Hey photographer friends! Welcome back to our Photography Blog, Mastering the Wedding Photography Biz with Hunter and Sarah! For many photographers, running a full-time photography business is the dream. But turning your passion into a full-time career certainly isn’t for everyone, and some photographers may be perfectly content to keep their side hustle a side hustle! So in today’s blog/video, we’re discussing the pros and cons of running a photography side hustle vs. full-time photography business.

 

 

Benefits of a Photography Side-Hustle

Let’s start with the benefits of running your photography business as a side-hustle.

1. Lower pressure: For starters, the pressure is lower when running a side-hustle. If you have another job paying your bills, your photography business can grow at any pace. Any money you make is just bonus money you can save, spend, or re-invest at your pleasure! The success or failure of your photography business won’t determine whether or not you can pay your bills or buy groceries.

 

2. Freedom to make mistakes: Speaking of lower pressure, when your photography business is just a side hustle, you have the time and space to take risks and make mistakes. You can figure out your local market, your editing style, and kind of work you love. And you can do all this while the pressure is low, and you don’t depend on the business for your income.

 

3. More room to grow: The third benefit of a side-hustle vs full-time is that running a side-hustle gives you an opportunity to continue developing your photography and business skills. It also gives you the space to only take on jobs that interest you. On the other hand, if you were a full-time business, your options might be more limited to just the jobs that make you the most money for your time, as opposed to ones that interest you or are good for your business in the long run, but don’t pay very well right now.

 

4. More flexibility: Finally, running your photography business as a side-hustle provides more flexibility, allowing you to pursue your passion for photography when and how you want. If your other job has days, weeks, or even months where it’s really busy, you have the freedom to step away from a side-hustle whenever you want.

 

 

Challenges of a Photography Side-Hustle (vs. Full Time)

Next, let’s talk about the challenges that come with running a photography side-hustle, as compared with a full-time photography business.

1. The balancing act: While you may have more flexibility with a side hustle, balancing a part-time photography business with other commitments can be challenging. And if you’re working a standard 9-5 job while growing your photography side hustle, you’ll likely be limited to shooting and working on your business during on nights and weekends (which is when friends and family typically want to be with you).

 

2. Limited income potential: Whether we’re talking about photography or any other business, the income you make from a side-hustle in 10 or 15 hours per week is almost always going to be less than if you were able to devote your time and energy more fully to that same business.

 

3. Slower growth: Along that same vein, with limited time and resources put toward your photography business, it will likely take you longer to grow your client base and portfolio, and to establish your photography brand. So progressing in your local industry will probably be slower with a side-hustle vs full time business.

 

4. Negative perception: The last challenge of running your photography business part-time is about perception. Whether it’s justified or not, some clients may perceive a part-time photographer as less committed or experienced compared to someone running a full-time business. Even if this isn’t based on any real facts, you may find yourself feeling the need to explain yourself or even imply that you’re a full-time photographer. This can exacerbate any imposter syndrome that you may already experience.

 

 

Benefits of a Full-Time Photography Business

Now, let’s shift gears and talk about a full-time photographer business, starting with the benefits!

1. Dedication can lead to growth: As a full-time photographer, you can dedicate all your time and creative energy to building and growing your business. This allows you to focus more not just on shooting and editing, but on marketing, booking new clients, improving your workflows, and delivering a better client experience. And all of those things will lead to faster growth!

 

2. Higher income potential: Second, along with the increased time you commit to a full-time business, you have the opportunity to make more money compared to a side-hustle. As you shoot more and your photography and client experience improves, you can raise your prices more quickly, and it creates this virtuous cycle within your business. This momentum can make a big difference! Even if you’re just doubling your hours, from 20 hours each week to 40 hours each week, you might see your income not just double, but maybe triple or quadruple (or more!) after a year or two full-time.

 

3. Increased credibility: Next, by committing to photography as your sole occupation, you may find it easier to establish yourself as a professional, and build a more solid reputation within your local industry. And again — whether it’s justified or not — clients may perceive you as more reliable, professional, and experienced as a full-time photographer.

 

4. More autonomy: Finally, running your own full-time business gives you greater control over your schedule, allowing you to work with your natural rhythms or the rhythms of your family life, instead of against them. Sarah is not a morning person, so leaving for the office by 8:30 am every day was rough for her. But now that we’re self-employed full-time, most days she sleeps until 9 or 10 am, and gets into our home office closer to 10 or even 11 am. But that’s how she operates best, and she know that she gets more done in 5 hours when she’s well-rested than she would in 8 hours when she’s feeling tired.

 

On the other hand, Hunter definitely is a morning person. He often does some of his most productive work between 8 and 10 am! But then he might take a break in the late morning or in the early afternoon, and go to the gym or grab lunch with a friend. And both of these schedules are only possible because we’re our own bosses.

 

 

Challenges of a Full-Time Photography Business (vs. Side-Hustle)

Finally let’s talk about some of the challenges when it comes to running a full-time photography business, as compared to a side hustle.

1. Higher risks: For starters, running a full-time business just inherently carries a higher risk than running a photography side-hustle. After investing thousands of dollars into camera gear and a new computer, plus hundreds of hours in building your web presence and honing your skills, there’s still never a guarentee of success. Plus, in many parts of the world, your income could be very seasonal. So you might make most of your money for the year in just a few months, and not make all that much the rest of the year. So especially if you’re the sole moneymaker for your family, going full-time without an established business or a really solid plan can carry with it some big risks.

 

2. Increased chance of stress and burnout: Next, while working at any job can obviously be stressful, there’s a special kind of stress experienced by solopreneurs. Sure, there’s no boss to call if you’re feeling sick. But if you “call in sick” to work today, literally nothing gets done. And in the earliest days of your business (before you can afford to outsource anything) you and you alone are in charge of marketing, sales, client communication, bookkeeping, shooting, editing… and everything else! It’s no wonder so many self-employed people struggle with stress and burnout if they don’t know how to manage these things properly.

 

3. Potential to hit a ceiling: The third challenge of running a full-time photography business is that no matter what market you’re shooting in, you’ll eventually find yourself at a point where you feel like your business has stopped growing. In most careers where you work for someone else, if you feel like you’ve hit a ceiling, you can start looking for a job at a different company, and potentially find more runway to continue growing. But when you’re a self-employed business owner, your only option is to get creative and start innovating, or to learn from others who have broken that ceiling. Either way, you and you alone have to do the hard work of restarting your own growth.

 

4. Limited “diversification”: Finally, this last one is a bit more nuanced, but if you work in one industry and then have a photography side-hustle, if something happens that affects one of those industries but not the other, you’re going to be in better shape than if all your eggs were in a single basket. For example, if something crazy happened like — oh I don’t know, a once-in-a-century global pandemic that made gatherings larger than 10 people literally illegal for months and potentially-unsafe for more than a year — and your sole income is wedding photography, that’s going to be much more challenging than if photography is just a side-hustle for you.

 

 

Need Help Going Full-Time?

Now, ultimately, the decision between running a full-time photography business and maintaining a part-time photography side-hustle is one that only you can make. And it’s going to depend a ton on your personal life circumstances, your goals for the future, and your own preferences and skills.

 

But if you do decide that  growing your part-time photography side-hustle to a profitable and sustainable full-time photography business is your goal, then we have a FREE resource that we know could be a big help! Today, we’re introducing a free resource: “5 Essential Steps: Turn Your Side-Hustle into a Full-Time Photography Business”. This 20+ page eBook is filled with years of our best advice on how to make the transition to a full-time photography business, and also references a ton of other resources we have available to help you get there!

 

Not only are we giving this eBook away for free, but everyone who signs up for it is going to be subscribed to our For-Photographers Newsletter. Once or twice a week, we’ll send you a brief piece of encouragement, a link to our newest blog/YouTube content, or just a piece of advice for growing portrait and wedding photographers. If you’d like to get your hands on that free resource or sign up for our for-photographers newsletter, CLICK HERE!