platform, millions of photos are sold monthly. These photos are to be reused on the internet without credits to their source.
Working on this site is a lot easier than on other job boards. Not only would not need to dig through search results when finding jobs, but you would also enjoy setting your work schedule and enjoy enough flexibility. You work as much as you can with little or experience required to start.
To start selling your photos, you must register with a one-time payment of $27, upload your pictures, and set your price while you wait for buyers. This is a really easy way for freelance photographers to make money online.
- 11. Get photography jobs
Get-photography-jobs is an easy-to-use industry-specific job board for all freelance photographers. With a simple user-friendly interface, you can simply browse through a catalog of photography job postings and select a suitable one.
You do not require any subscription or extra fee, you only log on, create a profile and start working. What makes this site more comfortable is the ability to select jobs in your desired location. This is also backed by the ability to save job searches for future reference. To top it off, you can request to receive notification for new job postings directly in your email.
- 12. Photojournalism jobs
These job boards are strictly everything journalism and they treat valuable images that can recount events or tell stories. If you love to cover trending events from your camera scope, this is the place to bring your A-game.
The downside of this job board is that most of the jobs require you to have writing skills for journalism, and it’s quite hazy to dig the search engine for suitable jobs.
The bright side is that it is a community of high-paying clients who have also paid money to post their job openings. This means that you can expect to find only verified jobs.
Stock-photography sites
If you want a place to sell and make quick money on your photo, consider these stock photography sites.
- 13. Adobe Stock
Adobe stock is the largest marketplace for trading stock images on the internet. Selling your images here is safe and secure because (as you know) it is owned by the most prominent maker of video and image editing apps today.
Selling on Adobe stock, you will enjoy a larger share of royalties (around 20–60%), unlike other marketplaces. That’s not all, your photos become a part of the Adobe collection, reaching millions of users daily.
- 14. Shutterstock
Shutterstock is the best alternative for companies and individual creatives to buy stock images and videos for their projects. Snap awesome photos and upload them to get paid.
There are no restrictions on the type of image to upload, as long as it is pleasing and can be used online- you’re good to go. What makes a good image? It must be clear, sharp, and taken from a perfect angle.
You meet fierce competition on Shutterstock and that’s a downside. If you want to stay ahead, you have to submit your best photos and update your collections regularly.
- 15. Alamy
If you want to avoid the competitions on Shutterstock and Adobe, you can use Alamy to sell your photos online. There are no major restrictions, uploading and selling are as easy as it sounds.
Although there are a lesser amount of buyers here, because it is lesser-known compared to Adobe or Shutterstock, you can still find buyers as long as your photos are appealing enough. A major tip is to capture images related to trending topics to make buyers find you faster.
On Alamy, you will be paid 50% of the total selling value.
16. Pitch your ideas
When you have explored all job boards; both general and industry-specific but you still feel the need to find more gigs, pitching your idea is the best way to do that.
A large number of freelancers agree that sending a cold pitch to prospective clients is a great way to make more money online. As a remote photographer, sending out a cold pitch allows you to connect with a client personally and professionally. Clients will respect your proactive nature for finding them and will usually reward you with a job.
Some freelancers ignore cold pitching because it’s time-consuming and somewhat difficult. The truth is that cold-pitching does not only help you build a tangible long-term connection with a client. You will also have the freedom of negotiating your rates as you like. If you try this on job boards that allow it, you will most likely lose the job, except you are a reputable expert.
Cold pitching is difficult because you cannot afford to put a foot wrong. Your grammar and manner of approach must be top-notch. But that does not mean your cold pitch must be “cold”. After all, you are human not some machine. Thus, your pitch must not fail to have a human touch. Be friendly and formal, and appreciate the person’s works and their audience.
More so, you must follow up your pitch constantly to ensure your prospective client keeps you in mind. Failure to do that might lead your email to the trash.
Looking for your next cold-pitch destination, search for industry-relevant people on LinkedIn, or research the editor of that magazine and reach out today.
This article was previously published here
