Business Of Photography Workshop

05/02/2026

It was a great day at San Francisco State University on Friday where, for the fourth time, I presented a condensed version of the workshop. Professors Kim Komenich (SFSU) and Scot Tucker (Laney College) and NPPA student chapter made the day a huge success.

Over 40 students and working pros from the Bay area, including students from SFSU, City College of SF, Foothill College, (Los Altos) and Laney College (Oakland), spent 7 hours learning about workflows that go beyond processing a shoot for a client, setting up & partitioning a website to serve as a portfolio, functional SEO driven archive for licensing & client development, and as a distribution portal along with deep dives into real photo contracts, copyright registration process and more.

Shout outs to ThinkTank Photo and Hope Cruz for raffling several great bags ($200+ retail), to Cradoc Software for raffling off copies of their indispensable software ($150+ retail) and to Routledge Books, my publisher, for providing discounts to attendees.

The energy and interest made the long day well worth it. Thanks especially to the several photographers (you know who you are!) who attended for the third time.

04/19/2026

In yet another dim witted move by the US Copyright Office, they plan to increase online registration fees to $85.

Please voice your opposition as it's clear this will further reduce registrations that protect freelancers' work.

Click on the link. Comment period ends at the end of the month.

04/07/2026

Just announced: May 1 at San Francisco State University's photojournalism program. An immersive (to say the least!) day on how to handle your business like a professional freelancer. This is the 4th time SFSU has secured funds and brought me in to work with students, alumni and area professionals. All my respect to Prof Kim Komenich for his continuing dedication to his students who he knows need this in order to survive.

04/06/2026

AP laying off people and making it clear that still photography is not the direction they're interested in going, whereas AI and video is. 120 staffers have received layoff notifications, according the News Guild.

"The news organization is becoming more focused on visual journalism and developing new revenue sources, particularly through companies investing in artificial intelligence."

"The company has doubled the number of video journalists it employs in the United States since 2022."

The Associated Press says it will offer buyouts to an unspecified number of its U.S.-based journalists as part of an acceleration away from the focus on newspaper journalism that sustained the company for more than 1½ centuries.

04/01/2026

My advice to freelancers, which you can take it or leave it but I know it works, is to out hustle, out grind and out work others. Never get lazy. The harder you work and the more experience you get shooting images of all kinds (news, sports, portraits, projects, etc) will set you apart and help you generate revenue.

I've freelanced for 35 years and made a living at it. There is a direct correlation between laziness and lack of income. Not to say that there aren't other factors, but if you're not willing to go 100% all the time, reconsider your profession or understand that a livable income will be hard to come by.

I've seen it time and again in photography and other arts I partake in that there are those who never take their foot of the gas and those who find excuses to cruise, to spend more time posting or teaching about their craft than actually working nonstop to get better.

You gotta grind. You gotta put in the time ALL the time, not just periodically when you feel "good," if you want to rise above the rest.

03/30/2026

A handful of my travel images that have been licensed multiple times in the past month. I point it out for the obvious reason that there are "seasons" for licensing certain types of images and travel season kicks off with a bang in early spring as travel publications look to ramp up their guides, articles etc.

I love photographing daily life and often wander aimlessly through town squares etc, but also keep an eye out for timely topics like over tourism.

Disclaimer! These are not large licensing fees but the volume can help create a bit of passive revenue to offset business expenses. Every bit counts.

©Todd Bigelow/Contact Press Images

03/29/2026

Spent a couple hours over coffee with a 29 yr old freelancer. Normally, I do paid consultations for these meetings, but let me tell you why I didn't.

This young man tried to make it to a workshop last year but couldn't because it was out of town. He messaged me via LinkedIn to say he'd try again next time. Then, two weeks ago while checking out at REI (sale! lol), he was the cashier and recognized my name. We briefly chatted and I told him I wanted to meet up for coffee.

His story is what universities fail miserably to address as they prepare students for the "real world." He's a very good aspiring photojournalist and an absolute grinder, the kind of person I'd hire if I was in that role. He gets after stories and has a nice style. He is making headway but it's hard to make ends meet. He lives on a houseboat, eats mostly ramen & chicken and recently broke his foot. He has no medical insurance so he's "self healing" with a cane and works at REI to help cover monthly expenses. He's applied for staff jobs but doesn't get serious consideration, he believes, because he doesn't have enough published work.

He wants to take the next step but doesn't really know how. We talked and talked and I shared a ton of advice on contacting wires, publications and attending EAW, Northern Short Course and Atlanta Photojournalism Conference to meet editors. I advised on his portfolio and on what to expect from contracts as a freelancer (he hates the idea of Work For Hire but is pragmatic on needing to get work and pro experience.)

We need to help the next generation of photographers. They're good but face a tough road as inflation has driven the value of their assignment fees down while publications with staff are going the way of typewriters.

03/24/2026

Freelancers doing editorial work primarily have fewer chances to set their own assignment fee, so I suggest you do as I did years ago and begin to diversify your clients so you can set your fees with them. It's far more common to dictate the fee when working for non profits and corporations, commercial and event coverage than it is to get work from editorial publications.

Once you're feeling a bit better about having a well rounded set of clients, I recommend pushing back against your editorial clients (nicely, professionally) if their fees have not *at the very least* kept pace with inflation (we're not even talking about a "raise" yet). Otherwise, you're going backwards because there has been a massive loss of value in the dollar due to inflation and other factors over the past 20 years and especially the past 5.

Go to NBC News for a deep dive they have today called "Who Can Afford To Get Ahead in America?" https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/unaffordable-america-economy-inflation-us-jobs-prices-bills-stocks/

03/18/2026

So many photographers have written off licensing as a means to produce income. It's a big mistake.

With a strong workflow and fundamental understanding of what makes images licensable, photographers can recoup some of the cost of running their business. One main factor that is overlooked by most is that your images need to be archived properly. That means going way beyond metadata application to include archival management. This requires making good decisions on partitioning your images on your own archive (as well as choosing which images to send to other archives) based mostly upon uniqueness. Then, your images need to be priced in a manner consistent with their uniqueness and you need to choose the licensing models used in relation to the types of images.

Example 1: Hard to produce and/or hard to find images must be priced higher and offered only as RM. This is consistent with Econ 101 which says that lower supply = higher prices and vice versa. You don't need volume licenses on these images because the fee is much higher.

Example 2: Easier to produce and/or easy to find images must be priced lower and potentially offered as RF. This again is consistent with normal business practices where items that are easily found in many places will be priced lower and hopefully will create revenue via volume.

Consultations and workshops 👇

Founded in 2013 by Todd Bigelow, the course has been hosted by universities & professional organizations nationwide.