Everyday Struggle: Money 4 Photos?
“I don’t wanna live no more, sometimes I hear death knocking at my front door. I’m living everyday like a hustle, another drug to juggle; another day, another struggle” - Biggie Smalls
I can’t say I can totally relate to the great Notorious B.I.G. and his tales of drug deals gone wrong, betrayals, murders, and suicides. Of course, my life wasn’t like Biggie’s… but when he raps about the grind of everyday struggles, I get it. In the very next verse, the weight of the streets gives way to something smaller, more ordinary—the bleary-eyed misery of waking up to another day. That I can picture: him in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn—just like me, hammering the snooze button a couple of hundred times.
Back in the ’90s, those snooze buttons were real, clunky bits of plastic on alarm clocks, not make-believe icons on a phone’s greasy glass screen. Imagine that! It’s in moments like these—making coffee, or shivering in the dead of winter, hoping the towel rail heats up before you step into the bathroom (which might as well be an industrial freezer when it’s zero outside)—that you start to wonder: is there another way?
Living for the Weekend
We’re heading to the office, the building site, the classroom, the call centre. Sleepwalking through another day, living for the weekend, while the camera sits at home—battery full, SD card empty. But does it have to be this way? Skills pay the bills. And what skills do you have? Photography? Maybe.
I’ve been noticing for a while now that hobbies are being taken more seriously—or at least, in a different way. Everyone seems to have a so-called side hustle. Got a guitar and know three chords? Better get on YouTube—and don’t forget a Patreon, since YouTube doesn’t pay like it used to. Enjoy baking brownies for the family? Time to sell them at the Makers Market. Writing a blog? Shouldn’t you be aiming for the New York Times bestseller list? Got a camera? Now we’re talking.
I’ve been on Instagram for about seven years, and the ability to reach thousands of people with your photography is very much a 21st-century reality. Sure, the glory days are long gone—the era of 500 likes on almost every post? Forget it. These days I’m lucky to scrape 50. Still, for those of us willing to grind it out, the platform does offer a potential audience to share our work with. Our art. Or is it just a hobby? Honestly, I can’t tell anymore.
Power Chords and Daydreams
My first taste of a hobby that felt like it could lead to something artistic as a career came when I picked up the guitar at 13. I’d spend hours perfecting every song I learned, practising scales diligently, note after note—just for the fun of it. Playing along to a Nirvana album, hitting the same chords at the same time, felt like living vicariously through the band. It was a distraction from whatever else was going on, or simply a way to fill the boredom of teenage life. After a year or two, I had a band—or I’d drift from jam to jam with whichever fellow musician happened to be around.
There was always the illusion that maybe it could go further—but that was usually shattered by our parents or teachers. Perhaps quite rightly. After decades of grinding away in full-time jobs, they’d seen plenty of would-be musicians fall by the wayside. Buskers scraping by on coppers, the odd bit of silver, maybe even a fiver on a good day tossed into an open guitar case. Back then—and probably now too—musicians were often seen as dropouts, people with nothing better to do, or dreamers willing to gamble their whole future on winning the musical lottery and making it big. The same illusions carry over to photography today: the idea that a few good shots and an Instagram account might turn into something bigger.
Lennon Was Right
I played guitar with a lot of talented people over the years, and although I’m not still in touch with most of them, I’ve also noticed they haven’t exactly turned up on Spotify—or, to be more era-appropriate, in my YouTube feed. But is that the worst thing in the world? I don’t think so. We all have dreams, and somewhere along the way, life gets in the way. Or as John Lennon put it, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
We were just playing guitar, bass, or drums for fun, and most of us were fairly realistic about where it might take us. But at the same time, I remember my first sense of having a skill that carried a kind of mainstream acceptance—that maybe, just maybe, you could turn it into a profession. Whether that meant banging out number-one hits, playing session guitar for “real bands,” or teaching kids their first chords, it felt like something other than the office grind—or god knows what else—in theory, was a possibility. It was a formative experience, for good or ill: learning how dreams can die as we become more pragmatic with age, and how good—or how hard—you have to work in any creative endeavour to actually put bread on the table.
Apart from that, everything else we called a hobby was just something to fill the downtime—whether it was playing music, being a decent dancer, or knocking out a cracking batch of brownies. None of us became guitar influencers, toured with bloody Riverdance, or ended up on TV like Nigella. They were just pastimes. Literally ways to pass the time. You could still take pride in them, of course—but always without expectation.
The Democratization of the Arts
I think over the past ten years or so, platforms like Instagram and YouTube have helped democratise the arts—and that’s no bad thing. But on the flip side, it’s still not an easy life to pursue your passion. If one person can “make it” through Instagram, then in theory anyone can—so the competition is fierce. And in the end, working an honest day in any career, whether you’re a bin man or a photographer, is still a grind.
After a couple of years of flirting with the Instagram algorithm and treating photography like a job, I realised it had sucked the fun out of the hobby. I already have a job—as a Software Developer. People often ask if I enjoy it, and I sometimes find that a strange question. The idea that anyone could enjoy their job still feels fairly new to me; I don’t remember it being something people asked 10 or 20 years ago.
That said, plenty of people do software development in their spare time and dream of escaping their current job to do it professionally. The best way I can explain it is: yes, I do enjoy it—on some days. But it’s a bit like being a professional guitarist, only you’re required to play Oasis songs. Every single day.
Shooting to Order
That’s the reality of turning a passion into a career—or even a side hustle: you’re always dancing to someone else’s tune. Maybe it’s a client whose wedding you’re shooting, or The Guardian commissioning you to cover a protest in London. Plenty of professional photographers will tell you they spend more time on marketing and networking than they ever do with a camera in their hands.
There are success stories—take Kevin Mullins, for example. After reading a magazine about wedding photography in a dentist’s waiting room, he decided to jack in his high-paying city job and take it up, barely knowing how to operate a camera. By working his ass off, he built a hugely successful career, became a Fuji ambassador, and cleverly used his IT background to market himself online. He’s now semi retired, enjoying life, still on his own terms. But his story is the exception, not the rule. And crucially, it was before the advent of mirrorless cameras, back when cameras didn’t hold your hand quite so much. For every Kevin Mullins, there are countless other, far less exciting stories.
Hobby or Hustle?
I think the only real way to know is to try it on for size and see if it’s for you. It could turn out to be the best move you ever make. But if you already have a comfortable life—or recognise that your skill level might keep real success just out of reach—there’s nothing wrong with simply enjoying a hobby. If you did become a professional photographer, you’d only have to find another hobby to replace it anyway.
Hobbies are about fun, escapism, experimentation, and not being afraid to fail. Sometimes those things slip away once it becomes your profession. Maybe the best way to keep the joy alive is not to monetise it at all, but to let it stay what it always was: yours.
Some recent photos:
