Why You Aren’t Getting Paid Enough: (And Yes, It's Your Fault)
Photographers who are not as good as you are making more money than you.
I help photographers and creative entrepreneurs over 40 reclaim their confidence, cut through the noise, and build bold, independent lives through no-BS insight, experience, and action. Welcome to my Substack.
I am glad you are here.
I mean, really, y’all…
That’s how the market works.
And if that bothers you, good. It should.
This means that the problem isn’t with your editing style, camera, or lighting.
It’s all on you, and you carry it.
Most photographers get stopped in the same three spots, and it has less to do with their technique or style than what they are focusing on.
(Pun intended…)
Let’s make that better.
1. Lowering Your Price and Calling It a Strategy
I can’t count how many times I’ve seen this happen.
Starting at $750.
Go down to $500.
Then it’s suddenly, “Hey, let’s just make it work.”
No job yet.
So the prevailing thought is, “I must still be too expensive.”
No.
You don’t make sense.
The number doesn’t make clients turn you down.
They turn you down because they don’t know what they’re getting for that number, since it keeps changing like the gas prices at Buckees.
Cutting your price won’t clear up any confusion.
It makes it bigger.
Cheap clients don’t turn into outstanding clients later, so don’t be the cheap photographer.
Stop changing the number and start making the offer more attractive if you want to get paid.
What issue are you fixing? If you can’t explain it, they are gone.
How does your work help them save time, look better, or make money? You better learn to articulate, son.
If you can’t explain what they get for the money, the price will always seem “too high,” no matter how low you go.
2. You’re going too hard after big clients instead of building up your business.
This is ego dressed up as ambition in a Walmart cowboy hat.
You have a list of clients you want to work with.
You send emails that don’t sound stupid.
You send your best work.
And then... nothing.
So you wait.
You could follow up.
Maybe not; they’ll think you’re not cool.
On the other hand, down the street:
A restaurant needs pictures of its food… tomorrow!
A boutique needs pictures of its products.
A brand in your area needs ad content.
This week, they’re looking for you.
But you can’t see them.
Because they don’t measure up to the prize you expect.
I had a young photographer from Orange County call me asking for advice on why he couldn’t connect with the agencies in his town. He had a good book and was a solid technician, but he was getting no traction from his phone calls and emails.
I looked at his work, very good fashion work, and started asking him about clients and his approach. I asked about local clothing manufacturers and boutiques. He said he wasn’t interested in them; he only wanted to shoot for the big guys.
“But you’ve never worked for any of the big guys,” I explained, “they have no idea whether they can work with you or not.”
A fantastic portfolio will not be enough to convince a big agency that you can handle budgets, emergencies, failures, weather, time (which always goes by faster when pushing a deadline or sunset), or the widely divergent personalities that make up a fashion shoot for a wholesaler or a retailer.
Fact is, big gigs don’t come along enough to move the needle when you are cash-poor.
Five small jobs are better for you than one big “maybe.”
When you shoot smaller gigs, you get faster.
You get better.
You get proof.
You get recommendations.
And most importantly, you get paid.
Don’t sit on that custom leather chair you are still making payments on, waiting for the one perfect, right client.
Take the client that needs you.
Do a good job.
No, do a helluva job.
A “WTF is this amazing work” kinda job.
Stack wins.
Then stack more.
3. Your portfolio is trying to do too much.
What looks like range from your end looks like confusion on theirs.
Food. Things. People. Travel. Birds. Cars. Macro. Mountaineering. Fashion.
“All of it.”
You may think you’re showing flexibility, but they think you haven’t made up your mind about what you want to do.
Clients aren’t curators of all things.
They make decisions based on data.
And they come to you with one question:
“Are you the person who can help me grow my business?”
If they don’t get an answer quickly, they’re gone faster than your brother-in-law after borrowing $50 and your lawnmower.
A photographer I worked with wanted to have the coolest website ever, so she hired a design firm that built her the coolest website ever.
Ever, ever.
The problem was that no one could figure out how to navigate it. It was so clever, so incredibly cool, that the designers threw out any semblance of usability for an extra helping of ‘awesomeness vibe’.
Y’all know what having a lot of vibe will get you, right?
Nothing. It will get you nothing.
Be clear. Be concise. Show them the work.
Choose a lane. Stay in it. Decisively.
Not for long.
Just long enough to get going.
Keep doing a good job in that lane.
Make it clear.
Make it possible to do again.
Clarity gets a job.
Everything else gets pushed to the side.
Most photographers don’t have a problem with their skills.
They just can’t make up their minds about what they want to do.
They won’t say which way they want to go.
They won’t say clearly what they do.
They won’t always do the work.
They keep busy, but they don’t get paid.
The Easy Reset
Do this for the next 60 days:
Choose one lane, like food, product, etc.
Day 1-30: Make 10 to 20 pictures that fit that lane well.
Make a simple page that only shows that work.
(Adobe portfolios work very well for this.)Day 30-60: Contact five potential clients every week.
(Clients who would be interested in the kind of work you just focused on.)Every week, check in with three of them.
Yeah, do that.
Look, you don’t have to be better than everyone else.
You just need to be the best choice.
THE PRACTICAL COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY SIDE HUSTLE
Two More Tools for the Premium Members.
This tool will help you do what it says it will: Build a Strategy That Works.
Go through the tool and be as descriptive—and honest—as you can. Take your time, and don’t rush.
The tool will give you back:
An Assessment: An overall look at what you are currently doing and how you can make it better.
Pricing Strategy: A look at what may be a problem in your pricing, and how to approach it differently moving forward.
Package Recommendations: Three packages that may give your clients something to understand clearly and get them engaged.
Marketing Recommendations: What you should be considering for marketing your work locally, regionally, and nationally.
Next Steps: Information and reviews are nice, but I always try to build a “Next Steps” into my tools. These are ideas and strategies you can implement right now. Action is better than daydreaming.
Premium Members have access to all of my tools: 14 Currently
Also today, the AI Agency Builder: for those who want to roll their AI skills into their current job with some ideas on how to monetize that knowledge.
If you’re over 40 and still hungry to make, build, and create, stick around. This space is for people who aren’t done yet (and never will be). I’ve got five decades of wins, failures, comebacks, and creative battles under my belt, and I’m sharing everything that still works—and burning the rest.
No fluff.
No hustle porn.
Just real tools for building a creative life on your own damn terms.
