Dear friend,
If you’re interested in photography entrepreneurship and want to learn how to monetize your passion– ask yourself, “How can I create value?”
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PDF: How to Create Value as a Photography Entrepreneur
What is “Value”?
To me, I would define “value” as your ability to add happiness, add joy, add pleasure, or decrease pain or decrease inconvenience from the life of someone else.
Why is “Value” important?
If you’re an entrepreneur and trying to make money, this is my simple formula:
Create a product or offer a service that adds value to the life of your customer/consumer/student.
And once again, “value” is your ability to add happiness or decrease pain/suffering from the life of someone else.
Ultimately, I think we all want to be “happy” or we want to improve our lives. Thus in today’s capitalist society, we can charge money for our goods/services to improve the life of others. The more we can improve the life of others, the more “value” we have, and the more effective our ability to improve the life of others, the more “value” we will create.
How to Create Value
First of all, put yourself in the shoes of your customer/consumer. Or psycho-analyze yourself.
For example, ERIC KIM values in his life:
- Freedom
- Flexibility
- Ability to make art, share ideas, that empower others
- Feeling self-confident
- Feeling like his work has meaning
Offer Solutions to Yourself
So if we think from a business perspective, what kind of services/products can you offer ERIC to help him achieve/get what he values in life?
- Freedom: Books or ideas that allow him to have more freedom in his life (philosophy books)
- Flexibility: Services, tools, that can help him live with less hassle– for example, AirBnb for more flexibility on living and housing, or Uber for more flexibility for transportation instead of owning his own car.
- Ability to make art, share ideas, that empower others: Digital tools that help him do this (IA Writer for writing, MacBook laptop for content creation, digital camera for making photos, Garageband for making music, iMovie/Camtasia for video creation)
- Feeling self-confident: Hip hop music, or any music that gets him in the zone, or gym membership so he can do (heavy) deadlifts.
- Feeling like his work has meaning: Owning his own platform to share his ideas and work (1and1.com / wordpress.org / Genesis theme for wordpress).
So essentially, put yourself in the shoes of your customer/consumer, and figure out how you can offer SOLUTIONS to their “problems” or to make their lives better/more pleasant/less stressful.
How to Make Money
The simple formula for making money as an entrepreneur is:
Offer solutions to the lives of others, and charge money for it.
Once again, a solution can be something positive (empowering someone) and it can also REMOVE stress/anxiety/frustration from the life of someone else.
You must offer a solution that is so valuable, so unique, and so useful to someone else, that they are willing to part with some of their hard-earned money (which is a manifestation of their labor, or hourly wage).
Before you offer a solution to the lives of others, ask yourself:
What things do I purchase in my everyday life which improves my life? Which services improve my life? How can I offer similar solutions to the lives of others?
Then it is your job to describe why you’re the best person to offer this solution to your customer, and you must emphasize the VALUE/BENEFITS you will give to them. Because once again, your job is to deliver happiness to your customer/consumer, and to IMPROVE their lives.
Photography Entrepreneurship Ideas
Some ideas as a photography entrepreneur in terms of products/services:
- Inspiration/motivation/education to empower photographers to make more meaningful photos of their everyday life (through blog posts, ebooks, videos, etc).
- Making photos that inspire your viewer: Thinking of yourself as an art photographer/visual artist, and your photos help elevate the mood of your viewer.
- Making photos that improve the self-esteem of your client: If you make a portrait of someone and make them feel more self-confident and beautiful, you are creating value.
- Creating photography products which make the lives of other photographers easier/better (like what I do with camera straps and tools with HAPTIC INDUSTRIES).
- Photography feedback: Giving feedback, and constructive critique to other photographers who want to improve their photography.
In another essay, we will tackle the importance of building a mindset for entrepreneurship, for risk-taking, for value-creation, and for being bold, a little foolish, and to move fast, break things, and to help improve the lives of others.
BE BOLD,
ERIC
Photography Entrepreneurship 101
Entreprenership Motivation
- Why Become a Photography Entrepreneur?
- Why You Must Ignore Nay-Sayers to Succeed in Entrepreneurship, Business, and Life
The Modern Photographer: Tips, Strategies, and Tactics to Thrive as a Visual Artist in the Digital Age
Marketing, Branding, Entrepreneurship Principles For Success
MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER is your new philosophical and practical primer to succeed as a modern photographer in today’s digital world.
Entrepreneurship Theory
How to Monetize Your Photography
- Photography Entrepreneurship 101: INFLUENCE
- Should I Monetize My Passion for Photography?
- 10 Practical Photography Monetization Strategies: Pricing, Google SEO, & Entrepreneurship
- How to Make Money From Street Photography
Why Become a Photography Entrepeneur?

Take control of your own photographic destiny:
THE MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER
- CREATIVE CAPITALISM
- How to Monetize Your Photography
- 5 Practical Photography Career Tips and Advice
- 10x Thinking
- How to Hustle as a Photographer
- How to Become Your Own Master Marketer
- The ‘T’ Technique of Success
- Go Ahead and Sell Out
- What is Your Unique Voice?
- Why You Must Self-Promote Yourself
- What is Your Unique Angle as a Photographer?
- Photography Content Marketing 101
- Why You Must Become Your Own Publisher
- The Art of Cross-Pollination in Photography
Photography Entrepreneurship Articles
- Why You Shouldn’t Trust Your Pictures to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Flickr
- How to Make Money From Your Photography
- Photography SEO and Blogging: How to Become Number One on Google
- Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation
- Now is the Best Time to Be a Photographer
- PRODUCERISM
- What Is The Value of a Picture?
- Your Photographic Labor is Not Free
PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS 101
- Chapter 1. How to Make a Photography Blog
- Chapter 2. How to Price Yourself
- Chapter 3. How to Find Your Market
- Chapter 4. Why Teach Workshops?
- Chapter 5. How to Build Trust
- Chapter 6. How to Market Yourself
- Chapter 7: Why Should Someone Attend Your Workshop?
KEYS TO SUCCESS
- Why You Must Be a “Personality” in Order to Succeed
- THRIVE OR DIE.
- Impatience is a Virtue
- Create Your Own Category
- HOW TO DREAM BIG.
- Will Not or Cannot?
- Why Not?
- How to Think BIG
- How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
- How to Invest in Yourself
- The Two Camera Rule
- MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION
- Advice For College Students
- How to Thrive in Uncertain Times
- CANNIBALIZE YOURSELF.
- DO AND GROW RICH
- Does Fear of Punishment Hold You Back?
- HOW TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS
- How to Innovate
- How to Build Your Own Empire
- YOU ARE ENTITLED TO HARD WORK.
- PICK YOURSELF.
- OWN YOUR PLATFORM
- 10 KEYS TO SUCCESS
Table of Contents
Learn how to make a living from your passion:
- Preface. BRAVE NEW WORLD OF PHOTOGRAPHY
- Chapter 1. How to Create Value
- Chapter 2. ZEN CAPITALISM
- Chapter 3. Scarcity
- Chapter 4. How to Brand Yourself
- Chapter 5. How to Build a True Following
- Chapter 6. The Blueprint to Success in Photography
- Chapter 7. HOW TO BE BOLD
- Chapter 8. How to Sell Out
- Chapter 9. GO AGAINST THE GRAIN
- Chapter 10. EXTREME ABUNDANCE
- Chapter 11. Photography Experience Economy
- Chapter 12. Why You Should Make Money for Your Photography
- Chapter 13. How to Become a Famous Photographer
Photography Business 101
How to Make Money with Photography

- How to Charge More Money in Your Photography
- Why You Should Not Pursue Photography as Career
- Can Photography Make You Rich?
- How I Earn $200,000+ a Year From Photography
- How to earn $10,000 a month as a photographer
- Why you must be an expensive photographer
Photography Marketing 101
- Why Have More Followers?
- Why You Should Do Photography Work For Free
- How I Became an Internet Famous Photographer
- Photography Blogging Ideas
- Why You Should Promote Your Own Name
- How to Build a Following
- How to Stand Out as a Photographer.
- HOW TO GO VIRAL AS A PHOTOGRAPHER.
- How to Master Marketing
- How to Sell Yourself

How to Hustle.
- Entrepreneurial Advice to My 18 Year Old Self
- How to Become Insanely Productive.
- 5 Lessons From Hesiod on Hustling
Entrepreneurial Principles
- It is Better to Beg For Forgiveness Than Ask For Permission
- The Free Way to Become Rich
- JUST DO IT.
- 7 Steps: How to Make a Living From Your Passion
- How to Do What You Love for a Living
- How to Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
- How to Fail Big
- How to Invest in Yourself
- How to Be Bold in Photography and Life
- Mission: Cover Your Rent and Food
- 1,000 True Fans
- The “10x Principle”: The Only Difference Between “Success” and “Failure”
- Make More Value Not Money
- We Live in a Photo Utopia
How to be a Full-time Photographer
- How to Make a Living From Photography
- The 3 Principles of Making Money With Photography
- Advice for Aspiring Full-Time Photographers
- Don’t Go Into Debt For Your Photography
- How to Brand Yourself as a Photographer
- Trust: The Most Important Thing You Need to Succeed as a Photographer
Photography Blogging
- How to become rich from photography blogging
- How to Make a Living with Blogging
- 50 Blogging Tips For Beginners
- How to Start Your Own Photography Blog
- A Photographer’s Guide to SEO, Blogging, and Social Media
How to Teach Photography
- How to Become a Photography Teacher
- How to Teach a Street Photography Class
- Why I Teach Street Photography Workshops
Social Media
- Why I Deleted My Instagram
- The Social Media Blackbook for Photographers
- Why Do You Need More Likes or Followers?
- Instagram is Going to Be the Next Facebook
- Don’t Trust “Free” Photography Social Networks