I know the title of this article sounds like a band, named post-1979 and pre-1982, but stay with me on this one. As a photographer, I have always seen my role as making and supplying photographs. This is the way in which I have always made money. A client contacts me, tells me the fee and the budget (if there is one!), asks me if I am free on a particular date and I say yes or no. That’s it, transaction over.

I can agree to the commission if I’m happy with the expectation and the fee, or reject it, based on, either or both of these elements. Depending on my relationship with the client, I can enquire whether there is any more ‘meat on the bone’, but I rarely suggest a fee. I will ask what the overall budget is, if the client is an inexperienced commissioner, but I try and avoid those clients. As my experience is that they are usually to be avoided.

However, times change and today there are a number of ‘add-ons’ that a photographer can consider. Wedding photographers are the masters of this and have been making their money from ‘extras’ for decades. Albums, prints, framed prints and various memorabilia are all useful to the wedding photographer looking to add to their day rate. To me, this can be a game of smoke and mirrors as they offer ‘packages’ to the prospective bride and groom, in which the extras are itemised by name, but not by cost including ‘mark-ups’. Such a lack of transparency, does not sit well with me personally, but I understand that wedding photographers see this as being part of their way of working.

In my experience, photographers working in different areas, outside of weddings, are not as good at offering ‘add-ons’. However, those that have embraced YouTube and set up their own channels, seem to have understood the revenue possibilities of ‘merch’. T-shirts, hoodies, coffee mugs, stickers, and water bottles are all being offered as branded proof of these photographers business intelligence. The idea of building community and revenue through a logo enriched piece of kit is clever and demonstrates a willingness to expand their passion for photography into broadcast brands. This combined with channel sponsers and ‘in-content’ advertising, alongside YouTube revenue ensures that they never have to worry about making money from their photography. This is why there are so few professional photographer channels explaining how the industry works. Most of the presenters do not know. One exception to this is Harry Borden with his channel Fred and Harry (www.youtube.com/@fredandharryborden). Harry doesn’t sell ‘merch’ from his channel, at least not yet, (I can imagine that a branded beanie hat, for bald and more hirsute photographers, could be a big seller!), but he does sell prints that directly connect to the main subject of some of his episodes.

The selling of prints as an ‘add-on’ is perhaps the most common form of additional revenue that a photographer considers. Most obviously when it comes to selling self-published photo books. The idea of offering a print as an inticement to invest, through a Kick Starter campaign is now well established, as is a special edition book at a higher price due, to the print it comes with. As a photographer the idea of using photography as an ‘add-on’ is obvious, literal and linear, but is it trying hard enough?

The idea of the photographer as marketeer, has always left an unpleasant taste in the mouth of many, who see themselves as serious creators of ‘art’ within the medium. However, let’s take a moment to look outside of photography, to see how others are exploring the possibilities of marketing their practice. Andy Warhol is perhaps the godfather of this approach, but let’s look at some contemporary practitioners. David Shrigley immediately comes to mind https://shrigshop.com, as does Grayson Perry www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/grayson-perry-ra and Dame Tracy Emin www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/tracey-emin-ra. All three of these internationally recognised artists produce ‘merch’. Their products may be available through museum and gallery gift shops, but it is still ‘merch’ in the form of tea-towels, badges, mugs and plates. However, it doesn’t demean them as serious artists it seems.

My suggestion is that if this is okay with them, why can’t it be okay for you? The Japanese clothing brand is currently selling t-shirts with images on them by Elliott Erwitt and Saul Leiter, alongside Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur. These are part of an initiative to promote peace, but I’m sure you get my point here. They are also selling Martin Parr T-Shirts connected with his exhibition at the Musee Louvre in Paris. Parr could be seen as a leader amongst photographers in seeing the possibilities of ‘merch’. He had no issue with putting his photography on lager cans, stickers, tote bags, badges, jigsaw puzzles and sticks of sweet, seaside-rock https://martinparrfoundation.org. Does this devalue his photography, is it selling out or preventing him from being taken seriously by the photographic establishment? His success would suggest not.

Therefore, my suggestion is to experiment with ‘merch’ and ‘add-ons’. To have fun, as Martin did, with how and where your photography could be seen. I am not suggesting that you turn yourself into a brand, defined by a logo. Leave that to the YouTubers. However, there is nothing wrong with marketing yourself and your photography using innovative forms of communication and product.

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8 magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020) and Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, (Orphans Publishing 2024). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

© Grant Scott 2026