Is there any money in photo journalism?

[Justin16]

I heard unless you take photos of celebrities, you'll never make a living?

[Techno Monster]

It depends on how successful the non-celeb photos are. There are photographs out there that have changed the world. A good photographer can make a decent living.

[Justin16]

Yeah but these days with photoshop, there ain't much trust in the photography world when you can edit images so easily.

[Techno Monster]

hmmmm, good point, but editing images through photoshop etc. is called Grafic Desgin, which is also a decent paying carrer. Though true photography is easy to identify.

[Zazu]

It's not just shots of celebrities which count as photographic journalism, quite a lot of journalistic images are of world conflicts / poverty / world events. A journalistic picture is any kind of picture which documents a big event and is used on some kind of news website / newspaper.

You can make a lot of money from it, sometimes earning 40,000 - 80,000 pounds for one single photo. But, there is a lot of competition. Think of how many paparazzi you see at film premiers / celeb haunts; bloody loads. So you have to try and get that perfect shot, and fight all the competition. You also need to belong to some kind of paparazzi agency / ave good connections to have the chance of getting a decent sum of money for your pictures.

Lastly, you need dedication to do this, if you want to make big money. Working for a local newspaper is great, but you wont become rich from it. If you want to be earning tens of thousands of pounds / dollars for photographs, it might take you 10 years just getting the experience then another 10 years to get that one special shot.

So as long as you have the money and the time, go for it, it can be quite rewarding :)