If you're just starting out in the photography business (and even if you're not), you might find that you need to supplement your income with some side gigs.
Freelancing is a great way to generate some of that additional income.
In fact, many photographers do nothing but freelance work and make a nice living out of it because there's so many ways that you can find freelance photography jobs.
Here's our list of the top 41 of ways to find work as a freelance photographer.
Freelancing Websites
One of the world's largest freelancing sites, Upwork has a section specifically for photography jobs.
Create a profile, begin applying for jobs using your Upwork Connects, and get connected with people around the world that need photography services.
People Per Hour is another freelancing website that has a decent number of photography-related jobs posted.
Like Upwork, People Per Hour allows photographers to create a profile and submit a proposal to job postings.
And also like Upwork, People Per Hour offers an onsite platform for communicating with clients and getting paid.
Freelancer offers a similar type of platform that brings together freelancers with individuals and businesses that need a photographer.
Jobs are offered on an hourly or a fixed-price basis, and vary in complexity from simple one-off tasks to long-term gigs.
Yet another popular freelancing website, Guru, offers photography-related gigs for freelance photographers.
Again, jobs on Guru can be big, small, and in between, with safe, secure payment done right there on the Guru platform.
Other freelancing websites worthy of a look include:
- Fiverr is a platform in which you can offer your freelance photography services based on specific skills (i.e., product photography).
- Find a Photographer does just what it says - you create a profile, and individuals or businesses search the site's users based on location, distance, and specialty.
- Get Photography Jobs, which lets you browse gigs based on geographic location.
- If You Could is a smaller freelance platform, but with filters based on job, location, contract type, and more, it could help you find the ideal job.
- Flexjobs, which offers short-term and long-term freelance jobs, seasonal jobs, and alternative schedule jobs.
- The Creative Loft has hundreds of photography-related gigs posted each day.
- Journalism Jobs, which gets you in touch with publications from around the U.S. that need photojournalists and related workers.
- Photography-Jobs.net gives freelance photographers a platform to sell their images to websites, magazines, and other entities in need of quality photographs.
- LocalSolo, which gives freelancers a location-based platform for seeking out photography-related jobs.
- Working Not Working is an exclusive club, with a curated collection of freelancers that vie for gigs from some of the world's biggest companies, like Apple and Facebook
Stock Photography Sites
Photographers don't earn what they used to from stock photos, but that doesn't mean that it can't still be a good source of side-income.
What's more, once you upload the photos to your profile on the stock photo site, the income you earn is passive, so you can get money in your bank account while you pursue other avenues of freelance photography.
Here's a few top stock photo sites to check out:
Each of these stock photo sites vary in terms of how much they pay photographers for each image or download, but as noted above, you can build a decent side income with stock photography assuming that you develop a solid portfolio of images.
Regardless of which stock photo services you choose to try, be sure to tag your images appropriately so people can find them when they search for photos.
Learn More:
Job Boards
There are plenty of job boards on the web that offer photography jobs of all kind.
The nice thing about job boards is that you can search for a more traditional photography career if you want, with location-based searches for jobs.
The websites listed below also have some contract and freelance-based work if you're more interested in being free from working in a specific location.
- Monster is one of the largest job boards on the web, and at the time of this writing there are more than 1,000 photography jobs listed.
- Craigslist is the old standard when it comes to finding jobs in your area through local classifieds.
- Job.com gives you access to photography jobs from all over the country, with search capabilities to narrow jobs down to a specific geographic area.
- Glass Door is one of the largest freelancing websites, with open photography gigs all over the country.
- Simply Hired offers you the ability to search for all types of photography jobs while also learning a little about each company or organization that's listed the job.
- Reddit might not be the first website you think of to find freelance photography jobs, but their "for hire" thread could put you in touch with clients from around the globe.
- Career Builder, which has hundreds of photography gigs listed each day.
- The Ladders has more than 20,000 recruiters that use their service and over 225,000 total jobs listed.
Your Website and Social Media Channels
Of course, having your own website and social media presence is a great way to get eyes on your work and attract potential clients.
Having a website or online portfolio to which you can point potential clients from the websites listed above can be the critical difference in getting the job and getting passed over for someone else.
No matter how you build your website (i.e., Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix, etc.), it needs to be cleanly designed, easy to navigate, and highly curated with only your very best work on display.
Connect your website or portfolio to your social media channels as well.
By posting your images to Instagram or 500px, you might catch the eye of someone that's in need of photography services.
By using the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn, you can promote your business, show off your work, and make note of the skills, qualities, and accolades that make you such a great photographer.
Having profiles on Tumblr, Flickr, and PhotographyTalk gives you even more power to display the photos you take to impress potential clients.
The moral of the story is that there is an abundance of places that you can search for jobs and apply for jobs, and a variety of ways that you can be proactive in getting your work out on the web for potential clients to see.
The hard part is simply deciding which of these avenues to take to build your freelance photography career!