When I was in university I always curious about ways to make money from home till 1 year after my graduation I leave my architecture career and 100% move for being a wedding photographer. Hi fellas my name is Bima and thank you for stumble upon of my blog but before you read this story I want you to know about the reasons why I love for being a home-based wedding photographer.
I was born in 1985, my parents get divorce in 1989 and I don’t have any good childhood experience. The only reasons why I learn so much in the school and put the best hardest effort in my career is to stay close with my mom, the only parent that take care of me since I born and having my first daughter.
Being a single parent is not easy so when I graduate from architecture university in a small town called Yogyakarta in Indonesia, I don’t wanna leave my mom alone and spend her day without me. Till one day I met a Singaporean guy who teach me about ways to make money from home using internet no matter what kind of business that we had….it’s brilliant!
I spend $600 for having 2 days of internet marketing course even at the end I only knew 25% from the whole module, my mentor told me that….
“It doesn’t matter how much do you learn today but the way of you for being consistent of trying to make money online for every single day is really matter!”
Lately he only told me that I must set up my own blog so every human can find my product or services for sure, no matter where I stay and no matter where they stay! By the way I’ve ever hire some designer to make a static website costs $400 but sell NOTHING in a year and I’m so stuck with it by the point of this case is, it doesn’t matter how cool is your website but the most important thing is making a website that gonna belong to your income stream!
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After got nothing from my $400 static website than I try to develop my own blog by using a wordpress which mean I have to keep uploading the blog post, share my photography works and do marketing with my self with an online business system. Blog that I mentioned today is the same blog that you read now, it is BimaAdhitya.com.
Surprisingly this simple $90/year blog gave me and whole family good living and take me into destination wedding photoshoot for overseas couple who take me to several places such as Jakarta, Bali, Maldives, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. Before it started I got the money from bank transfer or paying in cash right in front of me till now I can receive my fee from digital invoice and get everything from Paypal.
For me, it’s like a future life of wedding photographer in 21 century and I love this concept so much!
8 Ways to Make Money from Home That I did as a Photographer in 11 Years
I live from several online-offline business right now and I want to share my 11 years of online photographer journey. Things that I share today is a business that I run consistently as a photographer and other business that related with hospitality. I know that may you guys get tons of money over than me but what I here is about freedom life as a person who choose to live from something that I passioned with.
1 – Selling My Wedding and Portrait Services
I could tell you that this niche is still become my primary income, I promote my expertise to serve a wedding, pre wedding, and portrait collections to everyone. But what I choose is an overseas couple who able to take me to travel around the globe with my lovely wife, Nina, and enjoying our time together after several weeks with the kids at home.
You could see my whole collection of Bali wedding photoshoot till a beautiful pre wedding session in Maldives.
2 – Selling My Photoshop Action Tutorial
My second income stream is selling a photoshop action that I did while having a post production steps following my session. I work in photoshop using my own iMac 21inch and record it as an exclusive tutorials where people also can learn how retouch wedding photo just like me.
3 – Selling My Photos on Shutterstock
As a professional than I must get to work to earn money but I always thinking about another brilliant ways to make money from home even earn dollar while I sleep of taking care my kids. On November 2017 I know Shutterstock at the first time and start to sell my photos in it.
Here in Shutterstock I sell EVERY photos that I have, it could be wedding or even my other travel stock photography but I keep uploading and selling my photo on Shutterstock everyday.
Sometimes I earn $0.25 and some other time I earn $8.80 for every single download. It seems to be small and cheap because I charge my couple to pay an additional photographs that I did for $25. Few weeks ago I saw that there is an asian guy from Thailand who able to sell their photo up to $1,500/download and it is brilliant and when I ask him than he just told me for being consistent, again and again this word is coming to my self.
What I believe is SOMEDAY this effort will gonna be SOMETHING!
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4 – Get a Commission by Writing a Hotel Review That I Used during Photoshoot
Become a destination wedding photographer make me travel a lot and during that day I always stay in several hotels, so what I do is writing my honest opinion about its hotel in this blog and get a commission when somebody book the hotel using my affiliate links.
In this part I use Agoda to get a link of booking cooperation, all you need to do is sign up as an affiliate and when you write a review than you could use your personal links on it.
5 – Write a Travel eBook Related to Some Places That I Visit for Photoshoot
I love writing so much and that’s why I still blogging for over than 9 years, to make a compilation from what I wrote in this blog I always make a travel ebook or photo report related to some places that I visit during the photoshoot. At this time already published 20++ ebook on Google Book Store mostly in Bahasa Indonesia at this time but I try to write an ebook too in English.
When you sell your ebook on Google Book Store than you gonna get 52% commission that paid monthly and the other 48% is belong to Google. When you see the screen shot below, Bima Adhitya is my real name for photography or business book and Bomanta is belong to my nick name for travel book.
6 – Photography Seminars
I love to share from what I got during 11 years in wedding photography and working on business that used to be my hobby. For me, the best job ever is when you get paid from your hobby and that is how I live. Till now I commonly invited as a photography speaker in Indonesia for the most and I ever had invited to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia also for the international seminars.
7 – Re-invest My Photographer Fee by Making Airbnb Property Business
By staying in such nice hotel in this planet make me dreaming for owning a hospitality business someday than in 2013 I start this dream with real action by open my room for airbnb till now in 2019 I already develop 3 different houses on this platform.
Meet every guest from the entire planet is the best gift ever that I had in my life even surely I earn money by renting my room or selling local attraction to all my guest. After 6 years with 3 houses finally I got 3 times award as an Airbnb Superhost which mean I got 5 star review from every 100 guest that coming to my house….that might not so bad, right!
8 – Renting My Used BMW for Wedding Car
I love BMW so bad and it bring me to buy the used 3 series BMW 2003 car in 2012 for running my wedding car rental. For 6 hours driving I charge my client as simple as $80 including fuel, driver, and car decoration for wedding purposes, it could be tulle fabric, flower, and etc.
Thanks again to my beautiful wife, Nina who always help me taking care this car decoration, she is everything for me and kids!
11 Years of Being Wedding Photographer
I could say that God gave me so much love during this 11 years in wedding photography industry, I know that not so many people able to live in a business for long time so I want to share a little bit information and expertise that I had for all my readers.
During this time I also thank you to all my photography gears that help me to capturing wedding moment as well, and just in case you wanna see some of my gear liststhan you could see the lists below:
- Nikon D810
- Nikon D7100 – read my review here!
- 14-24 mm f2.8 Nano lens
- 70-200 mm f2.8 lens
- Canon EOS M
I really hope you got an inspiration about some simple ways to make money from home as a photographer. Just be creative and keep working, creating valuable products and stay strong. Last I’m gonna say thank you again for stumble upon my blog!